Documents / Report
The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published by Headquarters United States Air Force in 1995. The Black Vault distributes this copy. It reproduces the report by Col. Richard L. Weaver and the synopsis by 1st Lt. James McAndrew, both written after a General Accounting Office inquiry requested by Representative Steven Schiff. The Air Force search found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concluded that the Roswell debris most likely came from NYU Flight No. 4, a Project MOGUL balloon train.
“The Advance”9 pages
When the total quantity of gas needed has been computed, the lift requirement may be expressed in terms of the pressure of a number of cylinders of gas. It is not possible to assume that each tank of gas will give the same amount of lift, nor is it possible to use a gage which has not been experimentally calibrated to relate lift to pressure. For calibration of a gage it is sufficient to valve gas from an observed equilibrium temperature and pressure in a cylinder into a rubber balloon and then measure the total lifting capacity of the gas from the tank. Check points should be made with tanks under varying amounts of pressure. Figure 19 shows a sample gage calibration worked up for varying temperatures assuming the simple gas law
$$
\mathrm {L i f t} _ {2} = \frac {\mathrm {P} _ {2}}{\mathrm {P} _ {1}} \times \frac {\mathrm {T} _ {1}}{\mathrm {T} _ {2}} ^ {\mathrm {L i f t} _ {1}}
$$
This law applies to within 11%. Note: Do not use Graph 6 without checking calibration of gage to be used. Ordinarily a whole number of full tanks of gas will not exactly supply the desired lift, which should be figured with not more than one-tenth full tank tolerance in excess (permit no under inflation). It is thus necessary to prepare partially full tanks and by combining full and partially full cylinders get the required total. It is necessary to allow the cylinders to attain equilibrium temperature after valving them before taking final pressure readings.
## B. Length of Balloon Bubble
The volume of gas required for a given balloon may be expressed as the length of an uninflated bubble at the crown of the balloon. Graph 2 of Appendix II gives the relationship between bubble length and resultant inflated volume, using gross lift as an expression of volume. It will be noted that when the elevation of the launching site is markedly different from sea level, a shift in this curve is needed to accommodate varying densities of the atmosphere. The inflation of this bubble, which is pinched off by launching equipment or shot bags, will serve as a good check of the final amount of gas in the balloon, thus warning if the balloon is underinflated.
## C. Expected Altitude
To predict the altitude to which a balloon will rise it is necessary to know the volume of the balloon, the total Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 882 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.