it) and he identified the materials depicted in those photos as consistent with the materials that he recovered from the ranch. Lt.-Col. Cavitt also stated that he had never taken any oath or signed any agreement not to talk about this incident and had never been threatened by anyone in the government because of it. He did not even know the incident was claimed to be anything unusual until he was interviewed in the early 1980s.
Similarly, Irving Newton, Major, USAF (Ret.) was located and interviewed. Newton was a weather officer assigned to Fort Worth who was on duty when the Roswell debris was sent there in July 1947. He was told that he was to report to General Ramey’s office to view the material. In a signed, sworn statement […] Newton related that “… I walked into the General’s office where this supposed flying saucer was lying all over the floor. As soon as I saw it, I giggled and asked if that was the flying saucer… I told them that this was a balloon and a RAWIN target…” Newton also stated that “… while I was examining the debris, Major Marcel was picking up pieces of the target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. There were figures on the sticks, lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather-faded markings, with no rhyme or reason [
The original tasking from GAO noted that the search for information included “weather balloons.” Comments about balloons and safety reports have already been made, however the SAF/AAZ research efforts also focused on reviewing historical records involving balloons, since, among other reasons, that was what was officially claimed by the AAF to have been found and recovered in 1947.
As early as 28 February 1994, the AAZD research team found references to balloon tests taking place at Alamogordo AAF (now Holloman AFB) and White Sands during June and July 1947, testing “constant level balloons” and a New York University (NYU)/Watson Labs effort that used “…meteorological devices… suspected for detecting shock waves generated by Soviet nuclear explosions”—a possible indication of a cover story associated with the NYU balloon project. Subsequently, a 1946 HQ AMC memorandum surfaced, describing the constant- altitude balloon project and specified that the scientific data be classified TOP SECRET Priority IA. Its name was Project Mogul […]
Project Mogul was a then-sensitive classified project whose purpose was to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. This was the early Cold War period and there was serious concern within the US government about the Soviets developing a weaponized atomic device. Because the Soviet Union’s borders were closed, the US Government sought to develop a long-range nuclear explosion detection capability. Long-range, balloon-borne, low-frequency acoustic detection was posed to General Spaatz in 1945 by Dr Maurice Ewing of Columbia University as a potential solution (atmospheric ducting of low-frequency pressure waves had been studied as early as 1900).
As part of the research into this matter, AAZD personnel located and obtained the original study papers and reports of the New York University project. Their efforts also revealed that some of the individuals involved in Project Mogul were still living. These persons included the NYU constant-altitude balloon Director of Research, Dr Athelstan F. Spilhaus; the Project Engineer, Professor Charles B. Moore; and the military Project Officer, Colonel Albert C. Trakowski.
All of these persons were subsequently interviewed and signed sworn statements about their activities. […] These interviews confirmed that Project Mogul was a compartmented, sensitive effort. The NYU group was responsible for developing constant-level balloons and telemetering equipment that would remain at specified altitudes (within the acoustic duct) while a group from Columbia was to develop acoustic sensors. Doctor Spilhaus, Professor Moore, and certain others of the group were aware of the actual purpose of the project, but they did not know of the project nickname at the time. They handled casual inquiries and/or scientific inquiries/papers in terms of “unclassified meteorological or balloon research.” Newly hired employees were not made aware that there was anything special or classified about their work; they were told only that their work dealt with meteorological equipment.
An advance ground team, led by Albert P. Crary, preceded the NYU group to Alamogordo AAF, New Mexico, setting up ground sensors and obtaining facilities for the NYU group. Upon their arrival, Professor Moore and his team experimented with various configurations of neoprene balloons; development of balloon “trains” […]; automatic ballast systems, and use of Naval sonobuoys (as the Watson Lab acoustical sensors had not yet arrived). They also launched what they called “service flights.” These “service flights” were not logged nor fully accounted for in the published Technical Reports generated as a result of the contract between NYU and Watson Labs. According to Professor Moore, the “service flights” were composed of balloons, radar reflectors and payloads specifically designed to test acoustic sensors (both early sonobuoys and the later Watson Labs devices). The “payload equipment” was expendable and some carried no “REWARD” or “RETURN TO…” tags because there was to be no association between these flights and the logged constant-altitude flights which were fully acknowledged. The NYU balloon flights were listed sequentially in their reports (i.e. A, B, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10…) yet gaps existed for Flights 2–4 and Flight 9. The interview with Professor Moore indicated that these gaps were the unlogged “service flights.”
Professor Moore, the on-scene Project Engineer, gave detailed information concerning his team’s efforts. He recalled that radar targets were used for tracking balloons because they did not have all the necessary equipment when they first arrived in New Mexico. Some of the early, developmental radar targets were manufactured by a toy or novelty company. These targets were made up of aluminum “foil” or foil-backed paper, balsa wood beams that were coated in an “Elmer’s-type” glue to enhance their durability, acetate and/or cloth reinforcing tape, single strand and braided nylon twine, brass eyelets and swivels to form a multi-faced reflector somewhat similar in construction to a box kite […] Some of these targets were also assembled with purplish-pink tape with symbols on it […]
According to the log summary […] of the NYU group, Flight A through Flight 7 (20 November 1946–2 July 1947) were made with neoprene meteorological balloons (as opposed to the later flights made with polyethylene balloons). Professor Moore stated that the neoprene balloons were susceptible to degradation in the sunlight, turning from a milky white to a dark brown. He described finding remains of balloon trains with reflectors and payloads that had landed in the desert: the ruptured and shredded neoprene would “almost look like dark gray or black flakes or ashes after exposure to the sun for only a few days. The plasticizers and antioxidants in the neoprene would emit a peculiar acrid odor and the balloon material and radar target material would be scattered after returning to earth, depending on the surface winds.” Upon review of the local newspaper photographs from General Ramey’s press conference in 1947 and descriptions in popular books by individuals who supposedly handled the debris recovered on the ranch, Professor Moore opined that the material was most likely the shredded remains of a multi-neoprene balloon train with multiple radar reflectors. The material and a “black box” described by Cavitt was, in Moore’s scientific opinion, most probably from Flight 4, a “service flight” that included a cylindrical metal sonobuoy and portions of a weather instrument housed in a box, which was unlike typical weather radiosondes which were made of cardboard. Additionally, a copy of a professional journal maintained at the time by A. P. Crary, provided to the Air Force by his widow, showed that Flight 4 was launched on 4 June 1947 but was not recovered by the NYU group. It is very probable that this TOP SECRET project balloon train (Flight 4), made up of unclassified components, came to rest some miles northwest of Roswell, NM, became shredded in the surface winds and was ultimately found by the rancher, Brazel, ten days later. This possibility was supported by the observations of Lt.-Col. Cavitt […], the only living eyewitness to the actual debris field and the material found. Lt.- Col. Cavitt described a small area of debris which appeared “to resemble bamboo type square sticks one quarter to one half inch square, that were very light, as well as some sort of metallic reflecting material that was also very light… I remember recognizing this material as being consistent with a weather balloon.”
Concerning the initial announcement, “RAAF Captures Flying Disc,” research failed to locate any documented evidence as to why that statement was made. However, on 10 July 1947, following the Ramey press conference, the
