I’ve
grown tired of this NOTAM game but have to wonder why the skeptics just don’t
attempt to answer the question themselves… and why do they demand that I answer
their questions when they continue to ignore mine? What is this double standard
where all things skeptical are accepted without critical thought but anything
that might suggest an answer they don’t like is attacked?
And
remember what Sherlock Holmes said about the dog that didn’t bark… but more on
that later.
Anyway,
take, for example, the Phil Klass diatribe against Bob Jacobs. Jacobs made a
suggestion that he had been involved in a UFO case now known as the Big Sur UFO
Sighting, and in the course of the discussion mentioned a paper about some
aspect of it. He cited it properly, and provided Klass with all the information
needed for Klass to access the paper himself but that’s not what Klass wanted.
He wanted Jacobs to copy the paper and send the copy to him. Jacobs refused
because, according to Jacobs, he didn’t like the tone of Klass’ letter to him.
So, Klass sent a letter to Jacobs’ bosses making all sorts of allegations.
We’ve explored all that before (see this blog on September 11, 2011), but the
point is how Klass seemed to believe that Jacobs owed him the paper.
And
now we have a similar situation about the requirements of NOTAMs for the Mogul
flights. Make no mistake; this flap over NOTAMs is another red herring by the
skeptical side. They demand that I supply them with NOTAMs for Mogul Flights
No. 5 and 6. But it really makes no difference what those NOTAMs might have
said because the issue is the NOTAM for Flight No. 4 and not those for other,
later flights. What did Flight No. 4’s NOTAM say or not say is irrelevant since
there was no NOTAM issued for it.
A
quick review… according to the documentation available, the CAA (which was the
forerunner of the FAA) required a NOTAM, an announcement about the Mogul
flights because these long trains of balloons, rawin radar targets and other
equipment could reach 600 feet long. If these balloon arrays drifted into the
clouds, then aircraft could conceivably fly into them causing an accident.
Flight crews had to know what was out there and the NOTAMs were a way of
telling them that these flying monstrosities were one of those aerial hazards they
might encounter (and yes, I used the word monstrosities on purpose to annoy
some of you).
I
wanted to see what the Mogul team had to say about the balloon arrays and how
they were described in the NOTAMs. I have since learned that these arrays were
not all constructed of the same components, something you wouldn’t know just by
looking at the skeptical arguments (and something that I’ll explore in a later
post). Documentation showed that the arrays sometimes differed from one another
in significant ways and that in some cases there were no rawin targets included
at all. Flight No. 5 had no rawin radar targets, the configuration for Flight
No. 7 had no long string of balloons one above the next but clusters of
balloons and Flight No. 10 (July 5,1947) used a polyethylene balloon as a
lifter rather than the smaller neoprene balloons.
But
I digress…
So,
I spent about a year and a half chasing the NOTAMs, using the Internet,
telephone and the snail mail. I contacted regional offices and the FAA in
Washington, D.C. asking if NOTAMs had been archived at some point and where
that archive might be. I expected to find little or nothing because NOTAMs
aren’t of great historical significance, and the information in them is quite
perishable. They might tell you a runway was closed for repairs or a lighting
system was down at an airport. When the situation changed a new NOTAM would be
issued sort of cancelling the last, or the NOTAM would expire and the document
tossed away.
I
found no repository. The only place I haven’t heard much from is the FAA office
in El Paso where the Mogul NOTAMs were issued, other than to learn they don’t
have anything obvious available. There might be something filed away somewhere,
or at one of the regional airports around El Paso, or more likely, some airport
around Alamogordo might have a file laying around with something in it… though
I doubt it.
So
now that I tire of the game of ignoring the skeptics about this, I reveal the
answer they so patiently have demanded (did you notice the disconnect here, patiently
demanded… can you actually do that?)
Even
though it is a red herring and of no importance, I reveal that I learned there
is no repository and apparently are no records of the NOTAMs for the Mogul
flights.
And
now for the dog that didn’t bark…
How
do I know that there was no NOTAM for Flight No. 4? Charles Moore, in a letter
dated August 10, 1995 and sent to New Mexico Representative Steven Schiff, told
us. He wrote, “Since we launched from just within
the restricted air space associated with the White Sands Proving ground and
expected the balloons to rise high above the civil air space, we did not notify
the CAA in El Paso.”
Now why in the world would Moore
write such a thing as Schiff began his investigation? What would be his
motivation? What does it say about the mythical Flight No. 4?
I’ll let you all ponder that, but I
think the answer is fairly obvious. I’ll simply ask, “Why bring it up at all?”
117 comments:
I'm glad that we all agree now that Moore is a reliable source for information about Mogul Flight 4.
So this "proves" (using the term in the way the that the Roswell myth makers use it, in other words, completely wrong), that Flight 4 does exist and we know that Moore has said that it WAS a fully equipped constant altitude flight so that is "proved" as well.
Great. So now are we back to Rudiak's mathematical gyrations that "prove" that the flight could have come within a few miles of the Foster ranch but somehow could not have ever come to the actual ranch (because wind behaves in exactly the same way all the time as every conspiracy buff knows and it's especially reliable when the wind data is imperfect, incomplete, and imprecise--that's when it works best in conspiracy land!).
Lance
And doesn't the CAA complaint about the project team not filing NOTAMs show that they weren't filing them at all for ANY flight?
In other words, isn't the NOTAM issue valueless in regards to the things you say it proves?
All the skeptics were trying to do was examine your (apparently nonsensical) claim. When you are asked for evidence, you bristle as though your claims about flying saucer myths should just be accepted without any question.
What is the proper procedure for validation used in saucer science? Is your asserting a claim supposed to be the end of it?
Lance
Oh hum...
My apologies to the sceptical contingent. I had misunderstood this NOTAM business it seems ( thinking it was referring to the absence of of NOTAM for flight 4 as being unusual.
Lance ... The wider issue is not the uncertainty of the weather data... You can adjust that as much as you like within physically possible limits, given the data we do have from both weather stations and from Flight 5 . My analysis ( which we have discussed outside this forum) is that the launch time problem and the ascent phase problem are too large in their overall effect ( plus some minor points we needn't bother going into at this stage) to overcome
Anthony,
You'll forgive me for pointing out that what we did was simply ask Kevin, (in light of his claim), if he had the NOTAMs for the other flights. At the time we had no idea that his claim depended some tortured conspiracy logic about a reference that Moore made in a letter (why even look for the NOTAMs if you already had "proof").
While we did this, you simply went directly to accepting the story. But thanks for the admission above!
I have spoken with you about your work on predicting where balloons travel in the wind. There have been several skeptical scenarios that paint a different picture.
Maybe you might look at Tim Printy's work on this topic before you accept lock stock and barrel the claims of the conspiracy theorists.
Lance
thinking it was referring to the absence of of NOTAM for flight 4 as being unusual.
Hello Anthony,
You have not to apology imho, it was what Kevin wanted us to think, intentionnaly or not, in his previous blog entry we commented, and asking an entry for well established flights (#5 and #6).
Now, he is "changing the story", and NOTAM have no entries for Alamorgordo I expedition, including for flight #5 then, as we expected...
All of it for that? That's ufology!
Regards,
Gilles
All -
I knew the debunkers here would not understand what was being said here. There was a requirement for NOTAMs as documented. The NOTAMs do not exist any more. We only know that no NOTAM was filed for Flight No. 4 because Moore mentioned it specifically. Doesn't mean I'm taking Moore's word for it, only that he mentioned, specifically, that none had been filed for Flight No. 4. Just found that interesting.
And, no, it doesn't prove that Flight No. 4, exists, only that Moore, for some reason mentioned this lack of a NOTAM filing.
And no, I don't bristle at the request for evidence, I get annoyed with the demands... which is something different.
And Lance, in an investigation you follow all the leads. It would have been interesting to see just how those NOTAMs were worded... but I have found no repository for them.
Gilles -
I'm not changing the story, merely pointing out that Moore made the comment about the NOTAM for Flight No. 4 not being issued, and the reason that it was not.
Anthony -
This issue wasn't that there are no NOTAM records, but that Moore mentioned this one specifically in his letter to Schiff.
All -
Here might be the problem... this NOTAM thing was not a big issue. I looked for them and didn't find anything, other than the note by Moore, which I found interesting. It was just one point in the piece, but now we are treated to all sorts of accusations about crazy saucer conspiralists. The point that was missed was Moore brought up the failure to make the notification and that should be the question, not all these ancillary issues. Let's just look at one of the trees and make it the issue, when is if there was a Flight No. 4... and is there any evidence that there was... I mean it was cancelled.
I'm not changing the story, merely pointing out that Moore made the comment about the NOTAM for Flight No. 4 not being issued, and the reason that it was not.
Of course you are changing the story. In your previous blog's entry, you wrote "no Flight No. 4 that would have presented a threat to aerial navigation, hence no NOTAM filed for the flight" ;
But the reality is that NOTAM was not issued by NYU/Mogul team for all flights, including the well established flight #5, which you have no entry by NOTAM as we asked you for ;)
You well know that clusters of balloons were launched June 4th and May 29th in Alamogordo ;) There is no good reasons they were not with corner-reflectors (a contrario, they probably embarked radar-targets).
So, they are two good candidats for the Foster Ranch debris.
Your goal, as ETH proponent for the Roswell affair, for long times now, is to make and serve to your followers, as if they never existed, nothing was launched, etc. and they CANT be good candidats because they are not existing.
But they are, and will be...
Gilles
Kevin:
Are your dates correct? You say Moore's letter was written on Aug 10, 1995 "just as Schiff began his investigation". The USAF Report was finished in Sept 1994 and published soon after. The GAO report was issued, I think, in Aug 1995. Did Schiff do any more investigation after Aug 1995?
In any case, surely he BEGAN his enquiries in 1993.
(part 1)
As Kevin says, the NOTAMs never were the main issue. The BIG issue has always been whether there ever was a “flight #4.” It's been proven 100 ways from everywhere USING ACTUAL OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION that the flight was cancelled and there is NO RECORD OF IT ANYWHERE.
So now the debunker game is semantic BS, as recently exemplified by Gilles' and Lance's bogus and disingenuous arguments. Well, so what if it was stated the flights were cancelled for various reasons (e.g. winds) and they removed the the equipment and cut the non-reusable balloons loose? If they called it a "balloon cluster," like mentioned for some real DOCUMENTED flights, that automatically made it a real flight. (Lance’s BS)
Or if after CANCELLING the main research flight they quickly converted it into a simplified "service flight" to try to salvage something for their efforts, by stripping off ALL the other gear but leaving a microphone attached to the balloons strictly to test its reception (as seems to have happened for the cancelled Flights #3 and #4), that makes them real Mogul flights too. (Gilles’ BS spin)
Never mind that these "real flights" of remaining "balloon clusters" plus microphones were no longer constant-altitude flights, having tracking and constant-altitude gear stripped off for later reuse, there was therefore zero flight data on how they performed. (No point in tracking a balloon that couldn't achieve constant-altitude behavior plus the fact that balloon physics says they couldn't go all that far and go off range--therefore no need for a NOTAM, which is what Moore claimed early on and what Kevin's point is really about.)
Never mind because there was zero flight data there was nothing left to record, therefore the BLANKS in the numbered flight sequence and no subsequent mention in project progress reports.
Never mind that the Mogul documents and all official flight histories clearly state that Flight #5 was the FIRST such constant-altitude research balloon with no mention of a "Flight #4" from the previous day.
Never mind that ANY flight that actually left the ground with its constant-altitude gear, even if deemed a total failure, was carefully tracked and recorded as a real Mogul flight, such as #6 (putting another of Gilles' claims on the crap heap, namely flights that didn't achieve constant altitude performance were not recorded permanently in Mogul record, supposedly explaining why #3 & #4 aren't there).
Never mind that Charles Moore insisted that #4 absolutely HAD to be a constant-altitude flight, in fact performed even better than the real #5 (the real FIRST flight), in order to try to get "#4" to the Foster Ranch. (Even then he had to cheat with his numbers to do it.) You see, ONLY a constant-altitude flight could stay up long enough in order to travel far enough to go off-range and reach the ranch. Moore knew this. Yet he also wrote early on, before he developed his fraudulent model, they didn't bother with a NOTAM because they didn't expect this "flight" to go off-range (again meaning Moore was TACITLY admitting it WASN'T a constant-altitude flight). Geniuses like Lance and Gilles don't seem to get the inherent contradiction in Moore's statements and why Kevin has made a (minor) issue of Moore bringing up the non-NOTAM for "flight #4".
Never mind that the USAF debunkers in their 1995 Roswell report also insisted that it had to be a constant altitude flight to explain the various debris that was described.
But wait a second, Mogul records show that ANY constant-altitude flight that actually left the ground with its constant-altitude equipment to make it such a flight was permanently recorded even if it was a failure. But there was no recording of the "constant-altitude" "flight #4" of Moore's and USAF's imagination. How can that be? Gilles and Lance instead play word games to avoid directly address that point as well.
Gilles -
When you quote, use the whole quote so that you don't alter the meaning. I said, "There was no Flight No. 4 to drop debris up on the Foster ranch, no Flight No. 4 that would have presented a threat to aerial navigation, hence no NOTAM filed for the flight, and nothing to indicate that the balloons headed off to the northeast, flying over those distinctively named towns that Charles Moore remembered all those years later to prove that Flight No. 4 not only existed, but had flown off in the proper direction."
In this context, I am arguing that there was no Flight No. 4, not because there was no NOTAM, but because there is no evidence for it. It was cancelled, and if there was no Flight No. 4, then there would be no NOTAM.
You argue that since there is no reecord of NOTAMs for other flights, that none were issued, but that is not a fair conclusion. What you can say is that we have no NOTAMs for those flights, not that they were not issued for any flights. We know that there was a requirement laid down for NOTAMs but we only know that, according to Moore, none was issued for Flight No. 4.
But the issue here is what Moore claimed and what it actually means.
And I turn this around on you... as a long time debunker, it serves your purpose (and the readers of your books) to continue to claim that the non-existent Flight No. 4 drifted all the way to the Foster ranch.
Yes, clusters of balloons were launched, but the question is what was the make-up of those fllights. If you, and the others would bother to do your own research (and in a point that doesn't help me) you'd know that the illustration for Flight No. 2, which was also cancelled, is listed as "Train for Cluster Flight No. 2).
And, actually, the June 4 cluster is not a good candidate because the information suggests that it did not leave the White Sands Proving Grounds... but that is an argument for another time. The point has always been that Flight No. 4 was not responsible.
CDA -
I have gone back to look at the letters again, and the August 10, 1995 date is correct.
All -
The narrative here was that Moore specifically mentioned they didn't file a NOTAM for Flight No. 4. You could deduce that this mention suggests that he knew the requirement and that it was fulfilled for the other flights... or some of the flights.
(part 2)
So it was a constant-altitude flight (Moore, USAF), but it is nowhere to be found in Mogul records even though it HAD to be there if it really was a constant-altitude flight. Again never mind Crary saying there was no flight AGAIN on account of clouds (just like the attempt the morning before). Never mind Moore saying they didn't bother to issue a NOTAM because it wasn't going to go off range (meaning it WASN'T constant-altitude but a test service flight carrying only a sonobuoy like Flight #3, also cancelled, which also explained why neither was recorded). Never mind Moore changing his story after that, well golly gee, it did go off range because Brazel found a Mogul balloon, therefore it now HAD to be a constant-altitude flight, also needed for his later mathematical (phony ) trajectory model. (Never mind while changing his story Moore never bothered to explain why this newly resurrected "constant-altitude" flight was never recorded, as would NECESSARILY have been done like all the others, or why they issued no NOTAM, as he claimed, even though they might have every reason for such a flight to leave the range and be a hazard to navigation.)
Yes, besides the TOTAL ABSENCE OF RECORDS FOR A "FLIGHT #4", there are a slew of internal logical contradictions in the positions of those insisting there HAD to be a "flight #4".
Why this "will to believe" in this phantom balloon flight? Because we are dealing with pseudoskeptics, not real skeptics. Real skeptics would be, well, skeptical of the Mogul theory with the total absence of records and all the logical, self-contradictory absurdities that go with it.
But Brazel described balloon debris, and never mind that he also retracted that at the end, never mind all the people saying he was in military custody at the time (such as the provost marshal Easeley, who you think would know) and was a coerced witness, never mind that he said there was no rigging of any kind for the "balloon" (which again totally contradicts a Mogul constant-altitude balloon), never mind that his description of only "rubber strips" and "flower tape" does not match the photos taken in Fort Worth of the alleged "real debris". Never mind the photos also show, and Gen. Ramey only described a singular balloon/radar target and insisted no other equipment was recovered, again in contradiction to the present-day Mogul theory.
Brazel described balloon debris in a "contemporary" newspaper account. End of story. Right cda? It had to be Mogul Flight #4, never mind it was stated as cancelled and never recorded anywhere.
This is what our resident debunkers tell us over and over again while they ignore the points proving otherwise.
