Berkley Professor = Roswell WAS weather balloon, and here's why!

I found this paper recently and it's quite an interesting read. Many of you Roswell afficionados and experts probably already know much of this government-sponsored explanation.

But California at Berkley physicist Richard Muller explains "Project Mogul" in a very simple and intriguing way. So much so, that it's quite convincing. Now, as for alien bodies and other factors regarding the Roswell legend, he simply dismisses it. But his argument against those factors is tantalizing, if not humorous:

I suggest the following answer: the people who continue to believe that Project Mogul never happened, probably don't understand the remarkable science of the ocean and atmosphere sound channels. I could not have invented such a wonderful story. It has too many amazing details. In contrast, it is relatively easy to make up stories about flying saucers. Those don't require much imagination. So here is my hypothesis: it is possible to distinguish the truth by the fact that it is more fascinating!

Of course, I might be lying.

Essentially, he's demonstrating occam's razor -- the simplest explanation is often the correct one. Perhaps more interesting is Muller himself: This man is not above believing in the fantastic. He has a variety of papers on his web site detailing some interesting -- and scary -- theories, including Nemesis. Nemesis is the theory that a yet-to-be discovered red dwarf star is responsible for the near cyclical extinction events on earth, including the dinosaurs (and that we're due for another one).

Anyway, it's a good read overall.

I don't suspect Muller will change ardent Roswell supporters' minds with his Mogul explanation, but to me, it's a necessary read to see the other side of the argument.

[edit on 3/21/2007 by behindthescenes]

Problems with MOGUL....

1.) There would have been little military interest in a crashed MOGUL balloon, certainly not a cordon, as attested to by numerous witnesses. Why? Because, though the PURPOSE of MOGUL was classified, the MOGUL balloons used off the shelf materials and were allowed to go unrecovered numerous times before and after the Roswell incident.

2.) Any "disc's" associated with MOGUL would be about the size of pie plates, and certainly not cause for the Army to announce the finding of a "disc" craft...

3.) see below. Charles Moore was one of the MOGUL engineers....

According to Charles Moore, Flight 4 consisted of 28 neoprene, meteorological-sounding (i.e., weather) balloons attached to a 600-foot-long master line of braided nylon cord, three ML-307B rawin radar targets, possibly one or more silk-canopy parachutes, and a variety of test equipment such as a sonobuoy microphone, radio transmitter, dry cells, and plastic containers holding solid and liquid ballast. All components and systems were ordinary off-the-shelf items; only the Mogul program objective was classified.

www.cufos.org...

Here's a pic of what a rawin target looks like (certainly not "disc" shaped in any way...)

These targets consisted of nine right-triangular segments with 24-inch-long bases and heights. Each segment consisted of a panel of aluminum foil laminated to some fairly tough, heavy-duty paper and deployed on balsa wood struts

www.cufos.org...

Now, to believe the MOGUL explanation, you'd have to believe that numerous witnesses, including US Army Intel Officers, somehow mistook neoprene balloons, silk fabric, and tin foil covered balsa wood sticks, for something out of this world. This is a pretty big stretch, even for skeptics. It also fails to address the properties of the debris as stated by numerous witnesses, i.e. such as memory metal, etc. (and before said metal existed experimentally).

4. The amount of debris of a MOGUL train would never be able to cover the debris field size, as stated by numerous witnesses, including military personnel. In fact, conservative estimates calculate that nearly 4 such trains would be needed, to even have a chance at this....

5. Many have pointed out the flaws in Charles Moore's assessment that Flight 4 would have landed on the Foster Ranch. Some can be seen here, or one can search themselves...
roswellproof.homestead.com...

6. Perhaps one of the most damning pieces of evidence is the memo in Ramey's hand during the infamous weather balloon photos. Many of the words are quite decipherable, and incredibly telling. Words such as "victims of the wreck", "disc", etc. are quite easy to see and with no other crash or wreck in the areas involved on the note, it certainly points away from MOGUL.

7. The Flight 4 on July 4 explanation falls apart when one discovers that Dr. Albert Crary, the project leader, in his diary, notes that there was no flight 4, it was scrubbed.

Crary’s diary for June 4 said, "Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 [midnight] and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds."

kevinrandle.blogspot.com...

8. There would be NO reason to fly MOGUL debris to Air Materiel Command or any other such facility, as again, we're talking about off the shelf materials here. Yet, the flights are attested to both in the press, and from witnesses (including the pilots who flew them), and of course, made fact by Marcel's trip and subsequent photo session with Ramey.

I could go on and on of course, but UFO believer or not, MOGUL simply doesn't wash as the explanation....

[edit on 21-3-2007 by Gazrok]

Interesting web site, thanks for the link. the 62 MYr cycle in fossil diversity is pretty interesting, as an aside.

the insights into Roswell, are for a didactic purpose - he's trying to teach some qualitative wave mechanics.

I suggest the following answer: the people who continue to believe that Project Mogul never happened, probably don't understand the remarkable science of the ocean and atmosphere sound channels.

I don't think anyone contests the existence of Project Mogul, what people contest is that the Roswell incident resulted from a crashed balloon from Project Mogul.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
I don't suspect Muller will change ardent Roswell supporters' minds with his Mogul explanation, but to me, it's a necessary read to see the other side of the argument.

I don't think this 'explanation' should change anyone's mind, 'ardent Roswell supporter' or not. And here's why:

I would consider an alternative theory/explanation if it would account for all the elements and details of the incident, but they don't.

And Muller's explanation follows the same path, as it doesn't even consider the bodies.

I guess it's still less insulting than the official explanation, that the bodies were dummies from Project High Five, which curiously enough only started like 3 or 4 years after the Roswell incident.

To me, Muller's 'explanation' falls in the same category as the 9/11 Commission Report, which doesn't even mention WTC7.

