Roswell: Two Crashes, Not One

[TheMacGuffin]

Rygrog was just after Mogul-type though? But still in the same time frame - 48 hours of the incident.

There were never any Project Mogul balloon crashes in Ohio. They almost never made it that far east, so whatever stuff they found in Circleville had nothing to do with Mogul. I've been to Circleville, OH by the way--a real nothing place.

Edited August 10, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[TheMacGuffin]

As to why weather officer Newton's duties took him to Wisconsin in the summer of 1947, to look at some more wreckage and say that it had nothing to do with UFOs, I have no idea.

No Project Mogul balloons ever crashed in Wisconsin at ANY time, either, so whatever they were looking at there had to be something else.

[lost_shaman]

As to why weather officer Newton's duties took him to Wisconsin in the summer of 1947, to look at some more wreckage and say that it had nothing to do with UFOs, I have no idea.

No Project Mogul balloons ever crashed in Wisconsin at ANY time, either, so whatever they were looking at there had to be something else.

Mogul balloons were made up of off the shelf weather devices during the first phases, which are what we are talking about in the context of Roswell. So basically Neoprene 'Pilot balloons', and RAWIN targets plus some other normal equipment. Neoprene 'Pilot balloons', and RAWIN targets were being flown all over the U.S. in every State in 1947. So it doesn't matter if a "MOGUL" balloon landed in the State or not, and you don't need Newton to I.D. Balloons or RAWIN targets.

[TheMacGuffin]

Lots of weather balloons were found around the country in July 1947 by people looking for flying saucers, although these are not of any particular interest today.

Westchester, New York 'balloon'

“Weather Balloon in Greensburgh

Solves ‘Flying Disc’ Mystery”

• The Yonkers [New York] The Herald Statesman
  July 11, 1947
  
  • 
    [Caption: This weather kite found yesterday in Greenburgh explains reports of strange objects in Westchester skies. This wind target and the burst balloon which carried it aloft were found by William T. Overton (above) and James Mahoney in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Greensburgh. Radar can follow the tinfoil to check wind currents in upper air.]
    

White Plains – Reports of “flying discs” or “saucers” over Westchester were explained by the finding of a burst weather balloon with tinfoil radar target attached in Greenburgh yesterday.

The large paper kite fits descriptions of a “six-pointed star,” “a washtub” and “an irregular silver object” glowing in reflected light as reported from various parts of the country.

The balloon and target kite are used by the U.S. Weather Bureau and Army to measure wind velocity and direction.

William T. Overton, eighteen of 154 North Road and James Mahoney, twenty-seven of 43 Mitchell Place, White Plains, were cutting grass in the cbout 1:10 p.m. when they noticed a silver object floating earthward.

Being a couple of skeptics and not particularly impressed with all this talk of mysterious discs and saucers, “we didn’t pay attention to it,” said Overton.

About half an hour later the two men “just happened to run across” a tin-foil covered kite-like object, measuring about three by four feet, to which a burst balloon was attached with cord.

Overton, who said he thought their find was a Weather Bureau balloon, decided to take it to the Reporter Dispatch Office.

A call in to the U.S. Weather Bureau in New York City verified the fact that Overton and Mahoney had found a weather balloon.

http://kenny.anomalyresponse.org/47newyork.html

[TheMacGuffin]

Weather Balloon or 'disk-happy?'

‘FLYING SAUCER’ FOUND

AT THOMPSONVILLE PART

OF A WEATHER BALLOON’

• The Springfield [Mass.] News
  Thursday, July 10, 1947
  

THOMPSONVILLE, Conn., July 10 – Despite the nationwide hysteria anent “flying saucers”, residents of the Wallop District of Enfield are not disk-happy, it can be reported.

While cultivating a tobacco field yesterday on the Edward Lynch farm, Edward Lynch, Jr., and Edward Rochette found part of an object which, when inflated and in flight would closely resemble the alleged “saucers.”

From experience gleaned while in naval intelligence during the war, Rochette immediately identified the object as the upper half of a 50-inch weather observation balloon of the type in use at army weather observation posts. Rochette theorized that the balloon had exploded at a high altitude.