So what is going on here? Gross stupidly? Lack of reading comprehension? An inability to think critically and logically? Psychological denial or religious fanatical adherence to a totally discredited theory because they have nowhere else to go? Deliberate obtuseness because they are all trolls? All or some of the above?
(Notice, I didn't accuse any of these geniuses of being guvmint agents, first, because I don't believe it, and second, then I'm automatically accused of being a "conspiracist". But they'll call me a "conspiracist" anyway, because, as cda will assure everybody, governments NEVER cover up anything, and even if they did, they can NEVER keep a secret, so to say otherwise automatically makes one a "conspiracist". Right cda? The drooling idiots apparently were not confined to the officers at Roswell base.)
DR:
In answer to your rants I put it to you that it is INCONCEIVABLE that the USAF or any other branch of the government has kept the discovery of an ET visit to earth top secret from the science fraternity and the general public for 65 years.
Got it? Even Kevin may get it one day. Possibly.
It is pure fantasy, nothing else.
Never mind about all the supposed other secrets the US have kept. This one is wholly and completely different. But you just cannot, or will not, understand.
Your own impact on the scientific world, on this particular topic, is zero. And that is all it ever will be.
And yes, you ARE a conspiracist, (at least on this particular subject) along with numerous others.
End of story (or rant if you prefer).
[And now for the news of the royal baby...]
CDA -
You last comment was almost enough for me to delete your post... We threw off the yoke of British oppression centuries ago... there is a royal baby?
And yes, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but as I say, "My blog, my rules."
CDA wrote:
"it is INCONCEIVABLE that the USAF or any other branch of the government has kept the discovery of an ET visit to earth top secret from the science fraternity and the general public for 65 years."
This assertion is only your opinion. If true, you cannot demonstrate it. If false, here we are.
On the other hand, some portions of the "scientific fraternity" (by the way, what is that?), may actually be aware of the the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations, but probably believe that they can do nothing about it, and devote their time to the scientific matters they know how to do, and which demand their involvement (e.g mathematics, botany, seismology, etc.)
David Rudiak wrote:
"So what is going on here? Gross stupidly? Lack of reading comprehension? An inability to think critically and logically? Psychological denial or religious fanatical adherence to a totally discredited theory because they have nowhere else to go? Deliberate obtuseness because they are all trolls? All or some of the above?"
David, your frustration appears quite understandable! You have summed things up quite well and while I don't agree with the ET argument (on the balance of probabilities) MOGUL simply does not work which I'm sure that cda, Lance and Gillies can clearly see.
Guys.... this is not a debate an argument or a "conspiracy" - it is an "investigation" do you understand that now cda, Lance and Gillies??
Lance - I will give you the benefit of the doubt, unlike cda who clearly knows "nothing about nothing" judging from his more recent posts...
If Mogul goes down, along with any other sort of ridiculous balloon explanation, what are we left with - bet you won't answer the question, although you did criticise Kevin for talking so long to answer your earlier queries about the NOTAMS.
I think he could of, regardless of his "do your own research" argument... so can you answer my seven question yes or no answer test now?
Your argument for not answering is is just a "cop out" as we all know.
CDA also wrote:
DR:
In answer to your rants I put it to you that it is INCONCEIVABLE that the USAF or any other branch of the government has kept the discovery of an ET visit to earth top secret from the science fraternity and the general public for 65 years.
Got it? Even Kevin may get it one day. Possibly.
It is pure fantasy, nothing else"
CDA, do you actually read what other people post on this blog?
Anthony Mugan wrote...
"It is indeed time that a very clear and concerted message was given that the Mogul hypothesis is completely, quantitatively, untenable. It is important to note that this does not, of course, establish an extraterrestrial origin for the material recovered. The descriptions of the material recovered then does, however, become consistent with the conclusion that the debris wasn't from a Mogul flight."
CDA, you should read this at least a dozen times until you have it memorised, and only then will you make any progress. You also need to memorise this...
Starman said...
"Ruling out Mogul may not itself establish an ET origin for the material, but with all prosaic explanations now eliminated, what alternative is there now? I don't think the skeptics would've clung to Mogul as long as they did if there was a better earthly explanation, of any kind."
Once again, thank you Kevin, really enjoy reading your blog and again I'm very skeptical of course but accept that the MOGUL theory just doesn't work.
Kevin wrote: "Since we launched from just within the restricted air space associated with the White Sands Proving ground and expected the balloons to rise high above the civil air space, we did not notify the CAA in El Paso."
Kevin, I dont understand really why you use this Moore's statment. Maybe to say to us, it prooves Flight#4 remained in the White Sand Proving ground? Maybe a bad understanding due to my English?
But you well know Flight #5 was recovered some 25 miles East of Roswell, then not in this WSP ground. Did the CAA been notify? That's why we asked you to provide it to justify your reasonning...
Regards,
Gilles
Kevin wrote : you'd know that the illustration for Flight No. 2, which was also cancelled, is listed as "Train for Cluster Flight No. 2).
IF flight #2 was the one of April the 18th, it was first cancelled, this day. But the NYU source (Special Report n°1, p.27) wrote a new attempt is scheduled May the 8th.
In Crary Personnal Journal, at this entry, you have in B&W that a cluster flew. The B29 have a problem, then no dataes, then not in NYU table and Progress Record...
But you continue to state it was canceled, despite it is right only for the 18th April, not the 8th may...
Nitram Ang:
This is a Mogul debate, primarily. But peripheral things come up also, unavoidably.
You talk about the "ridiculous balloon explanation". I am sorry, but ALL (yes every one) of the contemporary descriptions of the debris, including the six photos, describes or depicts balloon-like debris.
Therefore I ask you: on what grounds do you declare the balloon explanation "ridiculous"? What was being described at the time?
It is true that neither Anthony Mugan nor Starman declares that the debris was from an ET craft, but oh boy they come pretty close to this. The former seems reluctant to state his beliefs, but both come more or less to the ET answer purely by a process of elimination - i.e. nothing terrestrial solves the conundrum (so they say), therefore the only thing left is ET.
The problem here is that how do you know you have eliminated all other answers?
Mogul is certainly in dispute. Equally it is NOT disproved (and probably never will be because we do not have complete or even sufficient data - a lot is conjecture).
Please quote your 7 questions again, since they are back in history a bit, and I'll try and answer them, if Kevin will allow.
As to ETH, every one of the current Dream Team, bar one, is an ETHer. That is why my remarks are mainly directed at them.
cda wrote:
"...both come more or less to the ET answer purely by a process of elimination."
"Purely"? I very much doubt KDR or anyone else would suggest ET if the material described was mundane, even if an earthly source were unknown.
"The problem here is that how do you know you have eliminated all other answers?"
Over the years there have been a plethora of skeptic theories--V rockets, a flying wing or balloon bomb, Japanese POWs even kids were progeria...lol.
Nitram Ang wrote:
"...it is INCONCEIVABLE that the USAF or any other branch of the government has kept the discovery of an ET visit to earth top secret from the science fraternity and the general public for 65 years."
They kept ULTRA secret for 30 years even though there was little real reason to do so after WWII was won. The motivation to keep ET secret could be much stronger, based on an assessment of the consequences of disclosure, which could be quite grave. Btw if mogul doesn't work, and there's no alternative earthly explanation, what's the answer then--the holy ghost or something? :)
Starman, the following quote/sweeping statement :
"...it is INCONCEIVABLE that the USAF or any other branch of the government has kept the discovery of an ET visit to earth top secret from the science fraternity and the general public for 65 years."
Is authored by cda and not me.
Regards
Nitram
Starman wrote
"They kept ULTRA secret for 30 years even though there was little real reason to do so after WWII was won. The motivation to keep ET secret could be much stronger, based on an assessment of the consequences of disclosure, which could be quite grave. Btw if mogul doesn't work, and there's no alternative earthly explanation, what's the answer then--the holy ghost or something? :)"
Good point. But could it be a time traveler perhaps?!
Kevin asked:
“Now why in the world would Moore write such a thing as Schiff began his investigation? What would be his motivation? What does it say about the mythical Flight No. 4? “
I would assume that Moore was trying to build the case that a wayward NYU balloon was responsible for the debris field on the Brazel ranch and anticipating that he would have to come up with some NYU flight that was unaccounted for. So he was pre-empting the objection that all Mogul flights would have been accounted for because each one would have had a NOTAM connected to it. If his claim (that the NYU team was not informing the CAA of its launches in May-June) is correct then I see nothing wrong with his statement.
Logically, Moore’s statement says nothing one way or another about what was launched on June 4. If, as Crary’s diary says, it was a bunch of balloons carrying a simple sonobouy, they would not have to have informed the CAA of the launch even if it HAD been inside civilian airspace, because it would not have been above the weight threshold that would legally trigger that action. If Moore was right, and the balloon train on June 4 was identical to the balloon train on June 5, then they would not have informed the CAA because they calculated that it would not have intruded into civilain airspace. Either way, they would not have notified the CAA.
Of course, taking Moore’s word for it that the NYU team routinely did not inform the CAA about their flights in May-June is not the same as discovering documentary proof of that practice. However, my reading of the correspondence between the CAA and the NYU balloon project included in the appendices to “Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” indicates that the NYU team corresponded with the CAA and obtained permission to fly their balloons through civilian airspace for their first campaign in the spring of 1947, when they were located on the East Coast. Similarly, there is correspondence starting in August with the CAA office in Fort Worth, which seems to have been instigated when the CAA became aware that the NYU balloons were going considerably beyond the White Sands restricted airspace. That’s when they issued instructions to NYU regarding how such events would be handled in the future. During June, the period of interest to Roswell Event researchers, there appeared to be no particular agreement in place between NYU and the CAA. If that’s true, then Moore’s statement would presumably have applied to ANY balloon configuration flown during their first New Mexico balloon campaign in May-June, of 1947. That would include, but not be limited to whatever balloon configuration was released on June 4.
Lance wrote:
“And doesn't the CAA complaint about the project team not filing NOTAMs show that they weren't filing them at all for ANY flight? “
I think so, at least up until about September of 1947; see above.
And no, the fact that Moore remembered that fact right does not mean that he remembered every fact about the June 4 flight correctly (or incorrectly, for that matter). There are good psychological reasons for this that I won’t go into at the moment.
Gilles AGAIN cluelessly writes:
IF flight #2 was the one of April the 18th, it was first cancelled, this day. But the NYU source (Special Report n°1, p.27) wrote a new attempt is scheduled May the 8th. In Crary Personnal Journal, at this entry, you have in B&W that a cluster flew. The B29 have a problem, then no dataes, then not in NYU table and Progress Record...
But you continue to state it was canceled, despite it is right only for the 18th April, not the 8th may...
Groan! Here we go again in another saga of "Gilles just refuses to get it."
Well "a cluster flew" for the April 18 attempt as well, but there it is in B&W that because of high winds and radio reception failure on a chase plane they stripped off all the gear and cut the "cluster" loose, i.e., they couldn't reuse the weather balloons, like the other equipment, so they let them fly away. But balloons flying into the sky do not a Mogul flight make.
So even Gilles is forced to admit that without gear or instruments, even though "a cluster flew", there was no flight that day.
But for May 8, Gilles claims there WAS a flight, even though virtually the identical thing happened. The winds were bad and almost all the gear was stripped off. (I say "almost", because they seem to have left a microphone attached to the cut-loose "cluster" to detect bombs being dropped on the ground--the B29 part. They were testing a specific piece of equipment, the microphone, but the constant-altitude part was over.)
What Gilles AGAIN deliberately omits fromCrary's diary for the May 8 attempt:
"Scheduled balloon flight this morning at 730... Trouble with winds and instruments did not go up..."
"Instruments did not go up" means the constant-altitude flight was cancelled, just like the one on April 18, because of wind problems.
What's so hard to understand about that? Constant-altitude over, kaput, just like for April 18, where the project summary was specific about them stripping off all the equipment for recycling and cutting the balloons loose.
AGAIN, the reason the May 8 and April 18 attempts are not in the flight records is because the constant-altitude gear was stripped off and never got off the ground. No constant-altitude flight, no constant-altitude data (a primary research purpose of these flights), nothing to record on how the cut-loose "cluster" performed.
That this was never recorded has NOTHING to do with a B-29 having problems, which didn't occur until AFTER the constant-altitude flight was already cancelled. The B-29 was merely dropping bombs for microphone pick-up on what was left of this flight attempt. The cut-loose "cluster" sans all other gear probably carried a sonobuoy. In other words, with the wind problems for the larger constant-altitude attempt, the whole thing was quickly reduced to a simplified "service" test flight of the microphone reception, but with everything else left off .
But no constant-altitude component left anymore, no need to track to see if performing properly, no expectation of the flight lasting very long without constant-altitude control (again no need to track). No tracking data, no trajectories, no altitude profiles, etc., nothing to record.
And that is the REAL reason why there is nothing there in the numbered constant-altitude Mogul flight sequence.
I don't know how many times we have to go over this. Gilles repeatedly leaves out the part of the instruments not going up, meaning quite clearly there never was a constant-altitude flight.
I guess Gilles will just go on being deliberately obtuse, quoting out of context, and misrepresenting what happened because he just can't let go to his religious belief in the equally nonexistent and cancelled "Flight #4". Gilles is into psychological explanations but doesn't seem to get that psychological denial afflicts UFO debunkers just as much as any other human being.
Starman wrote:
"They kept ULTRA secret for 30 years even though there was little real reason to do so after WWII was won."
This is off-topic, but I visited Bletchley Park 5 years ago where they cracked the Enigma machine code. The reason they gave for keeping ULTRA secret for all those years (which included breaking up their electro-mechanical computers and the world's first all-electric computer made of vacuum tubes) was that they got much further in their decoding efforts than cracking Enigma, which included being able to read even more-encrypted Soviet codes.
The electronic computer, though probably five or six magnitudes slower than your laptop, was still much faster than the banks of electro-mechanical ones. They liked to brag they could decode German communications in hours instead of days and before Hitler got them. This rapid decoding of German communications was one of the key deciding factors in launching D-Day, since the communications indicated the Germans were totally unaware of the impending invasion plans.
The British were paranoid about Soviet spies learning of their advanced cryptography program and finding out what electronic equipment they used to decode. Thus they broke it up and kept it all secret for decades.
Using some surviving electronic schematics of the electronic computer, a retired electrical engineer had reconstructed a working version of that computer, which he was running for the tourists. (If you have old vacuum tubes you don't want to throw away, send them there. They're scarce.)
Fascinating stuff if you are ever in England and can get there.
Starman's key point remains valid. Lots of stuff remains classified for decades or is never declassified because it is too sensitive or dangerous to do so, including nuclear weapons' secrets and cryptographic ones.
Nitram Ang (alias GNA Martin):
I am waiting for you to list again your 7 questions.
As to Starman and DR telling us about the ULTRA, and other, secrets that were kept for 30 years, do either of them really think this secret is in any way comparable to knowledge about intelligent life on other planets visiting the earth?
Are these two suggesting that because strictly controlled military information was kept under wraps for several decades, that the most important scientific discovery ever made about our solar system and/or universe would be, or could be, also (and still is, after over six decades)?
A preposterous notion.
Yes we are way off topic, but if DR can bring up the matter of Bletchley Park I can surely bring up ET visits to earth, which seems to be what the Roswell Dream Team is obsessed with.
And I am still waiting for those who resolutely refuse to accept the balloon/radar reflector answer to Roswell (with or without Mogul) to tell us what the debris described at the time, and depicted in the 6 photos, actually was. Preferably without invoking conspiracy theory, another concept the DT are obsessed with.
Any ideas, anyone?
cda wrote:
"...do either of them really think this secret was in any way comparable to knowledge about intelligent life on other planets visiting the earth?"
HELL NO!!! If ULTRA were compromised, the result would've been loss of a military advantage, which probably would've prolonged the war. If ET is revealed, however, the result could be to turn all of society upside down!! There's a big difference between this kind of scientific knowledge and most others. It's far from academic; it might in fact be the ultimate nemesis of the status quo. If ever there was an incentive to keep something secret, this is it.
cda again cluelessly writes: (part 1 of 2)
And I am still waiting for those who resolutely refuse to accept the balloon/radar reflector answer to Roswell (with or without Mogul) to tell us what the debris described at the time, and depicted in the 6 photos, actually was. Preferably without invoking conspiracy theory, another concept the DT are obsessed with.
CDA, as you've been answered many times before, 99% of people recognize that there is nothing more than a single weather balloon and torn-up radar target in the Ramey Fort Worth photos. In fact, this was exactly what Ramey and his henchmen kept describing, as in the FBI telegram: a singular radar target that was suspended from a singular balloon.
And as you should very well know by now, since it has been discussed about 10,000 times, what is disputed is whether this is what was really found at the Brazel ranch.
Despite Lance's protestations that Marcel confirmed that is what was brought there, Marcel was asked if what was in the photos is what he found. In the case of Berlitz/Moore, this was done in a phone interview where no photos where available for Marcel to look at that B/M were referencing. (Remember, this was 30+ years after the event.)
