Documents / FOIA release

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. 28 …Major Marcel and "a man in plain clothes" then accompanied Brazel home to pick up the…
  • p. 29 …sort of attachment may have been used. Brazel said that he had previously found two weather…
  • p. 38 …of rancher W.W. Brazel). Affidavit dated May 5, 1991. " ... Brazel came to my ranch and…
  • p. 39 …The color of the printing was a kind of purple ...." Bessie Brazel Schreiber (daughter of W…
  • p. 43 …and was ultimately found by the rancher, Brazel, ten days later. This possibility was supported by…
  • p. 44 …Pflock concluded from his research that the Brazel Ranch debris originally reported as a "flying disc…
  • p. 46 …source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch was from one of the Project MOGUL…
  • p. 75 …For e:wnple:. • According to his son arid neighbors, Brazel was held incommunicado by officials at…
  • p. 172 …Colonel Wdliam Blanchard and the other officer suggested that Marcel and CIC agent accompanied Brazel to…
  • p. 174 …certainly don't remember ever meeting Mr. Brazel or Brazzel, whatever his name was. RW: O…
  • p. 187 …a follow up article where they interview Brazel (the rancher), and he descnoed this stuff almost…
  • p. 218 …material that was found, supposedly by Mac Brazel, somewhere northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. They talk…
  • p. 222 …Going back to Brazel, you state that you think it could not be one of the…
  • p. 233 …The description that Brazel gives here that everything would weigh about five pounds when it was…
  • p. 252 PROFESSOR MOORE - 6/8/94 Brazel gives the impression that it is the smoky rubber of…
  • p. 318 THE ROSWELL INCIDENT On July 7, 1947, W.W. (Mac) Brazel, a rancher from approximately 75…
  • p. 325 …Descriptions of the debris provided by Brazel, Cavitt, Crary's diary, and the photos of the…
  • p. 328 …were later reported by Marcel, Cavitt, and Brazel as being on the debris found on the…
  • p. 379 …anywhere on the instrument, al- Brazel was brought here late ty, age 14, went back to…
  • p. 986 …of the type that W.W. "Mac" Brazel recovered on a ranch near Corona, NM, in…
designs on it."41 Furthermore, the Fort Worth Army Airfield Weather Officer,
Irving Newton, who was called in to identify the wreckage, also remembers the
purple/pink marks. Newton stated that when he was called to General Ramey's
office he remembers meeting Marcel, who attempted to convince him that the
wreckage on the floor of the office was a crashed "flying disc." Newton, having
seen many weather balloons and targets, positively identified the debris as a
weather device.42 In short, descriptions of the wreckage found on the ranch near
Corona and of the wreckage displayed in General Ramey's office are entirely
consistent with each other. ·
THE REAL COVER STORY
On July 10, 1947, a newspaper article appeared in the Alamogordo Daily News
displaying for the press the devices, neoprene balloons, and comer reflectors
which had been misidentified as the "flying disc" two days earlier at Roswell
AAF (Atch 11). The photographs and accompanying article quoted Maj Wilbur
D. Pritchard, a Watson Laboratory Project Officer (not assigned to MOGUL)
stationed at Alamogordo AAF. This article appeared to have been an attempt to
deflect attention from the Top Secret MOGUL project by publicly displaying a
portion of the equipment and offering misleading information. If there was a
"cover story" involved in this incident, it is this article, not the actions or
statements of Ramey.
The article in the Alamogordo Daily News stated that the balloons and radar targets
had been used for the ·la!)t fifteen months for the training of long-range radar
personnel and the gathering of meteorological data. The article lists four offi-
cers-Maj W.D. Pritchard, Lieut S.W. Seigel, Capt L.H. Dyvad, and Maj C.W.
Mangum-as being involved with the balloon project, which was false. Moore
and Trakowski could not recall any of the officers in the photograph, with the
exception of Dyvad, whom Moore identified as a pilot who coordinated radar
activities.43 Additionally, some of the details discussed (balloon sighting in
Colorado, tracking by B-17s, recovery of equipment, launching balloons at 5-6
AM, and balloon altitudes of 30,000-40,000 feet) relate directly to the NYU balloon
project, indicating that the four officers had detailed knowledge of MOGUL.44
Moore's unorthodox technique of employing several balloons and several radar
targets was shown in one of the photographs. Other techniques unique to Moore,
41. Trakowski intvw, Jun 29, 1994.
42. Newton intvw, Jul21, 1994.
43. Moore intvw, Jun 8, 1994.
44. NYU, Technical Report No. 1, Table VII.

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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.