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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. 5 …Also, Robert "Gus" Bell contributed with his attractive art work; Richard Wolf provided invaluable computer expertise…
  • p. 14 …Mensuration Working Paper, with Drawing and Photo xiv
  • p. 19 …The ruse worked. However, too much activity was going on for the project to remain completely…
  • p. 28 …The balloon which held it up, if that is how it worked, must have been about…
  • p. 31 …These works included: The Roswell Incident (1980) by William Moore and Charles Berlitz; "Crashed Saucers: Evidence…
  • p. 34 …specialists, including experienced persons who have continually worked in Army and Air Force records systems since…
  • p. 42 …or classified about their work; they were told only that their work dealt with meteorological equipment…
  • p. 43 …of umbrella cover story to protect our work with MOGUL." Although the Air Force did not…
  • p. 44 …who is married to a staffer who works for Congressman Schiff. Some of these persons provided…
  • p. 48 …Synopsis of Balloon Research Findings by 1st Lt James McAndrew 33. "Mensuration Working Paper," With Drawing…
  • p. 51 …to the case, and that not enough work had been done to report any results to…
  • p. 55 …The work will be performed under GAO code 701034 by staff from our National Security Analysis…
  • p. 56 …Initial work will be performed at the Department of Defense, the Services, specialized defense agencies, and…
  • p. 59 …Secur~ty and Inter.nationa1 Affairs Division (National Security Analysis) is doinq the work. The review…
  • p. 75 …Mary Kathryn Groode, and his friend, John Kromschroeder. • A mortician who worked for the funCr.ll…
  • p. 76 …Conversations with a dozen people who had worked in the Project Blue Book office or with…
  • p. 106 …This has caused a large back log o£ important work to pile up. The following is…
  • p. 145 …civilian, Joe Shipman, who works with Col. Hackett is re~orted to have t~ld the…
  • p. 148 …Harness advised he thought we were getting the Merger Bill worked out pretty fine. 9:35…
  • p. 164 …I had two enJisted agents "working for me" quote end quote. RW: Who were the enlisted…
  • p. 169 …He worked for an insane asylum up in the Washington DC area. I think his wife…
  • p. 170 …He did quite a bit of work for the Air Force, as I found through research…
  • p. 183 …we went to all the different records. Working for me I have a group of reservists…
  • p. 191 …I need two plug ins to make this thing work. SC: You need two? RW: One…
  • p. 196 …the &ranting or clearanc•• to do the work. Both mthods haw bean succesatul.J¥ u.sod…
  • p. 201 …I worked on naval activity such as the thermal affects on SONAR. Concerning actual baUoon construction…
  • p. 205 …Our subsequent work with the balloons and microphones was highly classified and we didn't know…
  • p. 206 …We didn't pattern our work after the Japanese balloons. We were very secretive of our…
  • p. 213 …Charles Ziegler was working on the history of nuclear weapons detection capability. He had some letters…
  • p. 214 …Concerning the name Maj Pritchard, he may have worked for me but I don't recall…
  • p. 217 …Project Mogul and some of the other work that you and Dr. Spilhaus and others have…
  • p. 221 …He and I worked together. He was in Maine, and was not really technically involved. I…
  • p. 227 …With some difficulty we got Otto Winzen who was the entrepreneur cmd promoter, working with Get…
  • p. 228 …So you're doing that work from China? And we over and the entire our A…
  • p. 230 …Schneider and others from NYU, also Irewin, Minton, Olson, NYU men worked on balloons, north hangar."