However, as Kevin as noted here in the past, when reporter Johnny Mann actually showed Marcel the photos in B/M's "Roswell Incident" and said, "Jess, I gotta tell ya, that looks like a weather balloon," Marcel replied, "That’s not the stuff I found."
Likewise, when Linda Corley interviewed Marcel and showed him the photos, Marcel said those were "staged" and not what he found at the ranch, which was material with very different properties. Besides being extremely tough, some have shape-memory properties, one thin metal-like "foil" material definitely could not have come from a balloon since he said he could blow through it.
Marcel added that they weren't stupid enough to leave the real stuff out for press photos and had it hidden from sight when they took the weather balloon photos. So it was still in the room, but not visible.
Brig. General Dubose, who was there and in two of the photos, confirmed that the weather balloon in the photos was just a cover story to get rid of the press.
So one possibility is that the public press FW photos were not the only ones taken. Ramey was in dress uniform, and SOP, assuming other more exotic debris was found and brought to him, would have been to take INTERNAL, CLASSIFIED photos of Ramey and Marcel with the real debris for documentation and historical purposes. That could also have happened at Roswell. That would explain the two occasions where Marcel, not having weather balloon photos shown to him, might state the "photos" (the internal, classified ones) were the real debris.
As usual, cda takes a cartoon view of the world where the military/government can't keep secrets and never issue cover stories to hide something, ignoring real history where cover-ups are dirt common. The top-secret CIA A-12 spy plane crash in 1963 out of Area 51 came with a cover story that it was really an F-105 operating out of Nellis AFB and Wright Field. They also initially lied about the name of the pilot. The infamous 1960 CIA U2 spy plane shoot-down by the Soviets came with the cover story that it was a NASA weather plane conducting high-altitude research and the plane drifted off-course when the pilot passed out from oxygen deprivation. They even repainted a U2 at Edwards AFB with a NASA logo and wheeled it out for the press. NASA issued false transcripts of the pilot's last words before "passing out". But since the Soviets had both the plane with cameras and the live pilot, the cover story collapsed in a few days.
Response cda (2 of 2)
But to point this out makes one a "conspiracist" in cda FantasyLand where such things can't happen. No, proclaims the all-knowing cda, it simply was not possible for a shill weather balloon to have been brought in for the photo op to cover up what was really found. But in the REAL world, it would have been incredibly easy to do just that, easier than repainting a U-2 and issuing false transcripts.
What cda refuses to respond to are the obvious major holes in the 1947 weather balloon story, such as Ramey's gaffe that the foil box-kite object would have been 25 feet across if reconstructed, Marcel's quoted gaffe of the debris being scattered over a "square mile" (amazing what a singular balloon/target can do), the fact that none of Brazel's "rubber strips" show up in the photos (only an intact balloon) and none of Brazel's "flower tape", which even the AF went looking for and couldn't find in 1994 using an unnamed government photoanalysis lab.
And there are many other problems, the serious disagreements in what was found and what was done in quoted statements of Brazel, Marcel, and Wilcox, the fact that Brazel disavowed that he had found any sort of weather observation device at the end of his interview (when that was EXACTLY what was shown in the photos), and I think my favorite, Brazel's disavowal of finding any sort of rigging that supposedly connected his foil/sticks to "balloon" he at first "surmised" from the "rubber strips" held it up.
But a Mogul, or even a regular singular weather balloon, would necessarily have balloon rigging still connected to the components (hundreds of yards of it in the case of a Mogul). Where did it go?
So the balloon cover story plus photos in 1947 were riddled with inconsistencies that the debunkers still refuse to address, because you really can't. The explanation for the inconsistencies is really pretty simple. The balloon debris photographed and described in Fort Worth was not what was found, nor even what Brazel initially described when he was in military custody. Brazel was probably shown something else and told to describe that when taken to his interview at the Roswell Daily Record. That is no more "conspiratorial" than the CIA repainting that U-2 with the NASA logo or saying that an F-105 crashed instead of a top-secret spy plane.
CDA's whole argument is based on the assumption that what is in the photos or what Brazel described was NECESSARILY what was found, but there is no chain of evidence showing this to be the case. The serious inconsistencies, in fact, indicate exactly the opposite. Perhaps cda can point to something in the photos that clearly link it to a Mogul, like a sonobuoy, constant-altitude equipment, etc. Hmmm, nothing like that, in fact NOBODY mentioned anything like that, including Brazel's missing rigging, also missing in the photos. Ramey specifically denied ANY instrumentation of any kind being found. And being "contemporary", we must accept EVERYTHING being quoted back then as being true, another cda assumption.
David,
You missed mentioning yet one other time that Marcel said that the stuff in the photos was the same stuff he picked up...how did that happen, you are usually so frighteningly verbose?
I realize that you have somehow rationalized this glaring problem into your offbeat worldview (along with your expansive knowledge of neoprene deterioration--could you give us a few paragraphs of that again for old times sake?) but I suspect that even regular folks can see through your gossamer construction of facts, reasonable suppositions, wildly unreasonable suppositions and (as in the case of the neoprene) just made up nonsense.
Lance
cda - here are the 7 questions you requested and they are very easy for any Roswell enthusiast to answer. If your honest with everyone you will answer them all correctly so we await your answers with interest! :
Question 1. Do you consider it strange that the flight 4 or whatever we call it is not properly recorded?
Question 2. Do you consider it strange that calculations provided by intelligent individuals indicate it could not have arrived at the Foster ranch based on their projections?
Question 3. Do you consider it strange that the US Military Officer at the site did not recognize the material for what it was?
Question 4. Do you consider it strange that Cavitt was the ONLY person who recognized it for what it was?
Question 5. Do you consider it strange that Cavitt failed to tell Marcel at the time that he recognized what is was?
Question 6. Do you consider it strange that the Army put out a press release which basically said they had recovered something "extremely unusual" when it was nothing of the sort?
Question 7. Do you consider it strange that shortly afterward they called a press conference saying that they were totally wrong?
Seven yes or no questions - should be easy to number them...provided we don't go of course
Lance wrote :
"Marcel said that the stuff in the photos was the same stuff he picked up..."
Lance - have you not watched the movie... "The Roswell Incident" and before you answer, yes, it is just a "movie" not a "documentary" you should note that Marcel clearly didn't know what the material was he was holding at the ranch and therefore in theory he still didn't know about it until he was given a lesson in education at that press conference!
Lance - remember the movie - "I know what a weather balloon looks like, everybody does".
I will except however if the material recovered on the Foster ranch was the SAME MATERIAL found in Ramey's office AND THEREFORE nothing was swapped then Marcel and his men (with the possible exception of Cavitt) were drooling idiots.
I'm sure it takes quite a bit of time for KR & DR to right the stuff for the blog - instead of jumping in to try and correct them, I politely suggest you take a bit more time - Mogul is going down but it doesn't have to prove what the answer is.
Lance wrote:
You missed mentioning yet one other time that Marcel said that the stuff in the photos was the same stuff he picked up...how did that happen, you are usually so frighteningly verbose?
How do you know for sure the now known public photos were the ones Marcel was referencing? SOP would have been to take internal military photos of the "flying disc" before the press was called in. Could have simply been understandable confusion on Marcel's part 30+ years later, mixing up two photo sessions.
When I asked Irving Newton, the weather officer in one of the photos, what time of day it was, when his shift was (his wife remembered), how many press people were there, how long he was there, who the colonel was who briefed him ahead of time, who the men were whom he worked with in the operations/weather office, how far he was from Ramey's office when he was called, etc., he couldn't remember, though he remembered other details. Point is, we can remember the general event but only certain details may stand out in our minds, especially years later.
When the question was put to Marcel when he was actually being shown the public photos, he always denied that was what he found and that those public press photos were "staged".
It's sort of the same question about how anyone can know for sure that the FW photos came from Roswell, since there was no clear chain of evidence, and a lot of contradictory evidence that they did not. All we have is the military's word for it. At worst, the photos do NOT match what one would expect from a Mogul (tiny fraction of the material: only single balloon and radar target, no instrumentation) or what Brazel described (e.g., no "rubber strips", no "flower tape").
The "match" between the photos, Brazel, and Mogul is only at the most superficial level. Any weather balloon/radar target available from many places would match the Fort Worth photo materials. Newton said that in 1947, he told me that and other researchers in the present day. Although a big Roswell flying saucer skeptic, he doesn't believe what he saw was from a Mogul.
Short enough for ya?
David,
Ok thanks--yes that was a good response.
Your suppositions are possible, of course. But they are just suppositions. And you are welcome to create them but you always seem to create scenarios which further your aim of proving Roswell=Space Ship. And at this point your construction of suppositions may be a rather flimsy structure.
You state (as though it was an actual fact) that Marcel didn't have the pictures when he was being interviewed. You don't know that. My mom was in a picture in the newspaper in the 1960's and we still have that. And that wasn't even on the front page. Is it that unreasonable that he might still have his front page nationally noted photo? Or that he might remember the photo that (if Roswell=saucer) showed such earth shattering news and his part in it?
By 1981 seems clear to me that Marcel is spinning stories to appeal to the saucer fans. But he is STILL claiming that the stuff displayed there includes the real stuff and he also is QUITE clear that he is talking about the newspaper photos:
"What you see there is nothing but a piece of brown paper that I put over so that the news media couldn’t get a picture of what I had."
Well, it isn't a piece of brown paper and he doesn't seem to be covering anything but I suppose there could be space foil and saucer sticks behind there. That seems to be a rather tortured supposition, though, just like the many suppositions that need to be made to eliminate the FACT that Marcel said 3 times that the stuff in the pictures is the "real" stuff.
I realize that we argue vehemently but since virtually no one is listening to either of us, I am certainly open to attempting a more effective actual communication. One problem that I see in the way of this is that, to my eye, your responses are too wide-ranging. I suggest that addressing issues one at a time (if they can be addressed) rather than piling on so many facts and suppositions is a more effective way of approaching this.
Lance
Lance wrote to David R:
"I realize that we argue vehemently but since virtually no one is listening to either of us, I am certainly open to attempting a more effective actual communication. One problem that I see in the way of this is that, to my eye, your responses are too wide-ranging. I suggest that addressing issues one at a time (if they can be addressed) rather than piling on so many facts and suppositions is a more effective way of approaching this."
Well Lance, I do read what you write and some of it is very amusing shall we say - although some of what you say does make sense - but the "laughable stuff" that both you and cda come up with from time to time is what I remember best :)
You must have missed my earlier post:
"I'm sure it takes quite a bit of time for KR & DR to write stuff for the blog - instead of jumping in to try and correct them, I politely suggest you take a bit more time - Mogul is going down but it doesn't have to prove what the answer is."
So, tell me Lance - when was the last time you watched "The Roswell Incident"?
No hurry, but look forward to your reply.
Nitram,
What you call "the Roswell Incident" movie is probably in fact "Roswell" (1994)directed by Jeremy Kagan, and with Kyle MacLachlan & Martin Sheen (among others)? I watched it several times^^
If yes, who were the "writters"? Kevin and Don Schmitt... So to use the movie to proove dunno what in your reasonning, is a little circular reasonning... No?
@ Larry,
I "confirm" what you said in your last comment. A friend pointed me too the meeting at Fort Worth, 21 August 1947, paper we can find in the NYU documentation.
It is B&W written that in the first steps in Alamogordo (then June 1947) "no further authorizatiom would be required" to launch the balloons from White Sand Proving ground.
It explains why no NOTAM and takes out the equation Kevin' "argument". It enlights too Moore statment & letter.
I dont expect Kevin will accept it and looking at back-pedalling...
Gilles
Nitram Ang:
My answers to your 7 questions are:
1. No
2. No. The calculations are based on incomplete data and some assumptions.
3. The military officers at the site DID recognize it for what it was, but not with certainty. Maybe it baffled them temporarily but not for long.
4. see answer to 3.
5. Cavitt and Marcel both realised what the debris was, say to 80% certainty, BEFORE the debris even left the ranch.
6. The army did not use the term 'strange'. Yes their press release was hasty and premature, maybe to get a bit of publicity.
7. Not in the least. They had to do this, to correct a false impression, caused by the over-hasty press release at Roswell.
Your questions are thus answered.
DR:
You say in your long rants that the real debris was "still in the room, but not visible". Really?
So not only was Ramey stupid enough to leave his top secret memo still visible to others, but even left some of the top secret debris in the room as well!
This Ramey guy must have been a complete jerk. Oh, and he was a liar as well, if DR is correct about it all. He even lied to the FBI, knowing the debris was not what he described at all.
I suggest to DR that the 25-ft diameter quote he often refers to is a journalistic error. If Ramey did indeed use the phrase "25 feet" he meant the balloon diameter, not the radar reflector size. The press reporter or journalist got it wrong - an easy thing to do in the excitement.
There is no way of telling if Marcel was shown the photograph before he told Moore/Friedman what it showed. He said it showed the real debris, but that the others showed substituted debris! Trouble is that the pics shown in the ROSWELL INCIDENT are severely cropped (deliberately, to obfuscate the issue?) and Marcel conveniently 'forgot' he appeared in two pics not one. The other one depicting Marcel was (deliberately?) omitted from that book.
The whole 'substitute balloon' idea stems from the above. In THE RI book it is just conceivable that a switch was done between the 2 photos shown. Once the full set of uncropped pics were available to the public, via the Randle/Schmitt book and in IUR, it became very obvious that all 6 (or 7) showed exactly the same debris and that it was patently NOT an ET craft. Hence the balloon switch idea HAD to be pursued with vigor and presented as fact, else the ET idea was doomed. The balloon switch was forced upon Randle/Schmit and their followers.
duBose had no consistency in his remarks. See some of the issues of FOCUS that Bill Moore produced on this.
DR and Kevin may not like this idea, but that is how I see it.
DR should remember that we have no way of knowing how much of the debris is shown in those pics. Marcel said lots were still in the B-29, but again, can we trust what he says, 32 years afterwards?
As I keep saying, it all depends on whether you want an ET craft (and thus a grand cover-up & conspiracy for 65 years) or whether you want to take a common sense approach.
Hello CDA
Just to discuss your point that the Flight 4 trajectory models are made with incomplete and uncertain data. Of course they are. All models are made with incomplete and imperfect data to some extent.
In this case Dr Moore felt that he had sufficient data from synoptic charts, weather station data and the reality of what happened to Flight 5 to construct a model of wind speeds and direction that was reasonable - I concur with that. My issue lies in the assumptions around the model that he used.
Take for example the change in launch time to 2.30am from his original estimate of around dawn. We have seen that weather data and Crary's diary are consistent and rule out a launch before around 5am (all this in an imaginary scenario in which a constant level flight was actually released, which it was not, but just to illustrate a point...).
As these flights terminated with balloons bursting due to solar heating around 9.30 this loss of around 2.5 hrs in flight time is quite significant. I shall leave it to you to work out the percentage increase in wind speeds or reductions in ground track distance needed to square this circle (leaving other issues to one side at this stage). Please note that Moore had the synoptic charts available which rather constrain ones options in terms of variations in wind speeds, isobaric curvatures etc etc.
Do you see what I mean?...I can happily accommodate a degree of uncertainty in the model...but this alone introduces a need to change the other variables to accelerate the flight by over 30%...forget it.
Gilles -
You have missed the point. It wasn't that there was no NOTAM for the nonexistent Flight No. 4, it was that Moore felt obligated to mention it at all... the dog that didn't bark.
Oh, and a NOTAM is not an authorization but is information that would be relevant to flight operations. It could be a runway closing, some sort of transitory problme at an airport, military flight operations in a specific area at low altitudes... all sorts of things. The one thing that it is not is an authorization.
Geez, guys....
NOTAM is a bad acronym for 'Notice to Airmen'.... basically hey y'all: heads up!
...cannot you mewling excuses for 'researchers' even TRY to learn smoe basic definitions????
As usual, making up his “facts” as he goes along, cda wrote: (part 1 of 2)
This Ramey guy must have been a complete jerk. Oh, and he was a liar as well, if DR is correct about it all. He even lied to the FBI, knowing the debris was not what he described at all.
Even FBI director Hoover was grousing 2 days later about the Army withholding flying disc data from them (the “La case”). This culminated 2 months later with the infamous toilet seat memo where the Army wanted the FBI to only investigate the nuisance and worst cases, the garbage can lids, toilet seats, i.e. the hoaxes and obvious misidentifications, while keeping the FBI away from the good ones, which the military alone was to deal with. When Hoover learned of this memo, he went ballistic and stopped most FBI cooperation with the Army/Air Force investigating UFO cases.
But cda says Ramey would never lie to the FBI about what they found. Inconceivable! Therefore, it must be so because cda says so.
I suggest to DR that the 25-ft diameter quote he often refers to is a journalistic error. If Ramey did indeed use the phrase "25 feet" he meant the balloon diameter, not the radar reflector size. The press reporter or journalist got it wrong - an easy thing to do in the excitement.
