New! 2012
Experiments by engineer Robert Galganski and former Project Mogul engineer Charles Moore show rapid deterioration of neoprene weather balloon material when exposed to sunlight. Galganski showed the neoprene darkening and stiffening in only 5 hours. Moore's many experiments showed the new milky white balloons deteriorating to brittle, black, tattered, ash-like pieces within 2 to 3 weeks. Yet according to the Mogul proponents, the balloon Ramey displayed was collected a full month after the alleged Mogul flight. It is darkened but still seemingly mostly intact, has a mottled appearance with many light patches instead of completely black, and has many rounded folds and pleats giving it an appearance of still having rubberlike pliability instead of being brittle. Thus the photos taken illustrate a slightly used neoprene balloon, not one sitting in the hot New Mexico sun for a month. Also there is very little balloon material there. My measurements indicate it would fit in a shoebox. It is probably the solo balloon Ramey said it was. Yet the alleged Mogul would have consisted of at least two dozen such balloons. Ramey's single balloon of recent origin alone practically disproves that a Mogul from the previous month was recovered. Ramey's single balloon was instead substituted for whatever was actually found, as his chief of staff, Gen. Thomas Dubose and Roswell intelligence officer Jesse Marcel said was the case.
Gen. Roger Ramey and one of his intelligence officers told the press and FBI that the crash object in Ramey's office was "hexagonal" in shape. Only assembled, intact radar targets might resemble hexagons, and only when viewed from restricted angles. It was impossible for Ramey to deduce such a shape from the flattened, torn-up radar target in his office. Thus the "hexagonal" description must have been scripted for Ramey beforehand by somebody with highly specialized knowledge about radar targets, likely some branch of military counterintelligence deliberately plotting to use the radar targets to debunk Roswell and the flying saucers. In addition, Ramey was also quoted saying that when he finally went to take a look at the "box-kite"/radar target supposedly in his office at the time, it was "about 25 feet in diameter," a ridiculous description of what was actually later photographed (the radar targets were only 4 feet across). This and other evidence indicates the flight from Roswell hadn't even arrived yet; Ramey appears to have been improvising and stalling until it did.
A primer on how the Mogul-style radar targets were put together. Goes well with previous essay on what the radar targets really looked like. This will eventually be part of a larger section on an analysis of the Fort Worth photos, and how they actually show the remains of a singular radar target and weather balloon, not a multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul. The broken up radar target in the photos is what Gen. Ramey tried to sell as a "flying disk", as did the military in a followup debunking campaign. Debunkers to this very day are still trying to claim that a radar target was somehow confused by Roswell personnel as a "flying disk." But Gen. Ramey wasn't confused at all in his teletype message, referring to the crash object as a "DISC", while the story they would put out for the public would be of "WEATHER BALLOONS" and radar targets. Furthermore Ramey's telegram said they were shipping something "IN THE 'DISC'". As you shall see from this primer, the radar targets were sheets of foil/paper (same stuff used to wrap candy bars and chewing gum) stretched over a balsa wood kite frame and had no "insides" with anything to ship.
Skeptics claim that because Project Mogul was also in New Mexico, that increases the probability that it accounts for the debris field at the Foster Ranch. But actual Mogul records show that prevailing winds almost always took the balloons well away from the debris field area. Graphical plots of over 50 recorded flights and their crash sites demonstrate that only one flight possibly crashed within 40 miles of the ranch (Flight #38, Nov. 4, 1947) and maybe 2 more (Flight #10, July 5 & Flight #17, Sept. 10 ,1947) flew in the general direction and came within ~20 miles (but flew on to crash in other states). This demonstrates that it was actually quite improbable that any Mogul would have ended up at the Foster Ranch crash site. See also the "The Phony Balloon Trajectory" below, a fraudulent attempt to try to place a probably nonexistent flight at the ranch to "explain" the Roswell crash.
The people who launched the Project Mogul balloons had many fascinating, high-quality UFO sightings of their own, including, ironically, Charles Moore, who is trying so hard to debunk Roswell in the present-day. But Moore wasn't alone. E.g., a document of an August 1947 sighting is enclosed, where the Mogul person described seeing a high-speed object while watching a balloon/radar target launch through binoculars. He said he had other "unexplainable" sightings as well while optically tracking their balloons. Also mentioned is a Mogul radar case of hovering objects at an altitude of 200 miles! Many other sightings by balloon personnel are detailed.
In 1997, former Project Mogul engineer Charles Moore claimed that winds for Mogul Flight #4 would have been "exactly" right and that he had "calculated" the trajectory of Flight #4, taking it "exactly" to the Foster Ranch crash site. Sounds impressive, until you find out what he really did to get his alleged lost Mogul balloon up to the ranch, including hoaxing his own model by secretly changing numbers and calculating improperly. Any use of correct math and reasonable assumptions (instead of Moore's extreme ones) has the balloons missing the ranch by a very wide margin. Moore's trajectory is actually highly improbable. Includes a lengthy discussion and many graphs, tables, and illustrations. An alternate theory of the ultimate fate of the hypothetical "Flight #4" (which a diary says was actually "canceled" on account of cloudy weather) is presented and how it might tie in to the Roswell case, but not in the way one might think. If there had been a balloon flight of some kind, it probably came down well northeast of the Foster Ranch and north of Roswell, and may have been used by the military to coach rancher Mack Brazel in what to say during a press conference they soon marched him to in Roswell.
Explains the basics of Moore's hoax in a mostly nonmathematical question and answer format. I originally wrote this for UFO Updates in Jan. 2004.
In their March/April 2003 issue, the debunking magazine Skeptical Inquirer printed an inept and highly dishonest defense of Moore's Mogul trajectory hoax, amounting to little more than propaganda. Unable to refute any of my math arguments, they simply ignored them, calling them "quibbles" and "shrill accusations," and then personally attacked me as "incompetent." Some "science" magazine. Click on link to see my rebuttal article sent to the editor plus my own editorial comments on how the Skeptical Inquirer published the article in flagrant violation of their own stated editorial policy. The editor, a close acquaintance of the author, never responded to my submitted article and obviously has no intention of ever publishing it. This is another violation of standard policy of real science journals that publish rebuttals by those whose work has been criticized.
