"The Roswell Incident and Project Mogul" — Dave Thomas, Skeptical Inquirer (1995)

Verbatim text (pymupdf extraction of the scanned PDF; OCR artifacts preserved) of Dave Thomas's Skeptical Inquirer special report, "The Roswell Incident and Project Mogul: Scientist Participant Supports Direct Links" (1995), via Center for Inquiry. The PRO-Mogul anchor: Mogul scientist Charles B. Moore supports the connection; the Mogul link was first realized by Robert G. Todd and independently Karl Pflock. Captured 2026-05-31. For ../../sources/roswell-incident-1947 and the query ../../queries/2026-05-31-could-roswell-debris-be-project-mogul.

Special Report
The Roswell Incident and
Project Mogul
Scientist Participant Supports
Direct Links
DAVE T H O M A S
A
s reported in the January-
February
1995
SKEPTICAL
INQUIRER, a September 1994
Air Force report strongly supported the
theory that the "UFO" debris found by
rancher Mac Brazel in 1947 northwest
of Roswell, New Mexico, was in fact a
remnant of a balloon flight launched as
parr of a top-secret program called
Project Mogul. The possible connec-
tion between the Roswell Incident and
Mogul was first realized by researcher
Robert G. Todd, and independently by
Karl T. Pflock.
Recently, Charles B. Moore, one of
three surviving Project Mogul scien-
tists identified in and interviewed for
the Air Force report, spoke to the New
Mexicans for Science and Reason
(NMSR) in Albuquerque. He dis-
cussed the background of the project,
the New York University (NYU) bal-
loon flights, and the Roswell connec-
tion. He provided new details that
would appear to virtually clinch the
idea that the debris Brazel found was
indeed from one of the Project Mogul
flights that Moore helped launch.
What follows is based on Moore's
presentation, his answers to audience
questions, subsequent meetings and
discussions with him, documents he
provided, and a monograph he is
preparing on these flights.
Moore,
professor
emeritus
of
physics at New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology in Socorro,
was a graduate student working for
NYU back in 1947. The Mogul project
was so classified and compartmental-
ized that even Moore didn't know the
project's name until Robert Todd
informed him of it a couple of years
ago. The unclassified purpose of the
project was to develop constant-level
balloons for meteorological purposes.
Its classified purpose was to try to
develop a way to monitor possible
Soviet nuclear detonations with the use
of low-frequency acoustic microphones
placed at high altitudes. No other
means of monitoring the nuclear activ-
ities of a closed country like the USSR
was yet available, and the project was
given a high priority. One of the NYU
tasks was the development of constant-
level balloons for placing die acoustic
microphones aloft. After some prelim-
inary flights in Bethlehem, Penn-
sylvania, in April 1947, which failed
due to high winds, die project moved
to New Mexico.
In June and early July 1947, numer-
ous
NYU
balloon
flights
were
launched (torn Alamogordo Army Air
Field in New Mexico. Some of these
flights consisted of very long trains
containing up to two dozen neoprene
sounding balloons, having a total
length of more than 600 feet.
Moore makes a strong case for the
hypothesis that NYU Flight #4, which
he helped launch on June 4, 1947, was
the source of the debris Brazel found
on the Foster ranch, and therefore the
source of die "Roswell Incident" itself.
Many of the materials used in Flight 4
bear striking similarities to pieces of
the Roswell debris. A diagram of an
earlier,
similar
flight.
Flight
#2
(launched April 18, 1947, from Beth-
lehem, Pennsylvania) appears in Figure

No such diagram is available for
Flight 4; since no altitude data were
obtained for it, it was not included in
formal NYU reports. However, Moore
says die configuration for Flight 4 was
quite similar to that shown. The large
octahedral objects at top left and bot-
tom middle are radar reflectors, which
were used for tracking. Several small
aluminum rings for handling the lines
are
indicated;
the
"payload"
(a
sonobuoy) was supported by slightly
larger rings. The cluster of neoprene
sounding balloons extended for hun-
dreds of feet in flight.
The debris Brazel picked up—and
which was later taken to Fort Worth,
Texas, for inspection by Brigadier
General Roger Ramey. die Air Force
commander
there—matches
NYU
Flight 4 in several different ways. Some
of the debris consisted of patches of a
smelly, smoky gray, rubber-like material.
SKEPTICAL INQUIRE* • JULY/AUGUST J 995
15