In reality, according to the Washington Post, Ramey was contacted by the AAF Pentagon press office after Gen. Vandenberg personally dropped in to handle things. The quote came from Ramey via the Army, not from some “excited” journalist. Army Air Force PIOs continued to circulate the object size quote to other sources, such as UP, AP, Reuters, and ABC radio news (but now the “boxlike” “tinfoil” “object” being 20-25 feet across “if reconstructed”). See, e.g.:
http://www.roswellproof.com/ABC_News_July8.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/Washington_Post_July9.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/CeylonObserver_July9.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/London_Papers.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/LA_HeraldExpress_July8.html
Apparently, all these journalists were “excited” and misquoted Ramey. In reality, the Army was controlling the information and the media was printing what they were told by AAF spokesmen.
In contrast, the FBI telegram and other Reuters sources, both speaking to Ramey spokesman/intel officer Major Kirton, reported instead that the “hexagonal” object resembling a radar target was suspended from a balloon about 20 feet in diameter.
As I have previously noted here, the balloon in Ramey’s office would have fit in a shoe box (know this because I measured it in a computer 3D reconstruction of scene) and was probably one of the smaller 350 gm weather balloons (12 oz), which were normally inflated to 4 feet diameter, quite adequate to lift the singular radar target in the photos, which weighed less than 350 gm. At maximum altitude when they popped, they might expand to about 10 feet diameter. It would take a much larger rubber balloon, perhaps a 1000 gm one, to survive to 20 feet maximum diameter before bursting. Such a large balloon would normally NOT be used to lift a radar target unless they were trying to get it to extremely high altitude, unlike a normal weather balloon
From these multiple sources, it is very obvious that Ramey/AAF were putting out a story of the size of the thingee retrieved (generally referring to the “box-kite” “tinfoil” “object”) was really 20-25 feet across, not the real 4 feet across of either the radar target or the usual weather balloon that would have lofted it. (But contrarily, Sheriff Wilcox was putting out the story that Brazel said the object was only about 3-4 feet across or about as big as the Sheriff’s safe. As usual, the official story was highly inconsistent. Wilcox also refused to answer further questions about what the object might look like, saying he “was working with those fellows at the base.”)
Response cda (2 of 2)
There is no way of telling if Marcel was shown the photograph before he told Moore/Friedman what it showed.
There certainly is. Marcel himself told Linda Corley that he was interviewed strictly on the telephone by Berlitz/Moore (which, needless to say, back then did not include i-phones with photo transmission capability). The quote in dispute is in their book, not Friedman’s.
He said it showed the real debris, but that the others showed substituted debris! Trouble is that the pics shown in the ROSWELL INCIDENT are severely cropped (deliberately, to obfuscate the issue?) and Marcel conveniently 'forgot' he appeared in two pics not one. The other one depicting Marcel was (deliberately?) omitted from that book.
This was the work of Berlitz/Moore and/or the publishers. What does Marcel have to do with it? Reporter Johnny Mann and Linda Corley both showed him pictures from “The Roswell Incident” and in both instances Marcel said the weather balloon in the photos was NOT what he found and brought from Roswell.
I quoted extensively from the Corley/Marcel interview in a previous Kevin blog on this very issue:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2009/10/roswell-ufo-and-jesse-marcel.html
E.g., referring to the photo of Ramey/Dubose in RI, p. 35, Marcel comments: “ You see this picture right here? (pointing to R/D photo) That's a fake. ...He (Ramey) claimed that it was fragments of a weather balloon. So they took this [photo]. This is part of a weather balloon.”
The whole 'substitute balloon' idea stems from the above. In THE RI book it is just conceivable that a switch was done between the 2 photos shown. Once the full set of uncropped pics were available to the public, via the Randle/Schmitt book and in IUR, it became very obvious that all 6 (or 7) showed exactly the same debris and that it was patently NOT an ET craft.
Mann interviewed Marcel in 1980; Corely in 1981. Both showed him “RI” photos. In both cases, with pictures in front of him, Marcel indicated that they were “faked” or “staged” and not the real stuff. This was well before the first R/S book (1991). (Don’t know which IUR or year cda referring to.)
Hence the balloon switch idea HAD to be pursued with vigor and presented as fact, else the ET idea was doomed. The balloon switch was forced upon Randle/Schmit and their followers.
Marcel said this a decade before R/S: the weather balloon was a fake.
duBose had no consistency in his remarks. See some of the issues of FOCUS that Bill Moore produced on this.
More cda nonsense. Dubose likewise said the balloon was a cover story in an affidavit and MULTIPLE recorded interviews. (Also spoke of a highly secret shipment of wrapped debris to Washington through Fort Worth.) The only inconsistency is when Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera interviewed him, with no recording or notes to verify their detailed “transcript”. Also, as cda well knows, this pair were responsible for promulgating the MJ-12 paper. Also Moore, in 1989, admitting at a MUFON conference, that he was working in cahoots with AFOSI on driving poor Paul Bennewitz crazy. So we know how reliable these characters are.
As for the “inconsistency” in what Dubose said, see affidavit and quotes from multiple interviews at my webpage with Dubose saying pretty much the same thing over and over again:
www.roswellproof.com/dubose.html
cda said
"As I keep saying, it all depends on whether you want an ET craft (and thus a grand cover-up & conspiracy for 65 years) or whether you want to take a common sense approach."
This is really a problem for you cda.
"Common sense" tells us that of course no flying saucer would crash land on the Foster ranch... but we are talking about what is the "truth" - which doesn't always make sense.
Common sense also shows that Mogul don't work - there are so many problems with it - you need to re read everything that Kevin, David, Anthony have written on this blog.
You are right to be skeptical with the ET viewpoint however Mogul is only offered up because there is no other explanation and yes, we do know that balloons exist.
You also state in answer to my question :
"Cavitt and Marcel both realised what the debris was, say to 80% certainty, BEFORE the debris even left the ranch."
How you get 80% I have no idea - they either new what it was or they didn't. Later Cavitt said he new what it was while Marcel said that he had "no idea" what it was... That is strange to say the least.
David Rudiak wrote:
"As for the “inconsistency” in what Dubose said, see affidavit and quotes from multiple interviews at my webpage with Dubose saying pretty much the same thing over and over again"
Unfortunately Dubose appears to have said different things to different people which hasn't helped his testimony - having said that, it still makes the whole thing very strange.
cda wrote:
"Hence the balloon switch idea HAD to be pursued with vigor and presented as fact, else the ET idea was doomed. The balloon switch was forced upon Randle/Schmit and their followers."
I put it too you that the two researchers you refer to would have given up years ago if they believed that the material in the photos had not been switched.
Of course they want to believe it is ET - how exciting. But they of course know, as mentioned before, that they/we need to "determine" the truth not "define" it.
Nitram Ang -
Before you go much further with the DuBose statements, please read my posting on July 15, 2007. It explains that almost all of the contoversy comes from a single source attempting to prove that J. Bond Johnson photographed some of the real debris in Ramey's office.
Another response to cda nonsense:
DR should remember that we have no way of knowing how much of the debris is shown in those pics.
So now cda is invoking his own cover-up and conspiracy theory that Ramey withheld additional common, unclassified balloon debris, for what reason exactly? See below, that if we go by the pictures and contemporary quotes (which cda says we must go by, not later testimony), there never was a helluva lot that could have been withheld.
Marcel said lots were still in the B-29, but again, can we trust what he says, 32 years afterwards?
Obviously not, since cda says such testimony can never be trusted ( unless it supports a balloon theory). So why does he bring it up? To support that not all recovered "balloon debris" was shown by Ramey.
But going strictly by the contemporary news stories, Ramey/minions/weather officer in 1947 said, all that was found was one common weather balloon/radar target (used in many places). Photos show shoe-box size weather balloon and one radar target (actually measured it with 3D reconstruction). That would add up to 1-1/2 pounds or less of weather balloon debris in Ramey photos, not the alleged 2 dozen or so weather balloons and multi-radar targets of the alleged Mogul "flight #4" (that nobody can document as ever existing).
Ramey also said no instrumentation of any kind found with the balloon "fragments". And we must unquestioningly accept everything quoted back then as the absolute truth and not invoke "conspiracy theories" like Ramey withholding debris or information or lying to anybody, like the FBI (who he likewise told the singular weather balloon/radar target story to through a minion).
Brazel interview had Brazel claiming only two small bundles of "rubber strips" and foil/paper/sticks weighing maybe 5 pounds total.
5 pounds of balloon debris would fit in a paper bag. You could fly it to Fort Worth in a piper cub. It wouldn't "half-fill" a B-29 with debris that Marcel said he and Cavitt brought back from the field in two vehicles. Neither Cavitt or Marcel ever described anything like balloon instrumentation of any kind. (The only thing remotely approaching this is Marcel mentioning Cavitt finding a "black box" which the AF claimed was a battery pack from a Mogul. More drooling idiot theory, since Marcel had been a ham radio operator and built his own radio equipment, meaning he could easily recognize any sort of mundane thing like a battery pack).
Even a complete Mogul with all gear would weigh in the neighborhood of only 50-60 pounds (according to documentation). You could fit it all into a few cardboard boxes. Still wouldn't remotely fill half a B-29.
As I keep saying, it all depends on whether you want an ET craft (and thus a grand cover-up & conspiracy for 65 years) or whether you want to take a common sense approach.
"Common sense" means whatever cda believes, which still seems to be a nonexistent, cancelled Mogul flight explaining Roswell, with Ramey carefully withholding additional Mogul debris, which curiously added up to one balloon and radar target.
Simpler "common sense" explanation. They started with one weather balloon and radar target which they claimed was found a Roswell. Thus it adds up to one balloon/target in the photos.
Kevin
Thank you for your article.
While I may not agree with everything you have written (in your numerous blogs and books) I certainly appreciate the time and effort you have put into your work.
I must quote the final few sentences from your blog of 15 July 2007 (although 16 July 2007 in some other parts of the World).
..."a scientific investigation is a search for the truth and not an endorsement of a particular agenda. Here we see what is really going on, and once aware of it, can examine all the information in the light of that knowledge.
And that, really, is what we all should be doing."
In a "perfect World" I guess we would all be like this...
Kevin,
Is the Moore letter to Schiff available somewhere for reference?
Lance
Kevin:
I ask the same. Also why do you say that Moore wrote to Schiff as he "began his investigation"? The date (Aug 10, 1995) is after the USAF and GAO investigations ended and their reports written.
As I said before, Schiff began his inquiries in 1993.
The nitpicking by cda and Lance continues. The NOTAMs are a minor side issue. The MAIN issue is, and has always been, why a fully-rigged and successful Mogul constant-altitude flight (according to Charles Moore, the Air Force and "skeptic" useful idiots afterward) was never recorded in Mogul records and has absolutely no documentation as ever existing, yet could account for the crash at the Foster Ranch.
There is no such constant-altitude flight in Mogul records, period, and the flight the next day (#5) is recorded in Mogul records and official flight histories as the FIRST such flight.
We can also throw in how McAndrew of the AF and Moore tried to redefine the cancelled #4 and the previous two flights (#2 and #3) as "service flights", and this was the reason for no records on these flights. (Which is hilarious, since it is unambiguously clear that #2 was cancelled and never left the ground in any form.) At the same time "#4" remained a constant-altitude flight so McAndrew could claim it explained debris descriptions and Moore could create a totally fraudulent mathematical wind model taking an undocumented constant-altitude flight "exactly" to the Foster Ranch.
So the debunker position is it was simultaneously a simplified "service flight" (so no records) and a much larger constant-altitude flight (which necessarily would have been recorded, as they ALL were). Interesting paradox.
Not the slightest criticism or even nitpicking from Lance or cda or Gilles about this flagrant lying by the AF and Moore to create a constant-altitude balloon flight out of thin air to debunk Roswell.
True critically thinking skeptics would be all over this, which is why cda, Lance, etc. are not true skeptics or critical thinkers, but knee-jerk defenders of the official party line, even if it is a mass of lies. (As usual, the debunker position that any "explanation" will do, even impossible ones, just as long as it isn't--OMG aliens.) They've painted themselves into a corner defending a totally illogical and parodoxical position, which is why they are trying to deflect attention to the very minor NOTAM angle.
The only thing of real note that has come out of this NOTAM discussion was from Larry, who reviewing the Mogul records noted the CAA became concerned about the actual Mogul flights going off-range only after this all happened and demanded NOTAMs on all future flights. This would suggest there were no NOTAMs issued for any of the June/July 1947 flights, real or imaginary. Nonexistent NOTAMs tell us nothing about the nature of the flights. If "#4" was somehow an exception, with all other real constant-altitude flights in the sequence having NOTAMs issued, then this would suggest "#4" was indeed nothing but a stripped-down "service flight" test of a sonobuoy after the planned constant-altitude flight was cancelled because of cloudy weather. They wouldn't expect such a flight to go off-range.
But no NOTAMs for any flight tells us nothing one way or the other, other than the Mogul people weren't being particularly careful with regards to air safety.
David,
You seem to be confused. Kevin made the post we are commenting on and he did previously claim some importance for the NOTAMs (I don't know if he has seen the error of his ways). Once again, you seem to hate anyone asking for references (which I believe is all I did in regards to the Moore letter).
I agree with you that the NOTAM's don't seem to have any value at all in this discussion (but it was a good idea to look into them and I commend Kevin for doing so).
I think we have discussed to death your claims about whether flight 4 was set up for constant level flight. You could be right.
But from our perspective, there is nothing in the record that definitely proves the issue one way or another. Your claims that a few vague words (repeated elsewhere in the diary without having the meaning you contend) are not enough to PROVE your claim.
On the other hand, we have someone who was part of the project suggesting that 4 WAS a constant level flight.
Could Moore have been wrong? Sure.
So while I know the fallback for conspiracy buffs is to say that any disconfirming evidence is a lie or disinformation, most regular folks don't accept this paranoid worldview.
Lance
DR wrote: If "#4" was somehow an exception, with all other real constant-altitude flights in the sequence having NOTAMs issued, then this would suggest "#4" was indeed nothing but a stripped-down "service flight" test of a sonobuoy after the planned constant-altitude flight was cancelled because of cloudy weather. They wouldn't expect such a flight to go off-range.
Do you have a NOTAM for flight #5?
Gilles,
I think David is admitting that they have no NOTAMs for any flight. I think he agrees that NOTAMS are a non-issue.
Please correct me if I am wrong, David.
Lance
Part 1
Lance wrote:
“On the other hand, we have someone [Moore] who was part of the project suggesting that 4 WAS a constant level flight.”
Okay, let’s explore Moore’s conjecture a little further, even though I think the documentary evidence refutes it, strongly.
Moore’s conjecture was that the balloon released on June 4 was identical to the one released on June 5 (Flight #5) and which went into the record books as the first successful constant altitude flight. He also made the conjecture that the hypothetical flight on June 4 functioned perfectly (i.e., every component on the balloon did exactly what it was intended to do).
What I have never seen discussed is the fact that even IF the hypothetical Flight # 4 had functioned exactly like Flight #5, it would NOT have resulted in a balloon-filled debris field containing Rawin targets. The CAA required that all the Mogul flights not create an undue hazard to life and property when the fight terminates and the hardware falls out of the sky. This is supposed to be true of all free flying unmanned balloon flights, regardless of whether a NOTAM was issued or not. The trick was to not have the hardware descend too fast or too slowly. If it came down too fast, it would be a dangerous projectile to life or property on the ground. If it came down too slowly, it would hang around in the air traffic lanes (below about 20,000 ft) and present a collision hazard for airborne aircraft.
Part 2
As discussed in “Technical Report No. 1” of the Constant Level Balloon Project, after the large, 25 ft diameter General Mills balloons made of polyethylene became available late in the summer of 1947, controlled descent was accomplished by burning a hole in the equator of the balloon to release the lift gas. The top half of the deflated balloon acted like a parachute canopy and provided a controlled rate of descent.
However, Flight # 5 was composed of rubber meteorological balloons and those balloons could not be operated in the same way as polyethylene balloons. Therefore, Flight # 5 was fitted with a silk parachute located just below a gunpowder driven “cannon” which would cut the line between all the lifting balloons and all the hardware elements. The cannon was supposed to be fired by a barometric switch when the assembly descended below 20,000 ft. If the components had worked as planned, the hardware elements would have been cut loose at that point to descend on the parachute. The balloon array, now free of a 25+ pound load would have then re-ascended and been carried by the wind far away from the point where the hardware came down. Eventually, the balloons in that string would either burst or slowly leak away their lift gas, and the remaining buoyancy would not be able to support even the weight of the string plus remaining balloon rubber.
The diagram showing the assembly sequence of Flight # 5 (Fig. 31, in the report) shows that there were no Rawin radar targets attached. That’s because it used a radiosonde which allowed more precise tracking. Also, Rawin targets are not load-bearing; that means they are not designed to carry any load except their own weight (a few ounces). So, if Rawin targets had been added but not shown in the diagram, they would have to have been on the very bottom of the array. That would have subjected them to being pelted by the sand ballast and the liquid in the dribbler—another reason they would probably not have been added.
