Monday, October 27, 2008

More Bad News for Mogul

As I have mentioned before, Robert Hastings has given us UFOs and Nukes and it has provided some very interesting information about the state of UFO research and what the government might know about it. I don’t think he realized by doing that he has also dealt another blow to the Project Mogul explanation for the Roswell recovered debris.

Mogul, for those of you who might have been living in a vacuum this last decade or so is the preferred explanation of the skeptics, the debunkers, the Air Force, much of science and more than a few people who would rather let someone else do their thinking. Mogul was an attempt to put an array of weather balloons, radar reflectors and some microphones into the atmosphere at a constant level so that we could spy on Soviet attempts to detonate an atomic bomb.

So, what does Hastings tell us that affects this? According to him, "In September 1947, Army Chief of Staff General Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the Army Air Corps [actually the Army Air Forces] to undertake the Constant Phoenix program, an ongoing series of long-distant flights designed to detect atomic explosions ‘anywhere in the world.’ This high-priority activity was continued by the newly-created U.S. Air Force and, on September 3, 1949, radiation sensors aborad a USAF B-29 flying between Alaska and Japan confirmed the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb - some five years earlier than expected."

What this tells us is that within weeks of the Roswell events, the Army Air Forces were directed to use aircraft in their surveillance of the Soviet Union’s atomic progress and that balloons did not figure into it. Mogul was of no real interest to the military at that point, which might explain why it was compromised by the military in July 1947. Any spying on the Soviet Union would be accomplished by aircraft that could maintain their flight levels for hours on end, which weren’t directed by the wind, and which could carry human observers who could make additional observations. And, as we learned, were not required to penetrate Soviet airspace so there would be no debris lying around for the Soviets to exploit.

Those who struggle to convince us that Mogul was so secret, so important, that finding an array by Mack Brazel had to be covered up to protect the project fail to explain why pictures of Mogul arrays were printed in July 10 issues of various newspapers. They fail to convince us the project name was unknown to the members of the Mogul team as the Air Force’s own investigation proved. And now we learn that plans had been in the works to use aircraft for surveillance before the Mogul launches in New Mexico, and that Army Air Force missions were implemented within weeks of the Roswell discovery.

We can argue about what really fell at Roswell. We can argue about the efforts to recovery it and to hide it but we can now lay to rest the idea that Project Mogul was responsible. Clearly the effort made to keep the secret would not have been made had it been Mogul balloons. We know this because other arrays, that fell in other parts of New Mexico, were left to rot in the sun if recovery was deemed too difficult.

Mogul fails on so many counts. It wasn’t the secret that we have been led to believe it was. There was nothing mysterious about its make-up and the balloons and radar targets were off the shelf items. The officers, pilots, and soldiers at Roswell wouldn’t have been fooled by the debris and, in fact, had been warned by the Mogul team that the flights would be made. And once the events at Roswell began to unfold, Mogul ended up on the front pages of many newspapers complete with pictures of the balloons and some of those who launched them.

This last bit if information, courtesy of Robert Hastings will, I hope, put an end to the idea that Mogul accounts for the Roswell debris. Let’s move on to something else, something that makes sense. Let’s put Mogul back in the bag.

For those interested in more of what Robert Hastings has reported, you can only order UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites at: ufohastings.com

14 comments:

RRRGroup said...

Kevin:

While Mogul doesn't begin to explain the Roswell incident, it does seem to factor into it.

The Mogul debris has too many facets that correspond to some of the witness statements to be dismissed out of hand.

But as you continue to note, there's more to the story -- much more.

RR

starman said...

Any coorespondence must be coincidence, since none of that stuff was on the Foster ranch.

cda said...

Kevin: Your latest writings (from Robert Hastings) do not further either the anti-Mogul explanation or the pro-ET solution. Why should the fact that the AF had a manned aircraft program to detect Soviet nuclear tests rule out a similar program by unmanned balloons? This is like saying there were no secret skyhook photo recce balloons sent over Russia because we know Gary Powers, and others, flew
U-2 spyplanes over Russia. One method of spying does not exclude another, as you must know full well.

You want to discredit the Mogul answer because in doing so it makes your own ET answer slightly more likely. Very very slightly I would say. The reason you favor ET is because a small number of first-hand witnesses (and a much larger number of 2nd-hand or 3rd-hand ones) have told you decades afterwards that they saw an ET craft and bodies. None of these, not one, had or has any idea of what an ET craft looks like, have they? (Apart from their knowledge of SF). Mogul can never explain everything, nor does it have to. People can always poke holes in it. They can poke far far bigger holes in the ET answer. And no, again, the personnel at Roswell were NOT fooled by what they saw and recovered. They merely forwarded the stuff to 'higher HQ' as requested by those at a higher level, even after being perhaps 80-90% certain of its identity.

As for secrecy surrounding Mogul, I thought the tests carried out in NM were not the real Mogul tests, but preliminary flights which did not possess the same level of secrecy (and possibly none at all). How secret can anything like this really be anyway? Once a thing such as a balloon, plane or rocket is launched, the risk of it going off course and crashing is always there. Nothing that flies around can be totally safe from public discovery, can it?

Jerry Clark said...

I appreciate your continuing documentation of the futility and silliness of the Mogul cult, but its members are impervious to rational argument by now, sorry to say.

Being an agnostic myself, I have no dog in the race, but I do enjoy the howling of those losing the Mogul contest. You'd think that by now they'd give up and try to do something productive, such as search for a less intelligence-insulting -- dare I also suggest credible? -- counter-explanation. I for one would like to hear one. I'm sure it would be fascinating and revelatory. It might even alleviate Christopher Allan's intellect-paralyzing fear of alien bodies.

