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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. 28 …In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds. There was no…
  • p. 231 …It was like a 500 pound rack with a receiver, frequency meter, recorder, etc., and we…
  • p. 233 …About one pound. A: correct. And the targets are nominally maybe a quarter of a pound…
  • p. 238 …They went and got a whole bunch of soo pound bombs out of the Earl Ammunition…
  • p. 258 …Third balloon with two and a half pound stick of TNT and cap set by pressure…
  • p. 263 …releasing something like maybe several hundred 500 pound bombs for this. At the same time, Trakowski…
  • p. 323 …I 4 inches wide, and weighing 13 pounds (Atch 4). The sonabuoy contained both the acoustical…
  • p. 379 …have weighed maybe five pounds. rancher living 30 mlles south. east bright wreckage made up on…
  • p. 408 …six (6) scientists and twelve (12) thousand pounds of' equipnent from BElliAR, NEV; JERSEY to KWAJALErn…
  • p. 475 …Dry ice consumption at -GOOF is approxi- mately 150 pounds for a 24-hour period. It…
  • p. 483 …is free lift in pounds and G is gross lift in pounds. Although this equation was…
  • p. 536 …New Mexico In this flight, a 65-pound load was lifted with a linear array of…
  • p. 538 …and tour larger lifting balloons, a 53-pound load was carried alott on this flight. At…
  • p. 542 …wall) to lift • total load of S5 pounds as high aa posaible (Figure 7). 'lbe small…
  • p. 588 …the AM-1 transmitter (with about 10 pounds of batteries) was received for about 400 miles…
  • p. 608 …Buoyer.cy per Pound Mol of GaS••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••l6 V. Glossary of Term•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••21 VII. Summary of…
  • p. 614 …foot balloon should be held tinder 30 pounds; 2) ratEBot rise should be less than 900…
  • p. 621 …of 50,000 feet, with a 30-pound payload, risea about 900 feet with each kilogr…
  • p. 641 …Given: (l) The pound molar volume of any gas at standard conditions=359 ft. 3 - 15 -
  • p. 642 …2370 fte3 273.2 126 This is the mean pound molar volume at 15 km for…
  • p. 643 …foot diameter, at an altitude where the pound molar volume is 1000 ft. 3 (This is…
  • p. 715 …Suspended from the balloon is a 100 foot one thousand pound test nylon line which carries…
  • p. 736 …The solid-ballast system was complex; approxi- mately 900 pounds of sand was used on each…
  • p. 737 …It has an ultimate tensile strength of 1,900 pounds per square inch at 2SC, which…
  • p. 780 …for attaching rigging lines supporting a ~5-pound load to bottom of balloon ~nd means for…
  • p. 862 …Yii th a 20•foot General Mills balloon, using helium, a payload of 40 pounds will…
  • p. 868 …Thus, if a 40-pound load is to be lifted, it is not safe to use…
  • p. 889 …This is the volume of a pound mol of any gas at those condi- tions. By…
  • p. 893 …Elliptical shot bags, weighing 100 pounds,are used to hold the base of the bubble to…
  • p. 907 …using 15 pounds (7 kilograms) of batteries. Longer periods of transmission may be achieved by intermittent…
  • p. 984 …The detonation, or "shot" (right), of 500 pounds of TNT was monitored at White Sands Proving…
AuGusT 1948 ATHELSTAI'.' F. SPILHAUS, C. S. SCHNEIDER, .-\ND C. B. MOORE 137
part of the trajectory of the constant-level balloon.
The interesting fact about the White Sands observa-
tion is that at all but one of the other reported altitudes
between the ground and 20,000 ft, the wind directions
were from either the NE or SE quadrants.
The trajectory of the balloon curved slightly anti-
cyclonically over the eastern slopes of the Sacramento
Mountains. This characteristic is suggestive of the
well-known deforming effect of a mountain range on
an air current directed toward the axis of the range.
In this case, however, the validity of invoking the
aforementioned effect to explain the anticyclonic cur-
~-vature, when the wind at levels below the mountain
summits appears to have been blowing approximately
parallel to the range, depends on assuming that the air
currents parallel to the range themselves constitute a
barrier deforming a higher current blowing in a differ-
ent direction across the mountains. The sharp cyclonic
bend that occurred after the balloon had come over
relatively flat country occurred at the time that the
balloon began its final descent and is due to the fact
that the course of the balloon turned toward the north
as a result of descent to levels where the wind had
maintained a southerly direction throughout the day.
It is of interest to compare this flight with Flight 17
(fig. 10). It may be observed on fig. 10 that no deform-
N Scale.·0
25
ing effect of the mountain barrier is apparent. This,
however, is to be expected, as the altitude of the bal-
loon above the mountain top is three times that of
Flight 11, where this anticyclonic deformation of the
trajectory was observed. The balloon was ultimately
recovered from Croft, Kansas, a distance of 530 miles
from the release point; on the basis of the observed
wind speeds a 12-hour flight duration is estimated.
9. Conclusion
\Vithin the coming year it is hoped that a number
of meteorological investigations may be attempted,
utilizing constant-level balloons. Release of three or
more from a single point to float at the same level,
release at a number of points to obtain a synoptic
presentation of the trajectories in a chosen level, and
the dropping of radiosondes from balloons are some of
the operations to be attempted. Efforts will be made
to simplify the arrangement so that a constant-level
flight may be made in a routine fashion and at no
greater cost than the ordinary radiosonde flight.
REFEREI'.'CE
Clarke, E. T., and S ..\. Korff, 19-H: The radiosonde: the strato-
s~here laboratory. J. Franklin lnst., 232, 217-355.
1~5
DISTANCE (Mil•8 From Alcam~ AAF)
FIG. 10. Height-distance curve and planned trajectory of balloon Flight 17. Released at Alamogordo, New 1\lcxico, 9 September
1947, at 1647 MST. First 125 minutes only are shown. (Numerals on curves indicate minutes after release.)

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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.