So, if the June 4 flight had happened exactly as Moore conjectured, you would have ended up with a parachute, a radiosonde, a payload (probably a microphone), a pressure switch, an empty sand ballast unit, and the “dribbler” all connected, in that order, with about 80 to 90 feet of lobster twine, somewhere in the New Mexico desert. But no rubber balloons and no Rawin targets. The dribbler would have had attached to it, the standard, “Return to NYU” tag.
Somewhere else in the desert, far, far away, there would be a 500 foot long string of lobster twine connecting what remained of about 20 rubber balloons.
The two locations would undoubtedly be so far away from each other that an observer, happening upon one of them, would have no way of knowing about the existence of the other.
In any case, there is no logical sequence of events in which a well-functioning Mogul balloon flight built to the same specifications as Flight #5 would have resulted in deflated balloon remnants connected together with lobster twine in the same field as Rawin targets.
This is unlike the case of a standard meteorological balloon release such as would have probably been done by, for example, a weather officer at Fort Worth many times in his career. Those kinds of balloon releases always had the Rawin target tied directly to the balloon.
Larry : "Moore’s conjecture was that the balloon released on June 4 was identical to the one released on June 5 (Flight #5)"
Sorry Larry, but in Saler, Ziegler and Him book, Moore wrote (p.84, my edition) :
"In our preparations for these flights, we have planned to use the Flight #2 configuration [..]with the radar-targets in place of a radio-sonde".
Regards,
Gilles
Hi Larry,
Because Moore modeled the flight characteristics for his possible flight trajectory from a certain flight doesn't necessarily mean that he was suggesting that the consist of the flight was exactly the same.
I think he may well have just used some data that was available as a sort of guesstimate. I don't think he reckoned with the minds of conspiracists but was just trying to show that the ranch was not an unreasonable destination.
I think he also knew that guessing where a balloon flight might land is not the exact science that the hard core buffs would like to believe. It is the wind after all (and we don't even have good wind data for the right location). And I believe he knew there was some margin for error.
After all, he actually did this for a living unlike the optometrists and so forth that opine in such a dogmatic way about how everyone is a liar and a fraud and a cheat and an idiot.
Do you happen to know the margin of error in David's work? Is it listed somewhere? Or are we to believe (as he undoubtedly does) that that margin is a conspiracy-laced zero?
Lance
Gilles wrote (1 of 2):
Larry : "Moore’s conjecture was that the balloon released on June 4 was identical to the one released on June 5 (Flight #5)"
Sorry Larry, but in Saler, Ziegler and Him book, Moore wrote (p.84, my edition) :
"In our preparations for these flights, we have planned to use the Flight #2 configuration [..]with the radar-targets in place of a radio-sonde".
Ah yes, those 50-year-old memories that are ALWAYS wrong when they point to something other than a balloon crash (like 99% of them) but ALWAYS right when they support a Mogul explanation.
Thus, Moore now had a clear memory of "flight #4" having radar targets but no radiosonde. (No doubt because the fictional #4 had to have radar targets to explain what Brazel described and what Ramey showed.) This would have made it absolutely unique among all Moguls, ALL of the recorded real Mogul flights carrying radiosondes, one of their major tracking systems. (Gilles will now give Moore's 50-year-old rationalization for this, that they didn't have their automatic recorder with them. But the real flight #5 the next day was tracked by radiosonde, and data could be manually recorded even if they didn't have an automated recorder: #5 (next day) is written as being tracked "100% without recorder", #6 "95% without recorder", #7 "60% without recorder".
But Moore (and Gilles) know with certainty that they couldn't have used a radiosonde sans recorder and had to substitute radar targets instead. Remarkably, there is no further record of radar tracking in the June/July sequence until flight #8 on July 3. None of the other 5 RECORDED flights shows any indication of radar tracking and none are shown in their published engineering schematics.
But based on Moore's 50-year-old memories, there was a "flight #4" and it had radar targets, period, even if there is ZERO record of this anywhere.
Another of Moore's reliable 50-year-old memories (pp. 84-85 Benson/Saler/Moore) was of having "flight #4" being tracked over "exotic" NM locales like "Bluewater", "Arabella", etc. He claimed he had a "distinct memory" of this because these "exotic" N.M. locales were new to him, “but their names have forever afterward been stuck in my memory. This provided the only connection that I have ever had with those places."
But curiously, the real flight #17 3 months later flew directly over these same "exotic" locations and they lost tracking of it in the same Arabella/Capitan Peak area that Moore claimed for the undocumented #4. See:
http://www.roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3666
Now if Moore said they tracked a flying saucer over Capitan Peak, the ever psycho-social debunker Gilles would accuse Moore of lying, senility, witness contamination, misperception, etc. Here, with the missing, undocumented "flight #4" we DO have a classic example of obvious psychological memory confusion, "time compression", "confirmation bias", whatever, confusing it with the real #17, but no doubt Gilles will defend Moore's highly flawed 50-year-old memory to the death.
Response to Gilles (2 of 2)
Larry was quite right that Moore also said that he was modeling "#4" after both the real #5 and #6, saying he assumed "#4" quipment worked even better than the successful #5: "I think that Flight #4 used our best equipment and probably performed as well as or better than Flight #5." (p. 105).
Except, in reality, he treated "#4" on the way up and down as the faulty #6 with damaged altitude-control equipment (which lost lifter-balloon cutoff on the way up and equipment cutoff on the way down), thus rose and fell much faster than #5, thus greatly foreshortened the rise/fall portions of the flight through high wind areas, thus greatly foreshortened the trajectory, else balloon badly overshoots objective.
But in the stratosphere, Moore now has the "even better" than #5 balloon, where he keeps it there for over twice as long as the successful #5, in order to push it a long ways back to the west, else it goes way too far to the east. Overall he has the "#4" flight lasting over 2 hours longer than the "first successful" #5 (according to Mogul records and official flight histories).
So Moore treated it like the damaged #6 on the way up and down, but the wonderfully perfect constant-altitude balloon at the top, all to force-fit a trajectory to the Foster Ranch.
This as-good-or-better-than-#5 would surely have been recorded as the first successful constant-altitude flight instead of #5 if it was real. Right?
Wrong! Absolutely no record of it, an issue Gilles keeps trying to step around with all sorts of absurd theories as to why it wasn't there (like if it wasn't constant-altitude, they wouldn't record it, even though Moore models it as the best constant-altitude flight of all the rubber balloon Moguls, and failed flights like #6 with no constant-altitude flight are there).
But that's Deboonkery!
Response to Gilles (2 of 2)
Larry was quite right that Moore also said that he was modeling "#4" after both the real #5 and #6, saying he assumed "#4" quipment worked even better than the successful #5: "I think that Flight #4 used our best equipment and probably performed as well as or better than Flight #5." (p. 105).
Except, in reality, he treated "#4" on the way up and down as the faulty #6 with damaged altitude-control equipment (which lost lifter-balloon cutoff on the way up and equipment cutoff on the way down), thus rose and fell much faster than #5, thus greatly foreshortened the rise/fall portions of the flight through high wind areas, thus greatly foreshortened the trajectory, else balloon badly overshoots objective.
But in the stratosphere, Moore now has the "even better" than #5 balloon, where he keeps it there for over twice as long as the successful #5, in order to push it a long ways back to the west, else it goes way too far to the east. Overall he has the "#4" flight lasting over 2 hours longer than the "first successful" #5 (according to Mogul records and official flight histories).
So Moore treated it like the damaged #6 on the way up and down, but the wonderfully perfect constant-altitude balloon at the top, all to force-fit a trajectory to the Foster Ranch.
This as-good-or-better-than-#5 would surely have been recorded as the first successful constant-altitude flight instead of #5 if it was real. Right?
Wrong! Absolutely no record of it, an issue Gilles keeps trying to step around with all sorts of absurd theories as to why it wasn't there (like if it wasn't constant-altitude, they wouldn't record it, even though Moore models it as the best constant-altitude flight of all the rubber balloon Moguls, and failed flights like #6 with no constant-altitude flight are there).
But that's Deboonkery!
Lance
In terms of error margins...
Once you strip out the unsupportable 2.30am launch time , and disregarding all other issues for the moment you need to increase the average velocity of the flight by over 30%. The issue is more complicated that even that figure suggests.
If we uniformly increase wind speed it would affect the tropospheric phases of the flight, which would also destroy the model. It would actually be helpful to slightly decrease tropospheric wind speeds from those used by Moore. This puts all the pressure on the stratospheric componenent of the flight path. I think you can see the issue here, even before considering all the various other factors.
It is necessary to pin down general assertions about the variability of winds and assess if it is within the limits of remote possibility to get an (imaginary) flight 4 into roughly the right area. It is not
Mogul or no Mogul, I am still trying to find out if DR really believes Ramey told a lie to the FBI in that teletype about the nature of the debris.
Remember that the FBI was co-operating with the USAF at this point on the flying discs, and the 'toilet seats' memo came several weeks later.
So DR, I repeat my request: Did Ramey tell an outright lie to the FBI (a branch of the government in case you have forgotten) regarding the nature of the debris found at the ranch?
If he did, then he must join all the other liars you insist were invoved in this affair. (To say nothing about the 'drooling idiots')
It would imply Blanchard also lied, and Gen Vandenberg, Gen Spaatz, McAndrew, Weaver, Charles Moore plus countless others too numerous to name, for 65 years.
Plus, presumably, a number of US presidents and their science advisors.
Now DR (with the rest of the Dream Team) can see what real conspiracy theory is all about, and the sheer numbers that have to be involved.
Everything old is new again:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/don-t-be-alarmed-by-the-drone-blimps-hovering-over-d-c-they-re-here-to-stop-cruise-missiles-20130726
...I await a chance to read about the secret NSA-funded Mogul Version 2 balloon crash that traveled back in time to 1947, as the latest explanation.....
cda, seeking to break his previous record of clueless posts, wrote: (1 of 2)
Mogul or no Mogul, I am still trying to find out if DR really believes Ramey told a lie to the FBI in that teletype about the nature of the debris.
Of course he did if it was a Mogul balloon, claiming only a single balloon and radar target was found. Even the Air Force debunkers conceded that, but presented it as a little white lie to protect the sacred secrecy of Mogul.
Remember that the FBI was co-operating with the USAF at this point on the flying discs, and the 'toilet seats' memo came several weeks later.
Several months later, but who's counting? I also mentioned J. Edgar Hoover's memo only 2 days later where his assistant (and secret lover) Clyde Tolsen was recommending cooperation with the Army investigating the saucers. Hoover groused in handwriting on the memo that he would do it, but complained how the Army had already "grabbed" the "La disc" and hadn't let the FBI examine it. Hoover clearly did NOT think the Army was being cooperative with them.
Also remember that the Roswell FBI telegram promised the FBI that they would tell the Cincinnati office the results of their Wright Field examination of the Roswell "disc". The GAO went looking for that promised report in 1994 and couldn't find it. So apparently the Army never told the FBI anything further.
But cda finds it unbelievable that Ramey/Army would lie to the FBI and freeze them out of what they might consider sensitive information. CDA is apparently unaware of the intense rivalries and turf wars that afflict U.S. military and intelligence agencies (one of the things brought up after 9/11 with their lack of sharing of information).
So DR, I repeat my request: Did Ramey tell an outright lie to the FBI (a branch of the government in case you have forgotten) regarding the nature of the debris found at the ranch?
As I already told you before a million times, yes!
If he did, then he must join all the other liars you insist were invoved in this affair. (To say nothing about the 'drooling idiots')
Pentagon spokespeople also repeated Ramey's story that it was nothing but a balloon/radar target, certainly not a multi-balloon/multi-target affair. So yes they participated in the lie, even assuming it was a totally undocumented Mogul balloon.
It would imply Blanchard also lied, and Gen Vandenberg, Gen Spaatz,
Well they lied about other things during WWII in the interest of national security. Why does CDA find it so remarkable they would like in this situation? (Actually, the question about Roswell specifically was never put to either Vandenberg or Spaaz. Blanchard conveniently made himself unavailable for further comment after issuing the flying disc press release. Hmmm, was that release a lie, CDA?)
McAndrew, Weaver,
AFOSI agents, counterintelligence, whose job is to lie and cover up in the interests of national security. Weaver was in charge of security for the SAPs, or black projects. Nope, inconceivable that these guys might lie.
Response to cda (Part 2 of 2)
Charles Moore
Already caught red-handed in a web of lies, such as his Mogul trajectory fraud or altering Mogul maps to try to bolster the Mogul case.
plus countless others too numerous to name, for 65 years.
According to you, anybody (hundreds) whose testimony might point to something else than a Mogul, including OMG--aliens!, is a liar, hoaxer, senile, weak-minded, publicity hounds, etc. But you are totally incredulous that the same could possibly be true of anybody advocating for a balloon crash.
CDA is assuming a vast conspiracy of witnesses and researchers lying to promote a flying saucer theory, but, lord no, he's no "conspiracist".
Plus, presumably, a number of US presidents and their science advisors.
Apparently CDA has never heard of the U-2 incident, Vietnam, Watergate, Monica Lewinsky, Saddam Husseins WMDs, etc., etc. Nope, Presidents would never ever lie to the American public.
Now DR (with the rest of the Dream Team) can see what real conspiracy theory is all about, and the sheer numbers that have to be involved.
Now CDA and the rest of the debunkers can see what a real ignorant knowledge of history looks like, that conspiracies and cover-ups never happen and government officials never ever lie to the public about anything or can keep a secret for more than about 2 minutes.
Lance, CDA -
For the Moore letter, might I suggest that you contact either the estate of Congressman Schiff or that of Professor Moore.
Gilles -
The NOTAMs have been destroyed. I only know that no NOTAM was filed for Flight No. 4 because Moore mentioned that specifically.
Kurt -
Having held a commercial pilot's certificate (license) for four decades, I'm quite aware of what NOTAM meeans.
Lance, Gilles -
You have missed the importance of the no NOTAM for Flight No. 4. It wasn't that it wasn't made, it was the fact that Moore felt the need to mention it at all. Could it be that we might locate NOTAMs and find nothing for Flight No. 4 because he knew the true nature of the flight and that it didn't require a NOTAM because of its structure and the belief that it would not be a hazard to aerial navigation.
Besides, I was looking for the NOTAMs to see how they described the flights and that information is included in the variuos records available to us, including that of Flight No. 5 that had no rawins...
and as we move into other flights, we see that they have reduced the size of the arrays and thereby reducing the hazard of flying them.
Oh, and the important point... Flight No. 4 was cancelled because of the cloud cover... think about that.
Now, I have asked this a number of times but get no answer. Is there any evidence that there was a Mogual Flight No. 4?
Kevin writes:
"For the Moore letter, might I suggest that you contact either the estate of Congressman Schiff or that of Professor Moore."
LOL....
Ok, so you can't provide a reference. Typical UFO "scholarship".
Could you tell me Kevin did you actually see the letter or is this another Nun diary thing where someone told you what was in the letter?
Lance
Kevin:
I can answer your last question. No.
However there is evidence that a flight OF SOME KIND was launched the same morning that flight 4 was cancelled.
Now I shall do what Dr.Rudiak so frequently does to me and others - throws in counter arguments and counter questions:
Is there any hard evidence that an ET craft crashed to earth that day in summer '47?
If not, then why not? You have had 66 years to produce it. Don't you think it is about time you did?
Hello Kevin,
You have missed the importance of the no NOTAM for Flight No. 4. It wasn't that it wasn't made, it was the fact that Moore felt the need to mention it at all.
Haa ok, some Folk's psychology then by your part and your own (of the DreamTeam) : you deduce if Moore say this, then that... Interresting... It could probably seduce "Texas-sharpshooter" David Rudiak, after all, for his sticks and foils Alien spacecraft confirmation.
We are ignore the Alien's "tuning" of their crafts, after all.. ^^
Flight No. 4 was cancelled because of the cloud cover... think about that.
But NYU launched a cluster, to occupe their times, I suppose, because how they were bored. They assembled a balloon design to make something in the night or in the early morning, followed by a B17, plane playing in the cloud cover atmosphere you are depicting this night/morning too to follow it.
Of course, it CANT be the assembly Crary is writting to be ready. Interresting again...
Lance -
I gave you two references. Don't see why you can't do your own research.
Gilles -
So when did the cloud cover burn off because they wouldn't have launched a full array into the clouds... and if they didn't wait, then it was not a full array.
Kevin,
For the meteo dataes I have, El Paso cleared around 2:30 AM. Engle too. Deduce by yourself if Alamogordo was cloudy until 5 AM, or not, and IF the launch, FIRSTLY canceled, was finaly launched (or not)... and "how" to read CPJ at this entry...