The heavy rubber bears gold lettering near the stem read: “Darex HDE81, Chem. Co., Cambridge, Mass.” The makers name is blurred. The stem was securely tied with elastic bands. While the rubber is dark grey in appearance, Rochette said it would take on a silvery cast if inflated.

http://kenny.anomalyresponse.org/47thompsonville.html

[TheMacGuffin]

In all this excitement about balloons, we have actually forgotten about Richard French. John Keel reported that there was a man calling himself Major Richard French of the Air Force, involved in interviewing UFO witnesses in 1967, but some people thought he was an impostor. He was a creepy guy, who showed up at a woman's house and tried to drink a bowl of jello, acting like he had never seen a spoon before. At least, that's what she reported.

http://books.google....hn keel&f=false

Edited August 10, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[TheMacGuffin]

I kid you not, it's in John Keel's book, which is a walk on the weird side of UFOs--the really weird side:

“Did you ever hear of anyone—especially an air force officer—trying to drink Jell-O?” Mrs. Ralph Butler of Owatonna, Minnesota, asked. “Well, that’s what he did. He acted like he had never seen any before. He picked up the bowl and tried to drink it. I had to show him how to eat it with a spoon.“

Mrs. Butler was describing the man who had visited her in May 1967, following a flurry of UFO sightings in Owatonna. He said he was Major Richard French of the U.S. Air Force although he was dressed in civilian clothes and was driving a white Mustang. His neat gray suit and everything else he was wearing appeared to be brand-new.

Even the soles of his shoes were unscuffed, unwalked upon. He was about five feet nine inches tall, with an olive complexion and a pointed face. His hair was dark and very long—too long for an air force officer, Mrs. Butler thought. Unlike Jack Brown, Major French was a fluent conversationalist and seemed perfectly normal until he complained about his stomach bothering him. When Mrs. Butler offered him the Jell-O she suspected for the first time that something was out of kilter.

Richard French was an imposter. One of the many wandering around the United States in 1967. For years these characters had caused acute paranoia among the flying saucer enthusiasts, convincing them that the air force was investigating them, silencing witnesses and indulging in all kinds of unsavory activities—including murder. When I first began collecting such reports I was naturally suspicious of the people making such reports. It all seemed like a massive put-on. But gradually it became apparent that the same minute details were turning up in widely separated cases, and none of these details had been published anywhere ... not even in the little newsletters of the UFO cultists.

There was somebody out there, all right. A few, like Richard French, almost pulled off their capers without drawing attention to themselves. But in nearly every case there was always some small error, some slip of dress or behavior which the witnesses were usually willing to overlook but which stood out like signal flares to me.

They often arrived in old model cars which were as shiny and well kept as brand-new vehicles. Sometimes they slipped up in their dress, wearing clothes that were out of fashion or, even more perturbing, would not come into fashion until years later. Those who posed as military officers obviously had no knowledge of military procedure or basic military jargon. If they had occasion to pull out a wallet or notebook, it would be brand-new ...although most men carry beat-up old wallets and notebooks quickly gain a worn look. Finally, like the fairies of old, they often collected souvenirs from the witnesses ... delightedly walking away with an old magazine, pen, or other small expendable object.

What troubled me most was the fact that these mystery men and women often matched the descriptions given to me by contactees who claimed to have seen a UFO land and had glimpsed, or conversed with, their pilots; pilots with either pointed features or Oriental countenances dusky skin (not Negroid), and unusually long fingers"

http://www.bibliotec...s/mothman02.htm.

Edited August 10, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[lost_shaman]

Lots of weather balloons were found around the country in July 1947 by people looking for flying saucers, although these are not of any particular interest today.

In the context of Roswell these are of interest. These stories in the Press are evidence. During this week in Time the 'Military' flew Balloons and RAWIN targets for the Press corps all over the U.S., afterwards the Press avoided the 'Flying Saucer' story until the 'Chiles-Whitted' case a year later.

[lost_shaman]

MacG,

What do you make of McCoy telling the S.A.B. (Scientific Advisory Board) in the spring of 1948 that there were nearly 300 cases being investigated that hadn't been reported in the Press? Don't you think such an admission proves the real UFO investigtion was concerned with the Press coverage?

[archernyc]

MacG, that's really creepy. Is this still going on today or was this mostly in the 50s, 60s and 70s??

[TheMacGuffin]

MacG, that's really creepy. Is this still going on today or was this mostly in the 50s, 60s and 70s??

Most of the reports I've read were back in those times, during the Cold War, when there was a lot of harassment of UFO witnesses and researchers, but I can't think of any recent cases like these.

At least we now know that this Col. French character was one of them, going back to the 1960s, and was identified as such at the time. He was not only one of the government debunkers, but was actively messing with UFO witnesses. I wonder if these guys just sat around in a bar or something, trying to think of new and creepy things they could do to intimidate and upset anyone who reported UFOs or tried to investigate them.

