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The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

USAF / The Black Vault · 1995 · 882 pages · text by OCR

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.

  • p. 193 …overhead and followed the balloons out to sea. I have no idea about the results that…
  • p. 200 …the regular 334 that we had at sea level. From that they could deduce the temperature…
  • p. 243 …actually located on the jurisdictional lines between Sea Girt and Springlake, New Jersey. It was an…
  • p. 244 …The Sea Girt Inn? A: Exactly. That's where John had his office, and I was…
  • p. 320 …alone is about 24,000 miles at sea level, and about 4500 miles at 45,000…
  • p. 325 …twenty-five (25) feet at their largest sea-level diameter. The sonic unit was a combination…
  • p. 378 …per hour when one-fifth inflated at sea level). One other type of balloon which has…
  • p. 402 …Let us, then, compare the rate of leakage at any given altitude with leakage at sea…
  • p. 404 …The leakage at any altitude may be expressed as a function of leakage at sea level…
  • p. 405 Comparing rate of leakage at 40,000 feet with leakage at sea level: $$ \frac {L _ {4…
  • p. 407 …If a 20-foot diameter balloon $ \frac{1}{1 0} $ full were tested at sea level…
  • p. 408 …At sea level this is equivalent to 5.32 gm/hr. for a 20-foot diameter…
  • p. 414 …Using the rules of subsonic aerodynamics, Picard suggests that air at sea level escaping at 1333…
  • p. 415 …air at sea level (lb./ft. $ ^{3} $ ) 14.7 = pressure of air at sea level (psi…
  • p. 432 …to about 20 millibars and increased to sea-level pressure at different temperatures. The most comprehensive…
  • p. 563 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
  • p. 644 …point at which the radiosonde reaches the sea surface. ## 2. Earlier attempts There have been numerous…
  • p. 645 …The balloons floated between the surface and 30,000 ft above sea level; those which reached…
  • p. 704 …Met Gifford who has 90' sea rescue boat this project is planning to use. Stayed at…
  • p. 719 …Worzel working on gravity at sea. Saw Geo Woollard and the Ryders. Woollard after Guggenheim fellowship…
  • p. 779 …the launching site is markedly different from sea level, a shift in this curve is needed…
  • p. 817 …balloon at all times with respect to sea level. On this curve also it is customary…
  • p. 825 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
## D. Ballast Requirements

For a 20-foot General Mills balloon, a flow of ballast of at least 200 grams per hour is needed to keep the balloon aloft. Flow of the compass fluid used varies (through a sharp-edged orifice) with the head, or vertical distance between the free surface of the liquid and the orifice. It is not affected by the temperature or pressure, so long as the reservoir is properly vented.

Flow also varies with the size and shape of the orifice. Using round spinnerette orifices, the flow of various heads has been computed and is shown in Table 3, Appendix II. From a knowledge of the minimum head to be expected (depending on the construction of the ballast reservoir and its connection to the orifice), the desired rate of flow can be obtained by proper selection of orifice size. While 200 grams per hour has been used successfully for the usual floating altitudes of the General Mills 20-foot cells, this figure should be considered as an absolute minimum. A short period check of the flow rate through each ballast assembly prior to flight is recommended.

## E. Altitude Sensitivity

The altitude gained by a balloon when its load is reduced by one kilogram is called its altitude sensitivity. This amount is affected by the density of the atmosphere at the floating level; for 20-foot balloons between 40,000 and 53,000 feet, it is roughly 1000 feet per kilogram of weight lost. This weight is normally lost by ballast dropping. The altitude sensitivity and the ballast drop control the rate of rise of the ceiling. Graph 4, Appendix II gives more exact values for this figure at various altitudes.

## F. Forms and Records

For the purpose of making standard pre-flight computations, a series of computation sheets have been drawn up. These are shown in Appendix I. Reward tags attached to components of the flight train have encouraged the finders to protect the equipment and report its location for recovery. The tags, questionnaires, and the warning notices which are used on appropriate gear where squibs or acid are used are shown in Figures 20 and 21.

## V. BALLOON INFLATION

## A. Preparation of Balloon

From the moment the protective packing of the balloon is removed, great care must be exercised to prevent tears

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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.