FIGURE 1. Diagram of balloon train for NYU Flight #2. Charles B. Moore says
the configuration for Flight #4 was quite similar.
which is consistent with the neoprene
balloons used in NYU Flight 4. Much
of the Roswell debris—sticks, metallic
paper, and strangely marked tape—is
similar to material used for die radar
reflectors.
When
Warrant
Officer
Irving Newton saw the debris in
General Ramey's office, he recognized it
as pieces of a radar target. Moore points
Dave Thomas is a physics and mathe-
matics graduate of New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology, and is cur-
rently a senior scientist at
Quatro
Corporation
in Albuquerque,
New
Mexico. He is vice president and com-
munications officer of New Mexicans for
Science and Reason.
out that die Ramey photographs show
parts of more man one reflector; Flight
4 contained three Signal Corps ML-
307B RAWIN targets.
Many witnesses of the debris
described tape with flower designs or
hieroglyphics on it. Moore recalls that
the reinforcing tape used on NYU tar-
gets had curious markings. "There
were about four of us who were
involved in this, and all remember that
our targets had sort of a stylized, flow-
crlike design. 1 have prepared, in my
life, probably more than a hundred of
these targets for flight. And every time
I have prepared one of these targets, I
have always wondered what the pur-
pose of mat tape marking was. But. ..
a major named John Peterson, laughed
. . . and said 'What do you expect
when you get your targets made by a
toy factory?'"
Figure 2 shows a dia-
gram of Moore's recollection of the
flowery design.
The radar targets contained small
eyelets. Moore showed the NMSR
audience a similar target with die eye-
lets (Figure 3). In an article in the
Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947,
rancher Brazel described the debris as
having no strings or wire, but as having
eyelets for some sort of attachment.
While many
UFO
proponents
claim the wreckage shown in General
Ramey's office was just a weather bal-
loon switched for the "real debris,"
Moore pointed out that the radar tar-
gets used by NYU were unlike any-
thing flown in New Mexico before and
that "they were not available in Fort
Worth to be substituted for the debris
in General Ramey's office." Warrant
Officer Newton was able to recognize
the debris in General Ramey's office
because he happened to have used an
early version of die same targets while
serving as a weatherman in Okinawa.
The earlier-model targets Newton used
did not have the reinforcing tape with
the pinkish-purple flower designs.
Brazel's daughter,
Bessie Brazel
Schreiber, in a 1979 interview conduct-
ed by author William Moore (no rela-
tion to Charles B. Moore), described
some aluminum ring-shaped objects in
the debris that looked like pipe intake
collars or the necks of balloons. (The
mention of the rings
appears in
William Moore's transcript of the inter-
view, but was not included in his book
The Roswell Incident.) She estimated tha
and said she could put her hand
through diem. Charles Moore points
out that Flight 4 carried several 3-inch-
diameter aluminum rings for assisting
this
as well as larger rings used to hold die
sonobuoys. These were cut from cylin-
drical tubing stock, and then cham-
fered to prevent damage to die ropes.
Sheridan Cavitt, the CIC (Counter-
intelligence Corps) officer who accom-
panied Major Jesse Marcel to the debris
16
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER • JULY/AUGUST 1995

the summer months blow toward the
west, while those in the transition
region just above the tropopause blew
toward the northwest during the early
part of June 1947. For example, Flight
5 proceeded mainly east as it rose
through the troposphere; when it
entered the stratosphere, however, it
was carried to the northwest.
After
some balloons burst and Flight 5
descended, it again headed in an east-
erly direction until it landed.
When Moore used the Weather
Service wind data and NYU altitude
information to simulate the probable
paths of the flights with recorded
ground tracks (Flights 5 and 6), his
results agreed quite reasonably with the
measured balloon paths—Flight 5
drifted mainly to the east, landing near
FIGURE 2. "Abstract flower-like designs" on NYU radar targets
field, described a black box in die
wreckage. Moore says the NYU crew
routinely packed batteries for the
acoustic equipment in black boxes.
There has been some speculation that
the black box might have been a
radiosonde, but Moore pointed out
that radiosondes are usually white to
prevent absorption of heat.
On June 4, 1947, Flight 4 was
launched, and tracked as far as Arabela,
New Mexico, only 17 miles from the
location of the debris field on the
Foster ranch. Flight 4 was still aloft
when the batteries tan down, and con-
tact was lost. Brazel reported that he
found the debris on the ranch on June
14, 1947, although most UFO propo-
nents put the time of this discovery as
a few weeks later, in early July. Brazel
didn't take the debris into Roswell until
July 7, 1947, by his own account; this
date is disputed as well.
Recently, Charles Moore has devel-
oped a brand-new line of evidence
even further supporting a link between
the Roswell Incident and
Project
Mogul. UFO researcher Kevin Randle
recently provided Moore with National
Weather Service wind data for early
June 1947. Moore, who has lived and
breathed atmospheric physics most of
his adult life, analyzed this data in
detail. His analysis deals with three
NYU flights: Flight 4 (June 4, 1947),
Flight 5 (June 5), and Flight 6 (June
7). The Weather Service wind data are
compatible with what is called a baro-
clinic weather system moving through
the area. As this "trough aloft" slowly
passes by, the winds aloft will shift
from blowing toward the northeast,
then toward the east, and men toward
the southeast. At very high altitudes,
however, this type of system produces
high-level winds in the upper tropos-
phere at cross directions to those at
lower levels. Furthermore, the prevail-
ing winds in the stratosphere during
more, the debris was strewn along the
ground at a southwest-to-northeast
angle (as reported by Major Jesse
Marcel); this angle is entirely consis-
tent with Moore's analysis.
Charles B. Moore has been repeat-
edly criticized in the UFO literature for
changing some of his earlier statements.
He was interviewed
for
William
Moore's book on the Roswell Incident.
After hearing Bill Moore's description
of the wreckage (including details of
supposed 10-inch furrows running
some
500
feet),
Charlie
Moore
responded by saying: "Based on the
description you gave me, I think that
could not have been our balloon."
Balloon trains like Flight 4 were far too
light to make large furrows in the
ground. The issue is not that Charles
"Moore makes a strong case for the hypothesis
that
NYU Flight # 4 . . . was the source of the debris
Brazel found on the foster ranch, and therefore the
source of the Roswell Incident' Itself."
Roswell, while Flight 6 took a more
southwesterly route. Moore then ex-
tended his analysis to Flight 4, the
Roswell candidate. He used the wind
data for June 4, 1947, and assumed the
flight reached altitudes comparable to
those of die subsequent two flights
(which were made with very similar
balloon trains).
Moore's analysis indicates that after
Flight 4 lifted off from Alamogordo, it
probably ascended while traveling
northeast
(toward
Arabela),
then
turned toward the northwest during its
passage through the stratosphere, and
then descended back to earth in a gen-
erally northeast direction. Moore's cal-
culated balloon path is quite consistent
with a landing at the Foster ranch,
approximately 85 miles northeast of
the Alamogordo launch site and 60
miles northwest of Roswell. Further-
Moore said the wreckage couldn't have
been a balloon—it's that he said his
flights couldn't have plowed the alleged
"furrows." On another note, Moore
and other Mogul participants originally
thought the debris Brazel found must
have been from one of NYU's polyeth-
ylene balloon flights from early July 1947. He held this opinion until just a
couple of years ago. These large, trans-
parent polyethylene balloons were used
for the first time ever in the summer of
1947 and would have looked strange
even to experienced balloon watchers.
However, after seeing the reports and
photographs from 1947 for the first
time, Charles Moore realized that
Flight 4 was a much better candidate
for the Foster ranch debris than a poly-
ethylene balloon. So he has changed his
opinions on the incident, but only
because better data became available.
SKEPTICAL INQUIRE* • JULY/AUGUST 1995
17