It seems that one part of Col. French's story is correct, and that he really was an Air Force officer involved in UFO "investigations", although a better term would be the UFO cover up.

[TheMacGuffin]

I would add Sergeant Richard Doty to the list, who like Col. French also worked for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and played all these counter-intelligence mind games with UFO researchers, forging documents like MJ-12 and Project Serpo, getting them to spy and inform on each other, harassing Paul Bennewitz to the point that he had a breakdown.

French sounds like he was another one of these guys.

Doty was doing all that in the 1980s, although I haven't heard of any more cases like his in recent years.

Edited August 10, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[Hawken]

There were never any Project Mogul balloon crashes in Ohio. They almost never made it that far east, so whatever stuff they found in Circleville had nothing to do with Mogul. I've been to Circleville, OH by the way--a real nothing place.

Were these other Mogul baloons that crashed in other areas of the country reported as weather baloons also like the one in Roswell

since the project was supposed to be secret?

[TheMacGuffin]

Were these other Mogul baloons that crashed in other areas of the country reported as weather baloons also like the one in Roswell

since the project was supposed to be secret?

No other Project Mogul crash ever generated publicity like Roswell, simply because the wreckage so obviously came from balloons. The materials and equipment they used in these were cheap and they hardly even bothered to recover them when they crashed. These launches were ever photographed with the pictures printed in the local newspapers, so they never generated much notice or excitement.

As for the Mogul balloon flight that the Air Force claimed was responsible for Roswell, if they had really checked their own records they would have found a report from 1949 that showed this one crashed shortly after takeoff, but it was nowhere near the Roswell crash site. Of course, maybe they did see this record but thought that no one else would bother to check it.

http://www.redshift.com/~damason/lhreport/articles/roswell.html

[Hawken]

No other Project Mogul crash ever generated publicity like Roswell, simply because the wreckage so obviously came from balloons. The materials and equipment they used in these were cheap and they hardly even bothered to recover them when they crashed. These launches were ever photographed with the pictures printed in the local newspapers, so they never generated much notice or excitement.

As for the Mogul balloon flight that the Air Force claimed was responsible for Roswell, if they had really checked their own records they would have found a report from 1949 that showed this one crashed shortly after takeoff, but it was nowhere near the Roswell crash site. Of course, maybe they did see this record but thought that no one else would bother to check it.

http://www.redshift....es/roswell.html

Years later they say it wasn't a disk or weather balloon that crashed but a balloon from project Mogul which was secret

because it was monitoring Soviet activity. It would seem if it was secret they would keep tabs on the other Mogul Balloons

and recover them and not just the 1 from roswell.

[DONTEATUS]

Will it ever stop ? I say take those Balloons and Lets have a Party ! Go Team Go !

[TheMacGuffin]

Years later they say it wasn't a disk or weather balloon that crashed but a balloon from project Mogul which was secret

because it was monitoring Soviet activity. It would seem if it was secret they would keep tabs on the other Mogul Balloons

and recover them and not just the 1 from roswell.

We now know that the balloon Gen. Ramey showed in his office was not from Project Mogul. I don't know where they got it from but it was not what they said.

Gen. Ramey's solo balloon too little and in too good shape to be Mogul balloon

Experiments by engineer Robert Galganski and former Project Mogul engineer Charles Moore show rapid deterioration of neoprene weather balloon material when exposed to sunlight. Galganski showed the neoprene darkening and stiffening in only 5 hours. Moore's many experiments showed the new milky white balloons deteriorating to brittle, black, tattered, ash-like pieces within 2 to 3 weeks. Yet according to the Mogul proponents, the balloon Ramey displayed was collected a full month after the alleged Mogul flight. It is darkened but still seemingly mostly intact, has a mottled appearance with many light patches instead of completely black, and has many rounded folds and pleats giving it an appearance of still having rubberlike pliability instead of being brittle. Thus the photos taken illustrate a slightly used neoprene balloon, not one sitting in the hot New Mexico sun for a month. Also there is very little balloon material there. My measurements indicate it would fit in a shoebox. It is probably the solo balloon Ramey said it was. Yet the alleged Mogul would have consisted of at least two dozen such balloons. Ramey's single balloon of recent origin alone practically disproves that a Mogul from the previous month was recovered. Ramey's single balloon was instead substituted for whatever was actually found, as his chief of staff,

Gen. Thomas Dubose and Roswell intelligence officer Jesse Marcel said was the case.

