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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.

STATEMENT OF WITNESS Date: 8 Jwt 94 Place: NM C/3!_4 I, Charles B Moore, hereby state that Jeffrey Buder, was identified as a Colonel, USAF and fun McAndrew, was identified as a Lieutenant, USAF on this date at my home and do hereby, volwttarily and of my own free will, make the foDowing statement This is done without having been subjected to any coercion, unlawful influence or unlawful inducement. 0 {!> Jv!. GeNII was the Project Engineer for the NYU balloon project during the 1947 time frame. I was not aware that the project had the name MOGUL until1992 when I was contacted by an individual who was working on some research related to the "RosweD Incident" and the relationship to the NYU balloon project. Our only purpose for the NYU group was to develop constant level balloons. In the early flights at Alomorgodo, starting in June, 1947, we used radar targets to track the balloons (not all the balloons had targets). Some of the targets were apparently manufactured by a toy or novelty company. Ed Istvan was the procurement officer and he had contacted some company that extruded toothpaste tubes as weD as radar chaff. The early balloons were made of neoprene and manufactured primarily by the Dewey Almy company in Cambridge and 1M Kaysam company. Dewey balloons were 'dip type and the Kaysam ones were cast in a mold. The neoprene balloons were susceptible to degradation in sunlight turning from a translucent milky white to a dark brown . Some of the material would ahnost look like dark gray or black flakes or ashes after exposure to the sun for only a few days. The balloon material and radar target material would be scattered after returning to the earth depending on the surface winds. The balloon material also had a peculiar acrid odor due to plasticizers and anti-oxidants. There is a recoDection from another procurement person (Peterson) that he had obtained radar reflectors from a toy manufacturer. I have a specific recoDection of reinforcing tape appHed to the scams of the reflectors that had some symboJs such as arcs, flowers, circles and diamonds. These were pinkish in color. To my knowledge, there were no radar rctlectors in New Mexico in 19471ilce the ones we used 1mtil the NYU group arrived. The Columbia group was primarily involved in developing low frequency microphoocs for long rmge detection of explosions. There was intense preSsure for these developments, the constant altitude balloons and the microphone gear. I was involved in 1945 in China-Burma-India for the installation and maintaining of weather equipment in the war against Japan. Our subsequent work with the balloons and microphones was highly classified and we didn't know that there was a project name until1992. Concerning the make up of the balloon trains, we used braided or twisted nylon lines-there were no monofilament tines during the 1947 time frame. Some of the balloons in early J1me carried radar targets for tracking purposes since we did not have radiosonde ~ with us. Some also carried sonobouys for detecting the pressure waves where we didn't have the Watson Lab microphone gear. AD the radiosondes were coverend in white painted cardboard; I don't recall the color of the sonobouys but I betievc they were covered in metal. On review of the photos in the Randle/Schmitt book, the material looks like one of our balloon and target assembHes. The wooden beams were made of a balsa wood that had been coated in an Elmcrs-like glue. The targets had eyelets where the various strings were attached. The 307(B) model was more of an alumin\DD foil material than thc 307(C) model, which was more of an aluminized paper. The targets we used appeared more fragile than the later c:rs,-vf

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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.