  • p. 233 …Before you left active duty, while you were still working with Duffy and Spilhaus, did they…
  • p. 234 …While I was at Georgia Tech I began working with a microwave, an anonymous propagation research…
  • p. 236 …The reason I got into balloons is that while I was working on this manual there…
  • p. 237 …At that point you were working at New York University under the direction .•. A: Spilhaus was…
  • p. 240 …He worked for a Tracer lab and is just bringing out a book on the early…
  • p. 242 …Just for the record, ·Major Marcel later worked at AFOAT-1. Do you recognize him at…
  • p. 251 …It often didn't work. That was the reason why for Operation Sandstone in April and…
  • p. 253 …We just worked out of motels in Roswell. Q: I thought I saw you had a…
  • p. 258 …When we sent people to Roswell, Hackman worked out of a motel to receive. So the…
  • p. 259 …I do know that I worked carefully with a guy named Larry Dyvad, a pilot, who…
  • p. 260 …You were just saying hey, what's going to work best to get the data, so…
  • p. 269 …Tibbetts, the radar lieutenant working for Fletcher, said that when they got these in '44 there…
  • p. 274 …In the course of the research projects you worked on, in that time frame-the postwar…
  • p. 275 …You were on-site in New Mexico when Charlie Moore was doing most of his work…
  • p. 276 …Did he work for you at Watson Laboratories? A: No. He didn't work for me…
  • p. 279 …Do you recall any of the contractors he may have worked with? A: No, I don…
  • p. 280 …That's where John had his office, and I was there for a time doing work…
  • p. 282 …We worked in the old Sun newspaper building in downtown Baltimore. Q: They had intelligence personnel…
  • p. 283 …I know he worked with the U.S. Geological Survey, a very, very fine organization, and…
  • p. 318 …rest on the ranch on which he worked near the town of Corona, NM. This was…
  • p. 322 …In addition, Crary maintlained a detailed journal of his work throughout his professional career to incluc…
  • p. 323 …25 Balloons most suitable for this type of work were made of polyethylene, a very thin…
  • p. 325 …9 appeared to have been launched on July 3.34 On July 8, their work completed…
  • p. 330 …It was apparent from Crary's diary that he had worked very closely with Major Pritchard…
  • p. 379 …MonOay he came to town to sell worked, must have bt!en about 12 some sort…
Not surprisingly, the research team found the usual number of problems in many
of the records centers (particularly St. Louis) with misfiling, lost or misplaced
documents, mismarking of documents, or the breaking up of record groups over
the years and refiling in different systems. This included, for example, a small
amount of missing "decimal files" from the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell that
covered the years 1945-1949, that were marked on the index as "destroyed." The
researchers noted that there was no pattern to any anomalies found and that most
discrepancies were minor and consistent with what they had found in the past on
similar projects.
WHAT THE ROSWELL INCIDENT WAS NOT
Before discussing specific positive results that these efforts revealed, it is first
appropriate to discuss those things, as indicated by information available to the
Air Force, that the "Roswell Incident" was not:
An Airplane Crash
Of all the things that are documented and tracked within the Air Force, among
the most detailed and scrupulous are airplane crashes. In fact, records of air
crashes go back to the first years of military flight. Safety records and reports are
available for all crashes that involved serious damage, injury, death, or a
combination of these factors. These records also include incidents involving
experimental or classified aircraft. USAF records showed that between June 24,
1947, and July 28, 1947, there were five crashes in New Mexico alone, involving
A-26C, P-51N, C-82A, P-80A, and PQ-14B aircraft; however, none of these
occurred on the date(s) in question nor in the area(s) in question.
One of the additional areas specifically set forth by GAO in its efforts was to deal
with how the Air Force (and others) specifically documented" ... weather balloon
... and other crash incidents." In this area, the search efforts revealed that there
are no air safety records pertaining to weather balloon crashes (all weather
balloons "crash" sooner or later); however, there are provisions for generating
reports of "crashes" as ground safety incidents in the unlikely chance that a
balloon injures someone or causes damage. Such records are only maintained for
five years.
A Missile Crash
A crashed or errant missile, usually described as a captured German V-2 or one
of its variants, is sometimes set forth as a possible explanation for the debris
recovered near Roswell. Since much of this testing done at nearby White Sands
was secret at the time, it would be logical to assume that the government would
handle any missile mishap under tight security, particularly if the mishap
occurred on private land. From the records reviewed by the Air Force, however,
there was nothing located to suggest that this was the case. Although the bulk of
remaining testing records are under the control of the US Army, the subject has
also been very well documented over the years within Air Force records. There
would be no reason to keep such information classified today. The USAF found
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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.