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/ProjectMogul.html

[Alantheanylyst]

Well, I think the "Experimental US Airplane" can probably be filed under the heading of "the imaginative"; he doesn't seem to mention (in the story at any rate) what said airplane was, nor why, if the Secret weapon was so effective it was able to bring down an Extraterrestrial craft, it didn't become a standard part of the USAF armoury. It must surely have been useful in Korea and vietnam and against the Russkies.

* I know, maybe it was, but it's been kept Secret ever since, and is used only by the mega-Secret squadron that deals with UFO interceptions. It could be that, of course.

Sounds like disinformation to me .

Set up a straw man argument ,have it shot to pieces and hey presto the Roswell incident loses credibility.

And any witness testimony loses potence.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Alantheanylyst

[Kryso]

Interesting. The first time I've heard about there being two crafts!

[Hawken]

We now know that the balloon Gen. Ramey showed in his office was not from Project Mogul. I don't know where they got it from but it was not what they said.

Gen. Ramey's solo balloon too little and in too good shape to be Mogul balloon

Experiments by engineer Robert Galganski and former Project Mogul engineer Charles Moore show rapid deterioration of neoprene weather balloon material when exposed to sunlight. Galganski showed the neoprene darkening and stiffening in only 5 hours. Moore's many experiments showed the new milky white balloons deteriorating to brittle, black, tattered, ash-like pieces within 2 to 3 weeks. Yet according to the Mogul proponents, the balloon Ramey displayed was collected a full month after the alleged Mogul flight. It is darkened but still seemingly mostly intact, has a mottled appearance with many light patches instead of completely black, and has many rounded folds and pleats giving it an appearance of still having rubberlike pliability instead of being brittle. Thus the photos taken illustrate a slightly used neoprene balloon, not one sitting in the hot New Mexico sun for a month. Also there is very little balloon material there. My measurements indicate it would fit in a shoebox. It is probably the solo balloon Ramey said it was. Yet the alleged Mogul would have consisted of at least two dozen such balloons. Ramey's single balloon of recent origin alone practically disproves that a Mogul from the previous month was recovered. Ramey's single balloon was instead substituted for whatever was actually found, as his chief of staff, Gen. Thomas Dubose and Roswell intelligence officer Jesse Marcel said was the case.

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/ProjectMogul.html

In that interview of Frankie Rowe that I mentioned earlier, She said her father who was on the Roswell Fire Dept, handled some of the material

from the supposive crash and some of it was foil like. The men would wad it up and it would unfold itself. also they tried to burn and cut it and

couldn't do any damage to it.

[TheMacGuffin]

In that interview of Frankie Rowe that I mentioned earlier, She said her father who was on the Roswell Fire Dept, handled some of the material

from the supposive crash and some of it was foil like. The men would wad it up and it would unfold itself. also they tried to burn and cut it and

couldn't do any damage to it.

That's what Jesse Marcel and many other witnesses said about it as well, but we know that wasn't the same material Gen. Ramey showed the reporters in his office. Wherever that particular balloon wreckage came from, it wasn't from the crash site and probably not even from Project Mogul.

[DONTEATUS]

Well we will never know then ,time to move on I guess ! Now Anyone for a trip to Bransons Space Port ?

[lost_shaman]

Wherever that particular balloon wreckage came from, it wasn't from the crash site and probably not even from Project Mogul.

Of course not. Newspaper photos from the following days show AAF personell flying RAWIN targets for the Press just down the Street from Ramey's office, these are exactly the same type seen on the floor in Ramey's office in the famous photos. Dubose said he went and got a RAWIN target and tore it up for the photos. He didn't have to go far to get one.

[Hawken]

Well we will never know then ,time to move on I guess ! Now Anyone for a trip to Bransons Space Port ?

Texas is big enough to be it's own planet. Even the wabbits are as big as bobcats.

[psyche101]

Years later they say it wasn't a disk or weather balloon that crashed but a balloon from project Mogul which was secret

because it was monitoring Soviet activity. It would seem if it was secret they would keep tabs on the other Mogul Balloons

and recover them and not just the 1 from roswell.

Weather balloons and MOGUL balloon come form the same store, they are essentially the same thing, what was strapped to them made the difference. The USAF always said it was a balloon, they just said it was a weather balloon.

They did try to recover MOGUL apparatus, that was the point of the danger tags attached to them. Some even claimed the balloons had flammable or explosive components, which was not true at all, it was a ruse to recover some of the equipment, and learn where it had landed.

The balloon arrays were never regarded secret, nor what was on them. Only the readings the equipment took were of any value.

Edited August 13, 2012 by psyche101