But of course, NYU CANT have launched the cluster scheduled this night to be launched... It have NEVER existed ;)
BTW, Dear Kevin if the flight was ready "to Midnight" and Crary in the Tularosa range to play with charges, how the true skeptics you are in the DreamTeam believe NYU will follow the cluster in the dark (with Full Moon I know), ready to launch, if not including radar-targets ?
With theodolite and a B17 following it visualy? Hihi, that's funny!
Regarding the weather conditions the early morning hours of June 4, 1947, I have a summary of the weather reports from surrounding weather stations, straight from Moore's chapters in Benson/Saler, and put them in a table and plotted them on a map.
http://www.roswellproof.com/flight4_trajectory.html#anchor_3596
I doubt any of the KlassKlowns who post here will bother to study this, but it is the usual case of Moore talking out of both sides of his mouth, playing lots of word games. E.g., he claimed that "Flight #4" was launched at "about 3:00 am", then added "about the same time of the day" as Flight #5 the next day. Odd, since it is documented that the real #5 went up at dawn, or 5:17 am, like MOST of the Mogul flights. "About the same time" in MooreDoubleSpeak is over two hours earlier and in complete darkness.
Note that Mogul flights had four means of tracking: visual from ground with theodolites (surveyor telescopes) and in the air from a chase plane, radiosonde triangulation, and occasionally radar tracking using attached radar targets (but only one known, documented instance in six June/July 1947 flights, Flt. #8 on July 3, and none other).
Our "critical thinking" debunkers don't seem to find it odd that Moore was claiming they would launch in complete darkness on their very first flight in N.M. and throw away three of their most used, primary tracking systems-- both visual ground and air and radiosonde--and rely solely on radar tracking, which Moore also claimed, for some reason, hadn't been very reliable. But Moore had to have radar targets to debunk Roswell and he had to greatly extend his flight time with a night launch, else his model wouldn't work even with all the other cheating he did. So night launch sans other tracking systems it was, also contradicting earlier statements by him it would have been dawn, like the other Moguls in the sequence.
Back to the weather. Upwind at Columbus, N.M., 130 miles away, they recorded 40% cloud cover at 11:30 pm July 3. As I note, we would expect with the winds Moore used, it would take roughly 3 hours for this cloud cover to reach Alamogordo, thus about 40% cloud cover at the time Moore claimed they launched their "Flight #4". But this would have been too cloudy. Even at 7:30 am, Alamogordo itself was registering 20% cloud cover, still not ideal launching conditions, but maybe adequate.
Thus Crary's entry of "no flight AGAIN" on account of clouds makes perfect sense when you consider the likely cloud conditions at Alamogordo at dawn. (The attempt the previous morning had been similarly cancelled because of clouds, hence the "again" part.)
In fact, the wind conditions out of the SE to the NW would have been consistent with a low pressure system moving through the area with winds becoming more westerly later in the day (as they did), which typically would be associated with cloudier weather, not the clear weather of a high pressure system.
Prevailing winds in which they actually launched Moguls ALMOST ALWAYS took them into the eastern and southern sectors from Alamogordo, or in the direction of Roswell and beyond, west Texas, northern Mexico, etc., NOT in the direction of the Foster Ranch, which was to the NNE. Maybe 2 or 3 out of four or five dozen went into the northern sector or to the NE. (Maps proving this here:)
http://www.roswellproof.com/Mogul_Crashes.html
The two most notable examples where Flight #10, July 1947 (went N) & #17,Sept. 1947 (went NE), which I think Moore is confusing with the nonexistent #4, since it went in the same direction and was lost in the same place that Moore claimed was ONLY the case for "#4".
The point is, wind conditions that would take a Mogul in the direction of the Foster ranch were quite rare and would usually be associated with something like a low pressure system, with oft-related cloudy weather and stormy conditions, not the sort of conditions you would want to launch in.
Part 1
Lance asked:
“Do you happen to know the margin of error in David's work? Is it listed somewhere? “
No, I don’t, I have not seen it discussed anywhere. But more to the point, I have never seen Moore’s error analysis, either, and Moore is the one making a dispositive claim. So let’s take a look at it.
By my count, Moore had to make up 5 totally ad hoc and unsupported assumptions in order to explain the Foster ranch debris field as an escaped MOGUL balloon.
First, he had to assume that the flight on June 4 had a constant level mechanism on it. If it did not, it could not have possibly made it to the Foster ranch. Of course, the only documentation that has emerged (Crary’s diary) says that it did NOT have a such constant level mechanism on it.
Second, he had to assume that the flight was rigged in the same manner as Flight #2, which had flown about a month earlier, on the East Coast. This, even though it would seem more logical that it should have been rigged like the first recorded successful constant level flight (Flight #5), which flew the very next day. The difference, of course, is that Flight #2 had Rawin targets on it and Flight #5 did not. If it had been rigged like Flight #5, there would have been no Rawin targets to be found.
Third, he had to assume that the “lifter balloons” at the very top of the balloon train failed to separate, as planned. As DR has shown, Moore quietly made that assumption in his calculations, but did not own up to it publicly, for some reason. If they had separated, as planned, the train would have slowed its ascent rate and not been aligned in a way that its path would intercept the Foster ranch.
Fourth, he had to assume that the dribbler mechanism which was responsible for maintaining the constant level portion of the fight, functioned perfectly. If it had not, the balloon train could not have stayed in the stratosphere long enough to descend on the Foster ranch.
Fifth, he had to assume that the cut down mechanism which was supposed to cut the payload loose from the balloons, failed. If it had functioned as it was supposed to, all the balloons would have been separated from the hardware and any Rawin targets present, and it would have been impossible for anyone on the ground to have discovered the Rawin targets AND the balloon remnants in the same field. This would be true regardless of whether the balloon train had been rigged like Flight #2 or Flight #5. Again, as DR has shown, Moore also quietly made that assumption in his calculations, but likewise did not own up to it.
Part 2
Note that all of these 5 golden assumptions are logically binary; they are either true or false. If all of them are true, then there was a chance that meteorological balloons and Rawin targets could have ended up in the same pasture on the Foster ranch. If any one of them is false, then there is essentially no chance that that happened. The kind of error analysis that might be appropriate to this kind of branching logic would consider the probability of each of Moore’s hunches being correct.
Different individuals might evaluate these probabilities differently, but here is my set: The probability that the flight was a constant level flight? no more than 0.1 (1 chance in 10). The probability that the flight was rigged like Flight #2 instead of Flight #5? 0.25 The probability that the lifter balloons would have failed to separate (if they had been present)? 0.25 The probability that the constant level mechanism worked (if it had been present)? 0.75 The probability that the cut down mechanism failed (if it had been present) 0.25.
What is the expectation value that Moore’s explanation is correct? It’s all those probabilities multiplied together, or about 0.0011 (1 part in about 850). My estimate of the probability of his explanation being wrong is therefore slightly more than 99.8%. As I said, everyone can plug their own numbers in and see what they get, but even if each assumption is a 50-50 proposition, the probability of his explanation being correct never rises above about 3%. Moore’s happy horseshit would never have passed peer review.
Larry wrote:
"Of course, the only documentation that has emerged (Crary’s diary) says that it did NOT have a such constant level mechanism on it."
Ok let's stop right there. No it didn't. That is what you guys have now decided to suppose but it isn't a fact. If you can't distinguish between a supposition and a fact, then there's really no point in talking about it.
So I can't continue on to your next straw man.
Lance
Lance:
It is true that Crary's diary does not explicitly say something like: "there was no constant level mechanism on the balloon train".
My statement should have said:
... the only documentation that has emerged (Crary’s diary) IMPLIES that it did NOT have such a constant level mechanism on it." Which I think is a true statement, when you take his diary entry in context with the other entries surrounding it.
But, yes, that is my supposition, or interpretation of the data.
Just as Moore's supposition was that it did have such a device on it.
Larry
I like your approach to the various assumptions, although allocation of p values inevitably a bot arbitrary. It might be worth adding a couple of extra requirements on the ascent plase. Not only do the lifters have to fail to detach at the correct height, they then have to detach to get it to level out in the lower stratosphere ( otherwise it continues to rise until the balloons pop). If it worked correctly there should then have been a small fall in altitude before ballast release created a small rise and so on. To keep it in the stratosphere there needs to be something like the minor malfunction NYU assumed occurred for flight 5, with a small premature release of ballast..
All very contrived and highly improbable ( in our imaginary flight 4)
Kevin introduced the topic of the Mogul balloon array.
Does Kevin, or anyone in the Dream Team, believe that if they can prove to 100% certainty that what landed at the Foster Ranch was not a Mogul array or portion thereof, that they are a step nearer to proving that what landed was an crashed ET craft?
Please bear in mind that no such thing as an extraterrestrial craft is known to science, either then or now.
BTW, no such thing as a 'KlassKlown' is known to the English language either. DR has obviously taken to the terminology of a certain Mr Alfred Lehmberg, an occasional contributor to UFO UPDATES.
Lance –
Oh, you want an official reference… How about:
Moore, Charles B. Letter to Rep. Steven H. Schiff (August 10, 1995).
It is three pages long and contains four attachments including a diagram of Flight No. 5 that had no rawin radar targets on it, a photograph of a regular weather balloon with a rawin radar target on it (just a single balloon and single target), a “Functional Description” of a Pilot Balloon Target (rawin) and an illustration created by Moore that shows the reinforcement of the rawin target structure.
I know of nowhere on the Internet that you can find a copy of this letter…
And thanks for the lecture…
And since you were so outraged by Larry’s deduction based on Crary’s diary, I ask Gilles…
Gilles –
Of what relevance are the sky conditions in El Paso at 2:30 in the morning? It is the sky condition in Alamogordo that is important.
And what makes you think that the balloon arrays were launched in the dark?
According to the documentation in Special Report #1:
“Restriction on the project is the Civil Aeronautics Authority [forerunner to the FAA] requirement that balloon flights be made only on days [note the word, “days”] that are cloudless up to 20,000 feet. This is difficult to meet in the eastern United States but appears less difficult in the New Mexico area.”
Or, in other words, they couldn’t launch the balloons in the dark for the same reason they couldn’t launch them into the clouds. They posed a risk to aerial navigation.
Also note that according to the records there was no launch in that period that came before 5:00 a.m., and all flight durations were less than twelve hours (most were considerably shorter lasting less than ten hours) meaning they fell back to earth in the daylight.
The firing of the test shots allowed them to test the receivers on the ground. Firing shots on the ground did not mean that there had been an array launch.
CDA –
If Mogul is eliminated as a source of the debris that does not prove what fell was alien, only that one more source of that debris has been eliminated. Thought I had made that clear many times in the past but feel free to ask again as the mood moves you
Larry,
I think that I speak for the skeptics (anyone please feel free to correct me) when I say that we disagree with you guys that the diary entry implies what you say it does in regards to the consist of what we refer to (for brevity) as Flight 4.
Larry, honestly, I would admit it if I could see why this is being touted by proponents. I can usually at least understand the point being raised by proponents, even if I disagree with it. But the vague entry about a cluster. (basically all that is said about the makeup of 4) is repeated elsewhere in reference to what is known to be a constant level flight. So from my standpoint, the diary entry implies (very slightly) that 4 was a constant level construction.
Lance
Kevin,
I thought better of my lecture and deleted it!
Lance
Lance wrote:
"So from my standpoint, the diary entry implies (very slightly) that 4 was a constant level construction."
From my standpoint the diary entry implies (but does not prove) that the flight was not a constant level construction.
This kind of debate is exactly why I introduced the probabilistic analysis which Moore failed to do.
If you think it is "slightly" more likely than not that the flight was a constant level construction then I guess you would estimate that probability as maybe 0.6. That would mean there would be a probability of 0.4 that it wasn't.
One of the chief values of this kind of probabilistic analysis is that it systematically forces everyone--regardless of which side of the issue they're on--to consider not only the consequences if their favorite assumption is correct, but also the consequences if it is not.
Again, I invite you to plug your favorite probability estimates into the equation and see if you can get an overall probability greater than .5 that Moore's story is correct.
Sorry, no balise for quotes, I deleted.
Kevin,
There are not meteo dataes for Alamogordo this day in my humble knowledge, but only for "cities" around (Albuquerque, El Paso, Colombus and Roswell, for examples).
But Alamogordo is maybe a micro-climat^^
And what makes you think that the balloon arrays were launched in the dark?
No, I stated the launch was scheduled to be launched at "night" times, closed after midnight. Crary fired charges from midnight to 6am at the Tularosa range.
Or, in other words, they couldn’t launch the balloons in the dark for the same reason they couldn’t launch them into the clouds. They posed a risk to aerial navigation.
Hum, I dont think so and think you are not correct, Kevin (that NYU balloons cant fly when Dark, cause posing a risk to aerial navigation).
Take the example of the "well" documented Flight#17.
It was launched late in the evening (1647 MST), 3 monthes later (9 september 1947) and recovered 530 miles distant in Kansas(around 6 hours of flight duration in my memories)...
Regards.
Gilles
Gilles -
You are arguing in circles. The CAA restrictions, in force in June 1947 did not allow for flights into the clouds or launched in the dark. The information in Special Report No. 1 is quite specific, and tells us that.
The firing of the charges on the ground do not directly correlate to balloon array launches. Firing of the rounds late at night until early morning does not a Mogul Flight make. It is clear from the diary that Flight No. 4 was cancelled because of clouds and it couldn't have been cancelled if it had already been launched.
By the time you get to Flight No. 17, the nature of the arrays have been changed and the regulations have been modified. In June, they simply could not launch at night or into cloud cover, and that cloud cover didn't have to be very extensive to stop them.
This point is really a non-starter given the documentation available. We can argue the nature of the cluster of balloons launched later that day, but it was not Flight No. 4 because that had been cancelled.
While you think I am incorrect, the evidence is on my side here. The documenation lays it all out clearly for those who wish to see. The only issue, again, is the nature of the "cluster of balloons" and when that was launched.
Larry,
Actually my thought is that the diary entry is slightly likely to address the composition of the flight at all--in other words, it may have nothing to do with what equipment was strung together. If"cluster" means anything, maybe it means the full constant level equipment (since other CL flights had the same designation). But (with the evidence we have) I'm not sure that we can deduce much and certainly the statements made by the chief conspiracist, Rudiak, are unwarranted.
Your idea of assigning probabilities seems unlikely to produce anything of value. I suspect that most numbers we can come up with on either side are unsupported, arbitrary and biased. I may be wrong here and I'm willing to listen to more about the idea.
Lance
Larry's estimates of probabilities of this & that, and hence his overall probability that Moore's explanation is correct, is useless as science. There are too many arbitrarily chosen variables, there is no way we can say if they are truly independent variables (in which case multiplying the probabilities together is meaningless), and there are very likely other variables that are excluded.
The ONLY certain thing is that a flight of some kind was launched that morning.
Larry's final estimate has no practical value at all and, as he says, people can plug in other probability values and turn up a completely different final answer.
It is, in effect, like saying: Here are five unexplained UFO cases. Each one has been examined and thoroughly investigated by a panel of experts beforehand and categorised as an 'unknown', and therefore we assume that the probability that ONE of these, picked at random, is explainable is, say, only 10%.
Therefore the probability of all five such cases being explainable is only 1 in 100,000. Hence there is a 99.999% chance that at least one is a true unknown UFO case. Fantastic? No, completely false.
Anyone can see the fallacy here. The estimates are just that - subject to wide error, and the multiplication of probabilities does not apply, since if the methodology of determining a case to be an unknown has the slightest error, this will likely apply to every case, not just one, offsetting the final result so much as to be meaningless.
A simple question: can anyone possibly say that the WHOLE of the balloon array came down at, or near, one location? Can anyone even say it was all spread out over say, 1/4 of a square mile? Of course not. There is simply not the data to prove or disprove this. Even a small change in wind speed or direction would offset the result. As would atmospheric pressure changes.
Think of all the umpteen (many thousands) of abductions the world over. What probability would you assign to there being, out of all that data, at least ONE true ET abduction? You only need one to prove ETs are here!
Lance wrote (part 1 of 2)
Actually my thought is that the diary entry is slightly likely to address the composition of the flight at all--in other words, it may have nothing to do with what equipment was strung together. If"cluster" means anything, maybe it means the full constant level equipment (since other CL flights had the same designation).
The other constant-altitude flights (let's call them CA, not CL) with the "cluster" designation (from July 1947) had multiple balloons tied to the same common point, like a child's "cluster" of balloon. See the engineering schematics for Flight's #7 (rubber balloons), #8 and #11 (plastic).
#9 is missing from Mogul records (like #2, #3, & "#4"), with Crary noting only "sent up CLUSTER with dummy load."
Oooh, says Lance clapping his hands together with glee, another unrecorded "CL flight" called a "cluster". Case closed!
