Thursday, January 12, 2023

Alamogordo Balloon Launch - A Better Picture

 For those still interested in Mogul and who had a hard time making out the picture of the two weather balloons and two rawin targets I posted here, I found a better copy. This is still somewhat hard to see, but it does provide enough for some comparisons. I will note that while this picture is dated as July 10, 1947, the illustration that launched this bit of research is not dated in that fashion. It comes from Charles Moore who has been caught more than once altering the data to fit his claim that he "launched the Roswell Crash."

A much better copy of the picture from the Alamogordo News, July 10, 1947.
I tip of the hat to Terry the Censor for the photo.



The real problem for the picture is that this is obviously not a full Mogul array, but more of a cluster of balloons and radar targets. As you can see, there isn't much in the way of material in the balloons and the targets, and does not account for the descriptions of the debris field offered by several eyewitnesses. The main exception would be Sheridan Cavitt who told me, as he told others, that the debris field was rather small and that he recognized the debris as the remains of a balloon.

At any rate, this is an interesting picture and I must wonder if it was the inspiration for the illustration that Moore offered. Of course, if these balloons were actually launched, they couldn't account for the find by Mack Brazel because Jesse Marcel and Cavitt had already been there.

For the sake of clarity, and to make the point that I want all the information available to me available to all who wish to see it, I thought it important to publish the picture.

 

1 comment:

Terry the Censor said...

Newspaper.com has the front page on its site. The image there is not great but definitely better than what you have here. (I downloaded the images and tried to send them to you as attachments, but the email I have for you is from 2015, probably waaaaaay out of date.)