For a few moments, it looked as if Nick Redfern had stumbled upon an interesting approach, but that proved just one more dead end. In any event, Mogul, as the kids say, is so over. One would hope that the debate would go beyond it, but I harbor little optimism in that regard, I fear. Too many people have too much invested in Mogul at this stage.

Bob Koford said...

By now it isn't just that there are these witnesses to Roswell, there is a mountain of data from oodles of other similar cases that end up lending their collective Vital information.

I know that the so-called Blue Book documents contain numerous off-hand references to Mogul. It, in fact, seemed that everyone knew of it.

I was surprised to see Moondust mentioned as many times as it was in the same documents. All of these different personnel were aware of a lot of things by the time the Roswell event, and others, occurred.

As mentioned in your last article, there had to be a type of semi-centralized group before 1947, as it is obvious there was more going on than once thought.

There is good historical evidence for the February 1942 incident as well.

cda said...

Mogul is not a cult. It was a real project of the late 1940s. It is the ET idea that is a cult Jerry. No such thing as an ET is known to science (just in case you had forgotten this).
My argument was that Kevin's latest findings did not in any way diminish the Mogul explanation. I simply said that one method of spying on an enemy (i.e. by manned aircraft) does not exclude using another method (by unmanned balloons). And I stick to that statement.
"Intelligence insulting"? Why don't you
realise for once that the most intelligence insulting answer of all is the totally dotty notion that the US authorities have been sitting on the real physical evidence for ETs and keeping it under wraps now for six decades? It is those who propagate this idea who are invariably the biggest opponents of the Mogul answer.
Yes, Nick Redfern had another try and failed, for the same reason. If he were correct, his solution would have been public knowledge long long ago.
So who are the real 'cultists'? Those who say Mogul is very likely the answer or those who propagate the 60-year old conspiracy myth?
By the way, I have just tumbled upon Tim Good's latest book. Oh dear, oh dear.....

KRandle said...

CDA -

None of this matters now because, the truth is, there was no Flight No. 4... Dr. Crary's diary and notes shows there was no Flight No. 4. It was cancelled. All other flights have been accounted for. Crary is clear on the point.

What do you say to that?

cda said...

Indeed the intended flights on June 3 & 4 were cancelled. But the diary shows a flight of some kind did take off early on June 4and was, apparently, not recovered. I am not going to get into all the nitty-gritty of which flight it was: 3, 3A, 4, 4A etc. Neither you nor I knows whether the Mogul logs are complete or whether flights took place that were not logged, what times of day they were or what exactly was launched in each & every flight. All we have is some 50-year old diary notes and one man (Charles Moore's) memories of those far off days. Neither Moore or the USAF claimed that Mogul flight 4 debris was definitely what was found on the ranch. They merely said they thought it quite likely. Nobody can be certain after all this time, least of all myself. The junk described at the time does closely resemble Mogul debris. Some of the stuff described 30-40 years later does, some does not. Agreed, Mogul does not entirely explain the case, but it is a good match. Jerry calls it a 'cult'. How does the Mogul 'cult' rank with the 'conspiracy cult', in your opinion?
I have no qualms about ET visits - they may have occurred several, maybe many, times over mankind's existence. But if they have occurred in recent times (say the last 100 years) I am very positive of one thing - the hard evidence would NOT still be stagnating in official cabinets in Washington or anywhere else as 'above top secret' known only to the chosen few.

KRandle said...

CDA -

Now we're going to toss out the documentation? The diary notes tell us there was no Flight No. 4. More importantly, the NYU records list Flight No. 5 as the first successful flight and the wreckage was recovered.

It really doesn't matter here how old the records are. They are the records that were created at the time and while you might argue that they seem ambiguous, the truth is, Flight No. 4, if there was anything to it, was only the balloons and nothing else. No radar reflectors. No sonobuoys. Just neoprene balloons that degrade rapidly in the sun and would have been little more than powered black debris by the beginning of July 1947...

Which begs the question... Just where did Ramey get that balloon he displayed because it certainly didn't come from New Mexico, but I digress.

So, I don't understand why you reject this documentation. It is confirmed through other records. The winds aloft data used to put a balloon array near the Brazel (Foster) ranch can be interpreted in various ways but the real point is, even if you use the best interpretation, you're still 17 miles short... and you really don't have an array in the right time frame anyway.

What this means is that Mogul doesn't answer the question, just as an errant rocket from White Sands didn't answer it, a crash of a test or experimental aircraft, of an N9M or XB-35, didn't answer the question. Mogul is the last of a long line of failed explanations.

And remember, Moore said, more than once, if there was a gouge in the terrain, then the balloons were not the culprits.

Anonymous said...

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I would like to add your url to my favorites, if you approve.
http://midwestufo.blogspot.com/

thanks,
Erica

Sarge said...

The last best hope for the sceptics is that time will silence those that believe that the object was of ET origins.
If they wait long enough we will all die.

starman said...

Sure, we'll die, and be replaced by a new generation even more convinced. The passing of Marcel and others hasn't affected belief. Their testimony will always be there.

Hesiculo Garcia Torranjo said...

I'm writing a book, but in Spanish, and I can say that ufologists do not leave anything good standing in that story. It was all a fraud, a build made by four people, Shandera, Staton, Berlitz and Moore.

cda said...

By 'Staton' do you mean StaNton Friedman? Actually Shandera only entered in 1987 with MJ-12. Prior to that he was a 'nobody', and still is. I hope your credentials are green!