But note that Crary adds "dummy load", meaning no equipment of any kind. We also know what happened that day. First there was Flight #8 (a plastic balloon "cluster", i.e. tied at one point) which went up early, which was supposed to co-ordinate with a high-altitude V-2 flight. But that was delayed by technical problems. So Mogul quickly put together a makeshift CA rubber balloon array (perhaps using the new "cluster" configuration as the prior rubber #7), but then the V-2 launch was called off permanently. So no reason to send up a CA flight. Flight cancelled, even if Crary wasn't specific about it. That's why the "dummy load" and #9 missing from records, just like #2, #3, and--ahemm--"#4", all clearly indicated as cancelled for one reason or another, but Lance still doesn't, or refuses to "get it."
As for the June rubber CA balloon flights (#5, #6), Crary calls neither one a "cluster" and we know from the schematics they were long linear arrays of balloons instead of being tied together at one point. Also, the Mogul CA numbered flight summary table notes that #1, #5, and #6 (all rubber balloons) were configured as a "long cosmic ray TRAIN" (not "cluster"). (The cancelled #2 schematic shows the same thing.)
Instead, Crary refers to #5/6 as a "balloon flight" or "balloon train" (#5: "Up at 4 to shoot 2 charges for BALLOON FLIGHT"; #6: "BALLOON FLIGHT off about 530; "Rancher Sid West found BALLOON TRAIN..." ). Even more specifically, Crary refers to #5 as an "assembly of CONSTANT-ALTITUDE balloons".
For the recovery of #5, Crary mentions them bringing back equipment from the Roswell area, and for #6 from Sid West's ranch, is very specific about the equipment recovered, again leaving no doubt this was another CA flight.
And, of course, you can find detailed permanent records of these flights in Mogul documentation, such as balloon schematics showing the "long cosmic ray train", ground trajectories, time/altitude profiles, other details of flight, equipment, and tracking in flight table summaries and Mogul progress reports.
But NOTHING in ANY of the records for #2, #3, #4, and #9, other than they were clearly cancelled for one reason or another. Hmmm, why no records? Maybe Lance can take a wild guess with his vaunted skeptical critical thinking skills.
But Crary used "cluster" (not "train") for the balloons with sonobuoy that went up on June 4, and "cluster" for a very different balloon configuration (all tied to together at a point) on CA flights in July and from that Lance infers this as some sort of “evidence” that the "flight" on June 4 was a CA flight.
Wow! Talk about grasping at straws!
Response to Lance (2 of 2):
But (with the evidence we have) I'm not sure that we can deduce much and certainly the statements made by the chief conspiracist, Rudiak, are unwarranted.
Yes, by all means let us review the "evidence we have" and let's see exactly what a "conspiracist" deduces from it vs. our vaunted “critical thinker” Lance.
Of the early flights permanently missing from the records, ALL were indicated as cancelled for various reasons: #2 & #3 because of winds, #4 cancelled "again" because of cloudy weather, and #9 because of the cancellation of an accompanying V-2 flight.
ALL these flights are indicated as cancelled either in Crary's diary and/or Mogul progress reports.
IN ADDITION are the following indisputable FACTS:
1. These same cancelled constant-altitude flights are totally missing from the Mogul flight summary tables. (With my “conspiracist thinking” I conclude that this is because they WERE cancelled. Duhhh!)
2. In the same table, Flight #5, June 5, 1947, is called "the first successful flight carrying a heavy load." With my “conspiracist thinking”, I ask, “What happened to Charles Moore even more successful ‘flight #4’ carrying a heavy load?”
3. Mogul progress reports (2 of which I cited) ALL show Flight #5, June 5, not a "Flight #4" June 4 as the FIRST New Mexico flight, complete with engineering schematic, ground trajectory, time-altitude profile, etc. (All other non-cancelled flights are similarly documented.) From this my “conspiracist” mentality concludes that is because #5 WAS the first such flight.
4. Official military/government histories again show the flight on June 5 (#5) as the FIRST such "research flight", not a flight on June 4. I've given references for three of them: Cambridge Labs history (who ran the Mogul project), NASA history of flight, and an official USAF history published in 2005 by real Air Force historians (not AFOSI counterintelligence agents).
So in my capacity as "chief conspiracist", I conclude that ALL REAL documentation shows that no constant-altitude "flight #4" ever existed since there is NO RECORD OF IT ANYWHERE and the REAL FIRST such flight was clearly Flight #5, which six official sources I’ve cited record as the FIRST CA flight starting in June 1947.
But Lance, with his keen "non-conspiracist" skeptical critical thinking skills, concludes that "the evidence at hand", i.e. a COMPLETE ABSENCE OF RECORDS supporting a CA flight June 4, along with the single word "cluster" in Crary's diary (ignoring previous sentence of "NO flight AGAIN on account of clouds") is all it takes to demonstrate that there really was a CA "Flight #4".
Somewhere along the line of this "non-conspiracist" "critical thinking", Lance forgot to tell us why they failed to record this wonderfully successful CA flight before the one they only thought was the first successful one, #5 the next day.
Perhaps they forgot to record it because of the wild drinking party celebrating the incredible success of "#4". Maybe Crary's dog ate the flight records. I'm sure Lance is up to the "critical thinking" task of explaining the mysterious missing records for “Flight #4”.
Maybe Lance could just set it all down in a book titled "Skeptical Critical Thinking Skills 4 DUMMIES". "Conspiracists" need not read.
Lance wrote
"Is the Moore letter to Schiff available somewhere for reference?"
Lance - I respectively suggest you forgot to use the "magic" word.
You also haven't answered my question - have you seen "Roswell" the movie?
cda wrote
"However there is evidence that a flight OF SOME KIND was launched the same morning that flight 4 was cancelled."
That's not bad cda - you have a point here.
"Now I shall do what Dr.Rudiak so frequently does to me and others - throws in counter arguments and counter questions:"
That is rather funny coming from you cda.
"Is there any hard evidence that an ET craft crashed to earth that day in summer '47?"
No, I guess the dream team don't have the bodies or the craft in their possession and I think, ASSUMING that the event is ET, your being a bit unreasonable expecting them to produce that.
"If not, then why not? You have had 66 years to produce it. Don't you think it is about time you did?"
They have not been working on this for 66 years - but this is not the point. If the evidence has been hidden away, how to you suggest they go about getting their hands on this? If this was a debate, of course it would be far easier to argue against ET - but your not being reasonable.... It can be shown with a very high probability that it is not Mogul.
Larry wrote:
"What is the expectation value that Moore’s explanation is correct? It’s all those probabilities multiplied together, or about 0.0011 (1 part in about 850). My estimate of the probability of his explanation being wrong is therefore slightly more than 99.8%. As I said, everyone can plug their own numbers in and see what they get, but even if each assumption is a 50-50 proposition, the probability of his explanation being correct never rises above about 3%. Moore’s happy horseshit would never have passed peer review."
Like Anthony, I like the way your thinking - I would be surprised if DR and Kevin will give Mogul 1 in 850 chance though! I think you also need to factor in the fact of the Army not recognising it... according to cda that would be only 20% therefore the 1/850 becomes 1/4250 (please forgive me if the math ain't quite right - but you will see the point...)
Unfortunately Larry, and I'm surprised that cda and Lance haven't jumped on this, the chance of an alien spaceship landing on the Foster ranch would be say, a million to one! Therefore Mogul is a far more "logical explanation".
But, just to remind you again cda, Mogul fails, but it don't prove ET.
Nitram (or Martin):
You wrote:
"Unfortunately Larry, and I'm surprised that cda and Lance haven't jumped on this, the chance of an alien spaceship landing on the Foster ranch would be say, a million to one! Therefore Mogul is a far more 'logical explanation'."
How right you are!
However, I must point out that your 'million to one' is pure guesswork, nothing else. I am certain that Stan Friedman would give a vastly different, very much lower, figure.
And the 850 to 1 (or 4250 to 1) for Mogul that you quote is again pure guesswork and completely useless to science.
So folks we are back at square one, or possibly square two.
cda wrote:
"Unfortunately Larry, and I'm surprised that cda and Lance haven't jumped on this, the chance of an alien spaceship landing on the Foster ranch would be say, a million to one! Therefore Mogul is a far more 'logical explanation'."
How right you are!
However, I must point out that your 'million to one' is pure guesswork, nothing else. I am certain that Stan Friedman would give a vastly different, very much lower, figure.
And the 850 to 1 (or 4250 to 1) for Mogul that you quote is again pure guesswork and completely useless to science.
Your basic argument: "It might have been Mogul if you ignore the documented facts that the alleged Mogul was said to be cancelled, it is totally absent from all Mogul summaries like the other stated cancelled Moguls, and Mogul docs plus official government histories of flight clearly state that the flight the next day (#5) was the actual FIRST NM Mogul flight"
...might also be considered pure guesswork and not even remotely logical much less "scientific", not to put too fine a point on the odds...
...whereas Larry was simply stating that Moore's trajectory model based on wind data used numerous hidden assumptions (i.e. cheating) of low probability of ALL being true (regardless of the true probability, which is fuzzy as true scientific estimates often are, but nonetheless very LOW)...
...And you could add in that Mogul records of some 50+ REAL flights indicate that only 2 even remotely passed near the Foster Ranch, i.e. off in a roughly northerly to northeasterly trajectory, meaning the odds of them even launching in wind conditions that might work were on the order of maybe 4% to begin with...
Add that all together, and you may well have odds of crudely one in a million that the totally undocumented, almost certainly nonexistent "flight #4" even hypothetically launched in unfavorable wind conditions accounted for the Roswell crash.
The fact that Moore employed numerous and hidden highly questionable assumptions (or simple cheats) to make his constant-altitude balloon model trajectory work means he deliberately cheated and he knew the winds weren't right (hence the cheating).
The fact that both McAndrew and Moore lied about the similar existence of other very clearly cancelled flights also missing from Mogul records, also shows they knew there was never a "flight #4".
But the debunker mentality is that flying saucers cannot possibly exist much less crash (or some all-knowing "scientific" ZERO probability), therefore any conventional "explanation", no matter how stupid or impossible is considered more probable.
But that's DEBOONKERY!
David:
Kevin asked, “Oh, and the important point... Flight No. 4 was cancelled because of the cloud cover... think about that.” So I have been thinking about that; the puzzle is why one flight would be cancelled but another allowed to go ahead. A reasonable conjecture would be that there was cloud cover at the launching site that burned off sometime after dawn. While that would be reasonable, it’s probably not correct, as a matter of fact.
One of my favorite websites for researching historical weather conditions is the Weather Underground http://www.wunderground.com/
Anyone can go to that website and select the “Weather” button and then select Airport Weather History and pull up weather records from 1945 up to today for any airport that has been in continuous operation.
If you pull up the records for Roswell between June 3 and June 5, 1947, you can see the history of hourly reports for RAAF. The synopsis for that period is pretty easy to understand. By 5:00 AM on June 3 there was a very humid air mass (relative humidity around 75%) over that part of New Mexico that was responsible for clouds and general reduced visibility. It stayed that way through at least 5:00 AM on June 4. By 5:00 AM on June 5, the humidity had plummeted to about half that value and continued going down. By 5:00 PM on June 5, the Roswell area was reported as “clear”.
The Weather Underground records for Holloman AFB do not go back to 1947, so I currently do not have an explicit report of what the weather was doing at the MOGUL launch site between June 3 and June 5, 1947. However, it is not too difficult to make an educated guess. If you look at the Holloman hourly reports for June 3 for all of the years for which we do have records (more or less the last 15 years) you will see that the pattern is exactly the same. The winds are calm and the sky is clear—perfect flying weather. That’s why White Sands Test Range was put where it was. It is very unlikely that the constant altitude flights of June 3 and 4 1947 were cancelled because of weather at the launch site. However, I’m still trying to find records that would prove that one way or another. Do you know of any?
I suggest that it was the weather 40 or 50 miles to the East of Alamogordo (i.e., in the Roswell vicinity) on June 3 and 4 that prevented the launch of any large balloon that might make it that far and therefore intrude into civilian air lanes. This means that whatever balloon cluster was launched on June 4, it was not expected or planned for it to make it out of the immediate vicinity of the launch area.
Gilles wrote (mop-up time, part 1 of 2)
”And what makes you think that the balloon arrays were launched in the dark?”
No, I stated the launch was scheduled to be launched at "night" times, closed after midnight. Crary fired charges from midnight to 6am at the Tularosa range.
What Gilles edited out: Crary then followed immediately with the statement "no flight AGAIN on account of clouds." THEN the statement about the balloon clusters with sonobuoy sent up instead, followed by next entry of more charges being set off 1800 to 2400 when there was obviously no balloon of any kind in the air. Crary was probably just testing ground receivers.
In fact, there are multiple entries by Crary of setting off charges when there were clearly no balloons flying, such as June 3, again the cancelled flight because of clouds, with Crary then saying "fired charges from 6 on to 12."
Or June 5, when he says he was setting off charges 1200 to 1800. Problem was the very real flight #5 from early that morning had already crashed before noon east of Roswell. Why was Crary only setting off charges AFTER the flight was down? I don't know. Maybe he just liked to blow up crap.
Crary was setting off charges even when there wasn't a Mogul team in New Mexico to send up a flight, such as the series of tests he conducted June 18-20 and May 22/23.
So the setting off of charges by Crary does NOT somehow automatically equal a balloon flight being in the air at the time.
Similarly Gilles’ bogus claim that there were launches in June 1947 planned "close after midnight". This is just more if his endless nonsense and a repeat of another of Charles Moore's many, many lies.
Gilles statement that the launch was “scheduled” at night is more made-up nonsense. In his book, Moore changed Crary's June 3 entry of “up at 230 ready to fly balloon but abandoned due to cloudy skies” to mean ” Crary's diary shows that he was ready for the launching soon after midnight on 3 June.” Thus more word games by Moore. 2:30 am has now become “soon after midnight” (or Gilles’ “close after midnight”).
Further this does not mean they could have instantly launched at 2:30. They had to inflate balloons, tie them together, attach the equipment, etc. All RECORDED flights June/July instead went up around dawn, or soon after 5:00 am, not “soon after midnight,” so probably after several hours of preparation. That is how I interpret Crary’s entry of “up at 230 ready to fly...”
There were similar Moore word games in his Sci Fi Channel interview in 1997. There he claimed, as if it was indisputable fact, that “Flight #4” was launched at "about" 3:00 AM, when there is ZERO documentation of when any flight went up. Then he compounded it by adding that it was launched "about the same time of the day" as Flight #5 the next day, which actually went up at 5:17 am.
Thus in Moore DebunkerDoubleTalk, 2:30 am is both simultaneously “soon after midnight” and after 5:00 am. Further Moore had previously assumed that IF there was a #4, it had gone up at dawn like the other flights. But that was before he created his hoax trajectory model and realized he couldn’t rationalize the overly long stratospheric drift westward toward the Foster Ranch (critical to his model) unless he could get rid of the sun that deteriorated the neoprene balloons for at least another 2 hours. Simple! Now just assert they launched in the middle of the night instead of dawn. Hopefully nobody will ask why they would launch blind like that on their very first launch, throwing out optical tracking from the ground and air and also radiosonde tracking, relying solely on radar target tracking, which Moore said hadn’t been reliable
So, Gilles, your Jedi mind tricks will not work here. Those only work on the skeptical feeble-minded. There are too many intelligent people here who actually read the documentation instead of deliberately misinterpreting it, which you almost always seem to do.
Response to Gilles (2 of 2)
KEVIN: “Or, in other words, they couldn’t launch the balloons in the dark for the same reason they couldn’t launch them into the clouds. They posed a risk to aerial navigation.”
GILLES: Hum, I dont think so and think you are not correct, Kevin (that NYU balloons cant fly when Dark, cause posing a risk to aerial navigation).
Take the example of the "well" documented Flight#17.
It was launched late in the evening (1647 MST), 3 monthes later (9 september 1947) and recovered 530 miles distant in Kansas(around 6 hours of flight duration in my memories)...
Amusing that Gilles would mention Flight #17, the flight that went along a similar trajectory and passed exactly over the same “exotic” NM towns that Moore said ONLY “Flight #4” had done. Those “exotically” named towns were the reason Moore claimed to have a “distinct memory” of “Flight #4”. Since Gilles loves psycho-social theories for everything, maybe he might consider that after around 100 Mogul-like launches and 50 years later, Moore might simply be confusing the real #17 with the nonexistent #4, for which there is not one shred of documentation that it ever existed. This may have been the one and only REAL Mogul flight that came anywhere near the Foster Ranch. Again see:
http://www.roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3666
I’ll give Gilles credit for finding one flight that lasted through the night. What Gilles omitted (Gilles always omits the stuff he doesn’t like) is that the flight was still launched in full daylight, but in the late afternoon. Sunset was little over an hour later, but the balloon was already up at maximum constant-altitude (39,000 feet), above flight lanes. They were still able to track it for over another 3 hours and lost it in the same area that Moore ascribes to “Flight #4”. Coincidence? We think not.
This was a plastic balloon flight, with the plastic balloons maintaining altitude much better than the early rubber weather balloons. Throughout the tracking period, the balloon maintained a constant altitude, which as I noted before, was above flight lanes.
