The Roswell Report: Case Closed

# STATEMENT OF WITNESS

## Place :

I, Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr., Col, USAF (Ret), hereby state that James McAndrew was identified as a Lieutenant, USAFR on this date at my home and do hereby, voluntarily and of my own free will, make the following statement. This was done without having been subjected to any coercion, unlawful influence or unlawful inducement.

I entered the U.S. Air Force in 1949 as an Aviation Cadet. From 1950 to 1953 I flew fighters in Europe before being assigned to the Fighter Test Section at Holloman AFB. NM in July, 1953. During my tour as a test pilot I conducted the first zero gravity tests and was the balloon pilot of the first Project Man High high altitude research mission. In 1958 I was assigned to the Escape Section of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Patterson AFB, OH. During this tour I was the Project Officer of Project Excelsior and made three high altitude parachute jumps, the highest from 102,800 feet, which today remains a world record. For these jumps I was awarded the Harmon Trophy for 1960 by President Eisenhower. Following Excelsior, I was the Project Officer of Stargazer, a project that made astronomical observations from a high altitude balloon. I flew two combat tours in Southeast Asia with the Air Commandos. I later flew a tour in F-4s and was the Squadron Commander of the 555 Tactical Fighter Squadron. I accumulated over 1,000 combat flying hours and I am credited with one aerial victory. I spent ten months as a POW in Hanoi. Upon my return I attended Air War College, flew F-4s and retired from the Air Force in 1978. In 1984 I became the first person to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic by balloon.

In 1958 I was made the Project Officer of Excelsior by Col John Paul Stapp, the Aero Medical Laboratory Commander. I supervised and was actively involved in the dropping and recovery of anthropomorphic dummies from high altitude balloons at Holloman AFB. NM for this project. We also dropped dummies, from aircraft only, at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. The object of the Holloman tests were to study the free fall characteristics of dummies dropped from balloons at altitudes of 50,000 to 100,000 feet. Based on this data we designed a parachute that stabilized the dummies and I later used this parachute on my three high altitude jumps.

The balloons carrying the dummies were launched from various locations in New Mexico and often impacted off of the White Sands Proving Ground depending on the wind conditions. The dummies were outfitted with clothing and equipment of an Air Force pilot. The facial features of the dummies were not as pronounced as a human. The ears and noses did not protrude. I do not recall any dummies with ears or noses. Some of the dummies were not complete; they sometimes did not have arms or legs. To someone not associated with the project or who viewed the dummies from a distance, they could appear to be human or with some imagination a space "alien." In fact, I recall one incident at Wright- Patterson where one of our dummies landed near the backyard of Gen. Rawlings. Commander of the Air Research and Development Command. Gen. Rawling's wife was entertaining officer's wives that afternoon when one of our dummy's parachute failed to