Documents / FOIA release
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.
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On July 7, as the NYU group members were winding down their worlk and preparing to return to New York City, a train of events began to unfold at Roswell AAF, 60 miles away. Roswell AAF was home of the 509th Bomb Group of the Strategic Air Command's Eighth Air Force, the only unit in the :world capable of delivering nuclear weapons. It now appears that the debris from MOGUL flight no. 4 had come ·to earth on the plains east of the Sacramento Mountains, about 70 miles from the launch point at Alamogordo AAF (Atch 7). The fact it descended there was not unusual. Over the course of Project MoGUL, several balloons had landed and been recovered from that area. In fact, in August 1947, the NYU group had to receive special permission from the Civil Aero~autics Administration to continue to launch balloons from Alamogordo AAF, since "balloons have been descending outside of the area [White Sands PJtoving Ground] in the vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico."36 According to the sole :living participant in the recovery, Sheridan Cavitt, he, Major Marcel, and MSgt William Rickett gathered some of the material, which appeared to resemble "bamboo type square sticks, one quarter to one half inch square," that was "very light"-reflect- ing material-and a "black box, like a weather instrument." Cavitt believEjd this material to be consistent with what he knew to be a weather balloon. This debris, would soon become, for a short time, the focus of national and even worl~wide attention when it was thought to be a "flying disc." On July 8, the same day that the NYU/Watson Laboratory group dewarted Alamogordo, the Public Information Office of Roswell AAF announced the recovery of a "flying disc" and that it would be flown to Fort Worth AAF for further examination, How could experienced military personnel have confl!l,sed a weather balloon for a "flying disc"? The answer was this was not an ordinary "weather balloon." Typical weather balloons employed a single, 350:-gram neoprene balloon and a radiosonde for measuring temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity, housed in a cardboard box. If it was to be tracked by radar for wind-speed measurement, a single corner reflector was added (Atch 8). The balloon that was found on the Foster Ranch consisted of as many as 2f3 350- gram balloons spaced at 20 foot intervals, several radar targets (3 to 5), plastic ballast tubes, parchment parachutes, a black "cutoff" box containing portions of a weather instrument, and a sonabuoy (Atch 3). After striking the groun~, the radar reflectors, constructed of very light materials for minimum weight, would tear and break apart, spreading out over a large area when pulled across the ground by balloons that still possessed some buoyancy. It should also be understood that the term "flying disc" was not at this time synonymous with "space ship," It denoted a disc-shaped flying object of unknown (or suswected Soviet) origin. Before the announcement was made, the "disc" was flown to Fort Worth AAF, at the direction of Brig Gen Roger Ramey, Commander, Eighth Air Force. General Ramey personally inspected the "disc," became skeptical, and summoned the base 36. NYU, Technical Report No. 1, Table VII, p. 43.
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.