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roswell

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 993 pages · text from the file's own layer

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published in 1995 by Headquarters United States Air Force. It was written in response to Representative Steven H. Schiff's request and a General Accounting Office audit, and it contains Col. Richard L. Weaver's report and 1st Lt. James McAndrew's synopsis, along with attachments, appendices and photographs. The report says researchers found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concludes that the 1947 debris came from a Project MOGUL balloon train.

  • p. 19 …MOGUL; their job was to deliver nuclear weapons, not to detect them. The unusual combination of…
  • p. 36 …happened near Roswell may have involved nuclear weapons. This was a logical area of concern since…
  • p. 41 …to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. This was the early Cold War period…
  • p. 183 …that time where we either dropped a weapon or did something stupid, which we had to…
  • p. 201 …long range balloons; although not effective as weapons, they did initiate the long-range balloon research…
  • p. 213 …Charles Ziegler was working on the history of nuclear weapons detection capability. He had some letters…
  • p. 249 …Out PM with several NYU men by weapons carrier, but we never located it. Rocket postponed…
  • p. 251 …so I took a weapons carrier and drove up there. We were aggressively trying to recover…
  • p. 253 …We drove up in a weapons carrier to the Roswell Army Air Field, and tried to…
  • p. 264 …We civilians were driving weapons carriers to carry helium around, and to go into town to…
  • p. 273 …a book on the history of nuclear weapons detection. It figured, of course, that Project MOGUL…
  • p. 274 …I had considerable background in nuclear weapons detection, using devices that I had developed in the…
  • p. 326 …in the :world capable of delivering nuclear weapons. It now appears that the debris from MOGUL…
  • p. 401 …a.~tack:; -;;it"t st.~c!"et weapons. ' The moat prom1a1ne. .eJ"PC'• oi: li6tening etatlon…
  • p. 804 …Dec 13 Fri.Woody and I left Alamogordo Air Base in weapon carrier and scouted out…
  • p. 805 …went in borrowed weapon carrier. '.:oody and Jeff 7owler took other weapon carrier ::1~d collected…
  • p. 808 …Phil and Sal went out to Dona and Launching Sites with weapon carrier. Hoffman, DeTurk and…
  • p. 812 …May 19 Mon Reynolds and I left about 0745 in weapon carrier for Silver City. Arrived…
  • p. 813 …Edmondson and I left about 0845 in weapon carrier for Roswell. Arrived at Hagerman about 12…
  • p. 815 …Out pm with several NYU by weapon carrier but we never located it. Rocket postponed until…
~t with your hands. There was also debris coUection on sticky paper. Most of the balloon projects
were not concerned ~ith weather--that's why there weren't radiosondes on all the balloons. The
"cosmic ray train" was probably just a cosmic ray ex~~t on one of our ballons. The balloons
were made of secri£ms and had tape reinforcements but ~recaJJ any specifics on the tape material.
Mylar was not called that originally--it may have originated as polyethelene. AU the polyethelcne
we use was of a translucent material. Neoprene was used during the war; generally for
meterological and artillery firing ballons. The artillery radar tracked the balloons with comer
reflectors--this ga·ve the vo.inds aloft to assist the gunners. The radar reflectors were sheets of
reflective material and they changed over time but I don't recall the details of the changes. On
reviewing Charlie !\loore's letter, the acoustic detection relates with the atomic debris coUection.
The reflectors were for tracking and was made up of a metaJized paper or fabric. Charlie explains
the flowers-rd heard about the flowers before, don't remember where-we used whatever we had
in the experimental realm. The targets were throw-aways-we didn't put a tag on them, maybe a
radiosonde, but not a target. Such a train would make gouges (shallow) as it was dragging the
ground. We used meterology as a cover story-it was a natural. It had a purpose beyond the
project--we could use the constant level analysis of the constant pressure (isobaric) vs constant
altitude to study atmospherics mathematically-therefore using it was natural. Ramey's press
conference-the Air Force position makes sense for the mistake that the PIO made in his
statements. (All the NYU personnel had left Alomogordo when the "material" was brought in-
someone stated that it may have been Col Duffy's and therefore sent it to him at Wright Patterson-
-not because it was extraterrestial) It is a logical reason to send it (the debris from the desert)
there-not because it was special--Col Duffy was a fine officer and rm sure he'd recognize it. I
was not aware of any association between our balloon projects and the aDcgcd "Roswell incident"
Wltil this interview. I am not part of any conspiracy to withhold infonnation from either the US
government or American public. There is no classified information that I am withholding related
to this inquicy and I have never been threatened by US Government persons concerning not talking
about this situation . ~
SIGNED:
WITNESS(s):
Subscribed and sworn to before me, a
person authorized to administer oaths
this
3rd day of June 1994
VA
~COL, USAF
)Jj:/JL

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FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 993 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.