Editing Roswell incident (section)

===Project Mogul===
[[File:Mogul balloon train USAF 1995.png|thumb|alt=A vintage military photo shows a string of balloons and reflectors stretching into the sky.|A [[Project Mogul]] array]]

A 1994 USAF report identified the crashed object from the 1947 incident as a [[Project Mogul]] device.<ref name="Mogul"><!--There have been recurring discussions on the talk page going back decades on whether the sources allow Wikipedia to call it a balloon or not. Reliable sources indicate that [a] the debris was from a balloon, [b] the debris was from a US military project, [c] the USAF correctly identified the source of the debris as Project Mogul, and [d] the specific object was most likely Flight No. 4 launched on June 4, 1947. -->The Roswell material has been attributed to a top secret military balloon by astrophysicist [[Adam Frank]], historian Lt Col James Michael Young, science writer [[Kendrick Frazier]], folklorist Thomas Bullard, historian Kathryn Olmsted, Project Mogul meteorologist B.D. Gildenberg, journalist Kal Korff, skeptical UFO researcher [[Philip J. Klass]], and intelligence officer Captain James McAndrew among others:
* {{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=551}}: "The weather-balloon story was indeed a lie. Instead, what crashed on Brazel's ranch was Project Mogul, a secret experimental program using high-altitude balloons to monitor Russian nuclear tests.
* {{harvnb|Young|2020|p=27}}: "[L]aunch #4 on June 4, 1947, captured the public's attention when a local rancher recovered the balloon debris. Noting unusual metallic objects attached to the debris and suspecting they belonged to the military, the rancher turned the material and objects over to officers at Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF)."
* {{harvnb|Frazier|2017a}}: "[...] what we now know the debris to have been: remnants of a long train of research balloons and equipment launched by New York University atmospheric researchers [...]"
* {{harvnb|Bullard|2016|p=80}}: "the Air Force [...] concluded that the wreckage belonged to a Project Mogul balloon array that had disappeared in June 1947."
* {{harvnb|Olmsted|2009|p=184}}: "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose."
* {{harvnb|Gildenberg|2003|p=62}}: "One such flight, launched in early June, came down on a Roswell area sheep ranch, and created one of the most enduring mysteries of the century."
* {{harvnb|Korff|1997|loc=fig.&nbsp;7}}: "Unbeknownst to Major Marcel, the debris was actually the remnants of a highly classified military spy device known as Project Mogul."
* {{harvnb|Klass|1997b|loc=fig.&nbsp;3}}: "[...] the debris was from a 600-foot long string of twenty-three weather balloons and three radar targets that had been launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field as part of a 'Top Secret' Project Mogul [...]"
* {{harvnb|McAndrew|1997|page=16}}: "The 1994 Air Force report determined that project Mogul was responsible for the 1947 events. Mogul was an experimental attempt to acoustically detect suspected Soviet nuclear weapon explosions and ballistic missile launches."
</ref> Mogul{{snd}}the classified portion of an unclassified [[New York University]] atmospheric research project{{snd}}was a military surveillance program employing [[high-altitude balloon]]s to monitor [[nuclear test]]s.<ref>{{harvnb|Frazier|2017a}}</ref> The project launched Flight No. 4  from [[Alamogordo Army Air Field]] on June 4. Flight No. 4 was drifting toward Corona within 17 miles of Brazel's ranch when its tracking equipment failed.<ref name="Frazier-2017b">{{harvnb|Frazier|2017b|pages=12–15}}</ref> The military, charged with protecting the classified project, claimed that the crash was of a weather balloon.<ref name="Olmsted-2009-184quote">{{harvnb|Olmsted|2009|page=184}}: "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|p=9}}: "... the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the MOGUL balloons that had not been previously recovered."</ref> Major Jesse Marcel and USAF Brigadier General Thomas DuBose publicly described the claims of a weather balloon as a cover story in 1978 and 1991, respectively.<ref name="Pflock-2001-p33">{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|p=33}}</ref> In the USAF report, Richard Weaver states that the weather balloon story may have been intended to "deflect interest from" Mogul, or it may have been the perception of the weather officer because Mogul balloons were constructed from the same materials.<ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|pages=27–30}}</ref> Sheridan W. Cavitt, who accompanied Marcel to the debris field, provided a [[:File:Sheridan Cavitt Testimony.jpg|sworn witness statement for the report]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gildenberg|2003|pp=62–72}}</ref> Cavitt stated, "I thought at the time and think so now, that this debris was from a crashed balloon."<ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|p=160}}</ref>

Ufologists had considered the possibility that the Roswell debris had come from a top-secret balloon. In March 1990, [[John Keel]] proposed that the debris had been from a Japanese balloon bomb launched in World War II.<ref>{{harvnb|Gulyas|2016}}: "Numerous explanations have arisen, ranging from Japanese 'Fugo' balloons [...]"</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Gulyas|2014}}: "[...] from John Keel, who advocated a solution to the Roswell question which credited Japanese Fugo balloons as the 'mysterious craft,' to Nick Redfern, whose ''Body Snatchers in the Desert'' [...]".</ref> An Air Force meteorologist rejected Keel's theory, explaining that the [[Fu-Go balloon bomb|Fu-Go balloons]] "could not possibly have stayed aloft for two years".<ref>{{harvnb|Huyghe|2001|p=133}}: "Edward Doty, a meteorologist who established the Air Force's Balloon Branch at nearby Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico beginning in 1948, calls the Japanese Fu-Go balloons 'a very fine technical job with limited resources.'  But 'no way could one of these balloons explain the Roswell episode,' says Doty,'because they could not possibly have stayed aloft for two years.'"</ref> Project Mogul was first connected to Roswell by independent researcher Robert G. Todd in 1990.<ref name="Saler-p27">{{harvnb|Saler|Ziegler|Moore|1997|p=27}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|p=167}}: "The Army Air Force had seen what the Japanese had done with long range balloons; although not effective as weapons, they did initiate the long-range balloon research which led to use of balloons for the detection and collection of debris from atomic explosion."</ref>  Todd contacted ufologists and in the 1994 book ''Roswell in Perspective'', Karl Pflock agreed that the Brazel ranch debris was from Mogul.<ref name="Saler-p27"/><ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|page=28}}: "Most interestingly, as this report was being written, Pflock published his own report of this matter under the auspices of FUFOR, entitled Roswell in Perspective (1994). Pflock concluded from his research that the Brazel Ranch debris originally reported as a "flying disc" was probably debris from a MOGUL balloon"</ref> In response to a 1993 inquiry from US congressman [[Steven Schiff]] of New Mexico, the [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] launched an inquiry and directed the Office of the [[United States Secretary of the Air Force]] to conduct an internal investigation.<ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|page=11}}</ref><ref name="Frazier-2017b" /> Air Force declassification officer Lieutenant James McAndrew concluded:

{{Blockquote|When the civilians and personnel from Roswell AAF [...] 'stumbled' upon the highly classified project and collected the debris, no one at Roswell had a 'need to know' about information concerning MOGUL. This fact, along with the initial mis-identification and subsequent rumors that the 'capture' of a 'flying disc' occurred, ultimately left many people with unanswered questions that have endured to this day.<ref>{{harvnb|Weaver|McAndrew|1995|page=316}}</ref>}}