FIGURE 3. Atmospheric physi-
cist Charles B. Moore dis-
plays a radar reflector simi-
lar to those carried aloft on
trains of balloons in Project
Mogul
experiments
he
helped launch from Alamo-
gordo Army Air Field in
New Mexico in June and
early July 1947. New York
University Flight #4 carried
three of these reflectors
and before being lost was
tracked to within 17 miles
of the spot where rancher
Mac Brazel later recovered
debris that prompted the
famous "Roswell Incident"
case.
Photos: Dave Thomas
Moore's presentation included fasci-
nating details on the background of
Project Mogul. He noted that die dis-
covery of the acoustic "duct" between
the troposphere and the stratosphere
came about as a result of a World War
II era analysis of globally propagated
18
sound waves produced by die volcanic
explosion of Krakatoa in 1883. In one
of their flights, he said the NYU crew
attempted (without success) to detect
explosions from the British destruction
of German installations on the island
of Helgoland (off the north German
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER • JULY/AUGUST 1995
coast) in April 1948. While UFO pro-
ponents allege a lack of contemporary
references to "Project Mogul Balloon
Flights," Moore says the project was so
compartmentalized that such refer-
ences simply may not exist. Any men-
tion of these flights will instead be
labeled as NYU constant-level balloon
research.
Several UFO authors claim that the
wreckage, and possibly alien bodies as
well, were secretly flown to Wright Field
in Dayton, Ohio for analysis. By coinci-
dence, Moore says he and the rest of the
NYU balloon crew stayed over at
Wright Field the evening of July 8,
1947, en route back to New Jersey, just
as the Roswell story was breaking.
Moore says they first learned of the inci-
dent while in Dayton, and figured that
it was probably caused by one of their
recent polyethylene balloon flights.
The September 1994 Air Force
report indicates that the Brazel debris
also made its way to Wright Field.
During an Air Force interview of
Mogul participant Colonel Albert C.
Trakowski, he recalled a July 1947 tele
phone call from Colonel Marcellus
Duffy, who was stationed at Wright
Field and was intimately knowledge-
able about both Project Mogul and
military weather equipment.
Duffy
told Trakowski that a fellow from New
Mexico came to Dayton, woke him up
in the middle of the night, and showed
him the debris. Colonel Duffy told the
fellow, "It looks like some of die stuff
you've been launching at Alamogordo."
What is the bottom line on the
Roswell Incident, NYU, and Project
Mogul? In Moore's words, "When the
wind information is coupled this the
similarities in die debris described by
the eyewitnesses—die balsa sticks, the
'tinfoil,' the tape this pastel, pinkish-
purple flowers, the smoky gray balloon
rubber with a burnt odor, the eyelets,
the tough paper, the four-inch-diame-
ter aluminum pieces and the black
box—to the materials used in our bal-
loon flight trains, it appears to me that
it would be difficult to exclude NYU
Flight 4 as a likely source of the debris
that W W Brazel found on the Foster
ranch in 1947."
•