Most of the later plastic balloons would leave the range area and even leave the state. One got all the way to eastern Canada. It is possible the CAA later eased the flight restrictions and requirement for NOTAMs (I honestly don’t know), but early on in the program there was concern about these large balloon flights being hazards to aviation when they passed through flight lanes on the way down.
So yes, LATER, flights during the night when they had gained more experience and had more reliable balloons, but again ZERO evidence of night flights in any of the early flights. It was potentially more dangerous and also made absolutely no sense from a tracking and research perspective. Visual tracking, especially from the ground, but also from the air, was one of their most reliable tracking systems to know where their flights were and how they were performing. So you just throw it out on your very first flight? (Moore, Gilles, and other debunkers’ claim) That would be crazy stupid. But EVERYTHING about the Mogul “Flight #4” theory is crazy stupid, starting with the fact that the flight was actually cancelled and thus omitted from ALL subsequent records, like other cancelled flights.
Moore’s “night flight” is another of his incredibly outrageous assumptions to try to get his model to work. At least he was open about it, unlike a number of his other assumptions which he buried in his table and are at direct odds with his stated assumptions. E.g., his assumption the “Flight #4” was basically a perfect flight with equipment that worked even better than the real successful Flight #5 the next day, contradicts how he really treated the flight on rise and fall, greatly shortening the rise and fall times compared to #5 in order to greatly shorten the trajectory. (Else the model flight would greatly overshoot the target.)
Amusing me too, supra-Ophtalmo but "blindy" David Rudiak, to read your pseudo Psycho-social analysis of Moore confusing Flight 17 and 4 hypothesis.
It have been already debunked, Dear Man of sticks and foils...
You can continue your walls of texts as if you are responding to someone (your own mirror?)...
Post/send your pseudo-theory to Universities or your National Academy of Science, dear Doctor.
Waht are you waiting for?
Flights of the 4 june and 29 may remains good candidats for your sticks and foils super-spacecraft and your Chimera...
Good continuation, David Rudiak, the sticks and foils spacecraft proponent guy ;)
Let me say and write that your alien spacecraft tuning rocks! Whooo!
Well, that's ufology ;)
Gilles
I’ll give Gilles credit for finding one flight that lasted through the night
There is NO flight launched in dark times, David ;) It is well known in the Gospels! Too dangerous for civilian air trafic!
Despite flight 17 flowns 5 or 6 hours, and have reached Kansas..
Well, this flight never existed and was cancelled too ;)
After all, we have none NOTAM too, so it never existed!
Gilles
Typical Gilles. Grossly distorts the records and because he can't respond to actual facts and points raised in rebuttal launches into his usual well-rehearsed unimaginative ridicule. (Though he did leave out "conspiracist" this time--must be slipping.)
E.g. Gilles cited as "evidence" that there was a "scheduled" "soon after midnight" "flight #4" Crary's diary saying he set off charges from 12 to 6 am. Not only is there zero documentation of any such "scheduled" flight at this time, I pointed out NUMEROUS instances of Crary setting off charges when there was not only no balloon flight but no balloon team to send one up. No response from Gilles on this.
Of course I went into detail to document this. It takes someone like Gilles a few words to tell a whopper but a whole lot more to show why the argument is bogus.
Charles Moore has been caught in all sorts of lies and doubletalk. I and others have also pointed this out. No real rebuttal from Gilles except to try to change the subject.
Way to go Gilles! I'll take your typical inane ridicule to deflect away from your inability to respond to points as your tacit admission of defeat.
But that's DEBOONKERY!
Crary set off charges for fun, midnight to 6 AM, dear David ;)
None NYU flight was scheduled to be launched when he did it on these interval times...
That's Ufology!
When you want David, to open a thread about your pseudo Psycho-Social hypothesis Moore have confused Flight 17 and 4 in his memories...
Never read such absurb hypothesis to have your sticks and foils spacecraft.
Of course, Your english will defeat mine, but well, when you want...
Gilles
BTW,
What Kevin thinks about Don Schmitt and his team (The so-called DreamTeam?) of investigators - sic - to have redacted themselves Haut last affidavit, Haut signed?
It is a scientific method you are promoting and defending, Kevin?
Or that's ufology?
Just curious...
Gilles
Gilles -
You amaze me. It is clear that there were no flights launched at night. In June, these were prohibited by the CAA because these long arrays would be a hazard to aerial navigation. I do not understand how you cannot understand that. The Mogul flights in June were all launched after 5:00 a.m. That is documented fact.
That the CAA prohibited the flights at night is also documented fact. There really is no room for discussion. The issue centers on that cluster of balloons that was launched sometime later in the day (June 4)... day.
By the time you get to Flight No. 17, also launched in the daylight, the array trains were no longer 5, 6, or 700 feet long and the danger to aerial navigation not as great.
For God's sake, man, read the documents...
It is clear from the field notes and Crary's diary that the detonation of charges between midnight and six was done to test the capability of the listening equipment on the ground. This is documented fact, yet you come back saying that Crary did it for fun.
Finally, the discussion here is about Mogul and has nothing to do with Don Schmitt and what he might have or might not have done with Walter Haut's affidavit.
Kevin:
Did you read my posting about 9 or 10 comments back? I don't think people are understanding the significance of this.
Crary wrote in his diary that the flights on June 3 and then again on June 4 were cancelled due to "clouds". But he doesn't say where the clouds were. Everyone seems to have assumed that he was referring to clouds at the launching site at Holloman. But that's almost certain to be wrong.
I have reviewed the weather records at Holloman AFB for the first week of June for the 12-year period between 2002 to 2013. I looked at the surface observations within a 3 hour window centered around dawn. For ALL of the days in that sample for which weather was reported (78 days) ALL of them reported skies clear and visibility unlimited (CAVU). Within that sample, there were exactly ZERO days on which weather would have prevented releasing a free-flying unmanned balloon. On those few days (3 or 4) when weather of any kind (clouds, rain) was reported it was invariably later in the afternoon or evening and occurred as a result of the monsoonal weather pattern that starts moving into New Mexico
in early summer.
It is very easy to see why Crary and his team selected the Hollloman area for their balloon launch campaign; you can always count on clear skies and calm winds around dawn, which is the natural time for large balloon launches. If the sample I looked at is representative, there is less than 1 chance in 78 that clouds in the Hollloman area would have prevented a balloon launch on, say, June 3, 1947. There is less than 1 chance in 78 squared (6084) that clouds there would have prevented a balloon launch two days in a row. So, clouds in the Hollloman area probably did not prevent the first balloon launch on June 4, 1947.
So, if clouds at the launch site were non-existent at dawn on June 4, Crary could only have been referring to clouds somewhere else along the balloon’s flight path (to the East). Weather observations over in the Roswell area do, in fact, indicate cloudy conditions on the morning of June 4.
So, on the morning of June 4, there was no substantial change in the weather at either Hollloman or Roswell. It was continuously clear at the launch site and continuously cloudy along the flight path.
This means that a change in the weather was NOT the reason the NYU crew cancelled the constant level flight at dawn and NOT the reason they were permitted to release the cluster of balloons with a sonobouy later in the morning. They cancelled the constant level flight because it would have flown into cloudy conditions as it went East that would have violated Visual Flight Rules. They conducted the other flight only because they knew it would not violate those rules. The only way they could be sure that it would not violate those rules is if they knew it would stay in the local area.
If it can be shown that the weather was clear at Hollloman on the morning of June 4, 1947, then it is certain that there was no balloon launched from there that could have made it to the Foster ranch.
Crary set off charges for fun, midnight to 6 AM, dear David ;)
Dear Gilles,
Crary set off charges "for fun" June 3, 6am-12 noon, after another flight had been cancelled because of cloudy weather
Crary set off charges "for fun" June 5, 12 noon to 6 pm AFTER Flight #5 that day had already crashed. (the REAL FIRST flight according to ALL OFFICIAL records)
Crary set off charges three successive days June 18-20 when there was no Mogul launch team left in N.M.
Gilles conclusion: Since Crary set off charges June 4 12-6 am, they MUST HAVE launched a balloon at midnight and there was a "flight #4" that day/night.
REALITY CHECK: There are multiple cases in Crary's diary when he was setting off charges when there were no balloon flights aloft. Setting off charges does NOT equal balloons aloft.
Not even Moore claimed they launched at midnight, but 3:00 a.m. Even if that were true, Crary would have been setting off charges 12-3 with no airborne balloon.
So, as usual, your argument has no merit as to whether they launched in the middle of the night, much less "soon after midnight".
Still haven't heard your "explanation" as to how it would make any sense to have a night launch and not use three of their usual tracking systems (2 visual, the other the radiosonde found on every other launch), and rely solely on radar tracking that Moore said had been unreliable.
Your comparison with the real #17 is not valid as they did NOT launch in the dark, but late afternoon, and tracked the progress for over 4 hours before full nightfall. That was already enough to determine that the balloon very successfully achieved constant-altitude flight.
But why in the world would they launch at 3 am and not be able to visually track the balloon for over 2 hours until sunrise, and this with your very first attempted balloon flight? They wouldn't be able to determine whether the balloon's constant altitude control was working properly initially, the primary purpose of these "research flights". (Don't really expect a rational or logical response to any of these questions.)
Gilles wrote:
"Flights of ... 29 may remains good candidats for your sticks and foils"
No it does not. On 29 May, the wind over in vicinity of Roswell was blowing from the East to the West, so could not have blown a balloon of any kind from Alamogordo to the Foster ranch.
Also, Crary's diary says that the May 29 launch was of a "test" balloon--does not mention a constant level balloon. The rest of the NYU crew, who had the recording equipment needed to support a constant altitude flight would not even arrive in Alamogordo from the East coast until June 1.
Whatever was launched by Mears and Hackman was obviously small enough to be launched by two men. Clearly not a 600 ft long balloon train.
Larry wrote:
Gilles: "Flights of ... 29 may remains good candidats for your sticks and foils"
Larry: No it does not. On 29 May, the wind over in vicinity of Roswell was blowing from the East to the West, so could not have blown a balloon of any kind from Alamogordo to the Foster ranch.
New information for me. Thanks. Not that it matters much, since items Larry gives below indicate this was just another small "service flight" testing out some small piece of equipment and not a constant-level flight.
Also, Crary's diary says that the May 29 launch was of a "test" balloon--does not mention a constant level balloon.
It was a constant level balloon if Gilles says so, or AFOSI McAndrew says so. It was McAndrew who originally claimed the May 29 "flight" was really "flight #3", another of those ghost flights that was really cancelled and eliminated from the records.
At least Charles Moore realized that the May 8 attempt back east was the real attempt at Flight #3. Still both McAndrew and Moore tried to claim that cancelled constant-altitude flights #2 and #3 were real along with #4 in order to try to build a case that #4 explained Roswell. Just more shameful lying and word games that have been going on for almost 20 years now.
The rest of the NYU crew, who had the recording equipment needed to support a constant altitude flight would not even arrive in Alamogordo from the East coast until June 1.
Whatever was launched by Mears and Hackman was obviously small enough to be launched by two men. Clearly not a 600 ft long balloon train.
Yes, quite obvious to anyone who can read and think even halfway critically. Crary's diary also made it quite clear all they had was a skeleton advance crew there until June 1 when the main Mogul team finally flew in and immediately set about assembling the NM constant-level flights. The advance crew just was not large enough to assemble, wrangle, launch, and track a constant-altitude flight.
But simple facts never seem to stand in the way of Gilles self-serving and ridiculous Mogul theories.
Part 1
On a further note......
I suspect I'm the only one on this blog post who has ever actually flown high-altitude balloons carrying large scientific payloads. In my professional career, I have served as Principal Investigator (PI) on 4 such flights. From that vantage point, it seems to me there are a few points that some people here are not understanding.
First of all, getting a complex balloon flight off is--not surprisingly--a complex task. It takes probably a minimum of 10 or 12 professionals working in a highly coordinated manner to accomplish anything other than just wasting a lot of time and money.
First, you start by defining the scientific objectives of the flight. That allows you to then specify and procure the exact hardware that will accomplish those objectives. This is all accomplished days, weeks, or months ahead of the flight. If, for some reason, there was a scientific justification for having a night flight, this is where it would appear. It is physically possible to have a night flight, but it requires the addition of a battery powered beacon light. That is an additional item that must be procured and it adds weight to the balloon train, so it must be planned for ahead of time.
Sometime in the day before a launch attempt, the crew has to start assembling the balloon system in order to be ready at the agreed upon launch time. In this regard, it is just like a rocket launch, where a countdown clock is used.
Every time I've flown a complex balloon, the launch window opened at dawn on flight day. There are a number of good reasons for this. If you are flying into civilian airspace it is the first moment you can legally do so, without a beacon light. It is also the first moment when there is enough light to see and avoid screwing up the balloon launch. The balloon launch itself requires a highly choreographed movement of all the actors on the ground to avoid simple problems like getting control lines snagged, or people tripping over each other, or ripping balloons apart because of too much pendulum motion, etc., etc. Dawn is usually the time at which the local surface wind is most calm. Planning for a launch at dawn gives you the most usable daylight hours to recover from a launch delay.
As I said, it is physically possible to launch before sunrise, but there would have to be a damn good reason to incur the additional cost and risk. And if some scientifically justifiable reason was identified, it would have to be taken into account at the beginning of the planning process. What would absolutely NOT happen is to take a balloon flight that was planned for launch at dawn and then try to turn it into a night flight on the spur of the moment.
Part 2
Once the launch is scheduled, it takes approximately one 8-hour work period of the team to actually bring the flight system to readiness for launch. For my flights, in which dawn was around 8:00 AM, the first work crew arrived at the hangar to begin work at around T minus 8 (midnight). As the PI, I was not needed until T minus 4, or 4:00 AM. So when Crary wrote that he was up at 2:30, "ready to launch" that means he was on site to exercise his responsibilities as PI, but that does not mean that the balloon system was ready to release into the air at that time.
The pre-launch work consists of first assembling the payload hardware and verifying that it is functional. For Flight #5 the payload hardware consisted of the dribbler and ballast mechanisms, a pressure switch assembly, a 15 lb unspecified payload (which we now know was to be the CIA’s secret microphone), a radiosonde, the parachutes, and the flight termination cannon. After the hardware is integrated and tested, it is carefully weighed so that the balloons can be inflated to the proper buoyancy. Balloon inflation itself takes time; I would estimate that for the 30 or so balloons that were on Flight #5, they would have begun inflation at T minus 2 or so.
That means that when they got to within 2 hours of dawn, they would have checked the weather downrange to see if a balloon launch was allowed. On June 4, the weather over in the Roswell area was cloudy a few hours before dawn. At that point the launch director had a choice to make. He could decide to go ahead and fill the balloons on the chance that the weather would improve enough in 2 hours to allow a launch. However, as soon as the balloons are filled, they begin leaking and losing buoyancy. So, once the decision is made to fill them, there is a fixed time interval within which they must be either launched or discarded. If the weather at T minus 2 was below the minimums for visual flight, but improving, this could be a rational choice.
Alternatively, the launch director could delay filling the balloons until there was a clear indication that the weather was improving. If the weather did improve, the team could inflate the balloons and launch within 2 hours. If the weather at T minus 2 was below the minimums for visual flight, but NOT improving, this would probably be the preferred choice. On June 4, this was the case—there was cloud cover in the Roswell area and it was not getting thinner. Personally, I don’t think they would even have started filling the balloons on June 3 or 4. But, there doesn’t seem to be any indication in Crary’s diary that would settle that one way or the other.
Part 3
In either case, the strategy is to wait as long as you can for the weather to improve before scrubbing the launch. If the launch time slips far enough past the originally scheduled time (dawn), you eventually get to a point where there are not enough daylight hours left in the day to fill the balloons and conduct the flight. Every scientific balloon flight faces this same dynamic, it is not unique to the MOGUL flights. On any given day there is a certain time before which you cannot launch (usually dawn) and a certain time after which you can’t launch. Typically, this launch window is a few hours long. Once a balloon launch is scheduled, it is customary to wait until the launch window closes before the flight is formally scrubbed for the day, if weather is the cause of delay.
So think about the morning of June 4, in that context. They started with a fully assembled and tested constant level balloon hardware string lying on the hangar floor. They had actually been working on it there for the previous 2 days. But they scrubbed the launch of that balloon string because of clouds to the East, probably around 8 or 9 AM.
Then Moore comes along decades later and suggests that the second flight which Crary described as a cluster of balloons with a sonobouy and which probably occurred mid-morning (before noon) was actually a second, constant level balloon string which made it all the way to the Foster ranch.
So the NYU team which had just spent the previous 10 hours or so assembling, testing and preparing for flight the hardware which—the following day—would become Flight #5, immediately turned around and planned, assembled, tested, and launched an entirely separate constant level flight in a couple of hours, starting from scratch?
That's not even remotely possible. Any launch director who proposed such a thing would and should be fired for incompetence.
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