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.
“Pound”31 pages
B. Altitude Control Equipment Flights of 20-foot General Mills balloons, using no con- trol equipment, have been sent to altitudes of about 50,000 feet. After reaching maximum altitude, the balloons all exhibit a tendency to float then descend at an in- creasing rate for periods of from 2 to 6 hours. In stable layers of air such as the stratosphere the descent of a ball.o:on is retarded by the helium, on compression, getting warmer than the surrounding air. This results in much longer duration flights requiting no external control though, strictly speaking, the altitude is not constant. This concept is in good general agreement with the observed data; balloons have remained in a semi-floating state much longer ~p to 30 hours) when in the stratospheric inversion than when in less stable lower atmospheric layers. When it is desired to maintain a balloon at constant level for a guaranteed period of time in excess of two hours, a ballast system of altitude control should be added to the flight gear. The level et which the bal- loon is to float must be the maximum altitude to which it can carry the payload. To compensate for loss in buoy- ancy occasioned by loss of lifting gas through diffusion and leakage, a continual lightening of the load is re- quired. To effectthis in a simple fashion, liquid ballast is permittted to flow through an orifice at a predeter.nined rate which exceeds the expected loss of lift. (See Section IV, D) The reservoir and ballast assembly which has been developed for this use is shown in Figure 6. A de- tail sketch of the orifice in its mounting is shown as Figure 7, and F'igure 8 shows a suitable filter which must be used to protect the orifice from clogging. The liquid ballast must (1) not freeze, but flow well at cold temperature (-80°C); (2) not absorb water, which would freeze; and (3) be relatively inexpensive. A re- commended liquid is Aeromobil Compass Fluid, made by Socony-Vacuum Co. (Air Force Spec. AN-c-116). There are three possible objections to the use of this simple control system. First, a continued lessening of the total weight on the balloon--with no change in volume-- must result in a constantly rising ceiling. For a 20- foot balloon et 45,000 feet, this change is approximately 1000 feet with each kilogram of ballast dropped ( see Sec- tion IV, E). Second, only a prefixed ballast flow is permitted, and excessive loss of lift, as might come when the gas is colled at sunset (when the balloon loses superheat:', -16-
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