I've often wondered if the Roswell crash was a Russian craft, possibly captured from Germany at the end of WW2. I think it's very possible that the coverstory of the weather balloon was just a duck-blind for their real coverstory of aliens. Americans, during the Cold War, would have been horrified if they learned Russia was flying a new type of unknown aircraft.

It's just as likely that it was OUR craft which crashed. The military would certainly rather have a very large conspiracy instead of an admission to the world about our technological capabilities.

If either of those scenarios were true, why wouldn't they simply release that (over 50 years later) and put the story to bed? Only explanation is that it was neither ours (non Mogul), nor the Russians.....

I believe it was a balloon of some kind.

the witness testimony of the time is completely consistent with a balloon

Major Marcel in his interview with stanton friedman in 1978 & also in the 1979 film "ufos are real" confirmed the debris in the press conference photos was some of the debris they recovered from the crash site.

Only when he was told that experts have clearly identified the debris as being from a balloon did he change his story to the "debris was switched"

says it all really





[edit on 21-3-2007 by yeti101]

Major Marcel in his interview with stanton friedman in 1978 & also in the 1979 film "ufos are real" confirmed the debris in the press conference photos was some of the debris they recovered from the crash site.

Oddly, I believe I have an old VCR tape of this one...(or at least one by that title), so I'll have to check that...though I don't recall such a comment by Marcel, as he's pretty much consistently attested to the debris in the photos as NOT being what he recovered....

Again, you're also back to the idea that a senior intelligence officer somehow couldn't tell the difference between laminated tin foil on paper and something out of this world.... That's still a big point of contention to get past... I mean, you or I would recognize a Mogul debris field INSTANTLY as regular materials...so I fail to see how Brazel, Marcel, and numerous other witnesses could make such a mistake....

well you have to remember that some of the materials being used for the balloon were newly created synthetic polymers nobody except the people who handled the ballons directly would have ever seen anything like it before.

there was a flying saucer story in the press about a month before but nobody had ever seen one close up so nobody knew what the debris would look like.

only when people with experience from the balloon experiments examined the debris was the misidentification clarified and a correction issued to the press.

Originally posted by yeti101
I believe it was a balloon of some kind.
the witness testimony of the time is completely consistent with a balloon
says it all really
[edit on 21-3-2007 by yeti101]

The witness testimony is completely INCONSISTENT with a balloon, for all of the reasons that Gazrock posted above.

The initial press release issued (RAAF captures flying saucer on ranch in Roswell region) is also inconsistent with a balloon.

That says it all really.

tezzajw, im talking about the primary witnesses at the time and their descriptions to the press.

not the poeple who came out with stuff after 1978.

Originally posted by yeti101
well you have to remember that some of the materials being used for the balloon were newly created synthetic polymers nobody except the people who handled the ballons directly would have ever seen anything like it before.

Only some of the materials might have been used. What quantity is *some*? What about the rest of the material? All common and off the shelf? Easily identifiable as pieces of wood with tin-foil over it?

there was a flying saucer story in the press about a month before but nobody had ever seen one close up so nobody knew what the debris would look like.

So? How does that have ANY bearing on the downed craft at Roswell? You're clutching at straws to try and associate a report of a flying saucer observed in the air, to the recovery operation of a downed craft under strict military security. Why would two military men not be able to identify their own downed balloons?

only when people with experience from the balloon experiments examined the debris was the misidentification clarified and a correction issued to the press.

Only when people with experience in disinformation examined the debris was the true identification clarified and a bogus statement issued to the press.

Originally posted by yeti101
tezzajw, im talking about the primary witnesses at the time and their descriptions to the press.

not the poeple who came out with stuff after 1978.

Of course, you are.

But, in your debunking attempt, you neglect to state that there were two primary witnesses. Mac Brazel and the kid who was riding with him. You don't mention their descriptions of the wreckage, do you?

Marcel was a secondary witness, sent by the base to investigate.

You also don't mention that there were many witnesses who saw and handled the wreckage, Whether they came forward in 1947, 1978 or 2007 makes no difference to their status as witnesses. Have you managed to debunk all of their claims as well?

Great research, yeti. Well done.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Problems with MOGUL....

1.) There would have been little military interest in a crashed MOGUL balloon, certainly not a cordon, as attested to by numerous witnesses. Why? Because, though the PURPOSE of MOGUL was classified, the MOGUL balloons used off the shelf materials and were allowed to go unrecovered numerous times before and after the Roswell incident.

2.) Any "disc's" associated with MOGUL would be about the size of pie plates, and certainly not cause for the Army to announce the finding of a "disc" craft...

[edit on 21-3-2007 by Gazrok]

I disagree with these points:
1.) The military protects intelligence sources very aggressively by policy, and much more so than they protect technology. It wouldn't be the technology they were protecting at Roswell by lying about the flying disc, but the highly classified intelligence source. This sinlt something they do much soul searching over - if it's an intelligence source, you protect it, no question

2.) they were lying about the disc (it didn't exist), and it had nothing to do with the shape of the radar targets.

tezzajw,
actually some of the material was described as "wood" by major marcel himself.

the story in the press about flying saucers is relevant becuase it was on peoples minds at the time of the debris being discovered. I belive thats why the farmer & marcel initially thought it could be a flying saucer.

you cant account for marcels change in story and he was the catalyst for all the other "witnesses" coming out with stories about roswell. Heres some facts about the roswell story

- 11 diffirent crash sites have been identified by witnesses
- the number of crashed saucers at roswell ranges from 1 to 3
- Marcel mentions no bodies with the debris but today accounts of between 3 & 5 E.Ts and even a live one are common.
- Bill brazel jnr also changed his story over 8 years from no gouges or marks on the ground to huge gouges being ripped up by the "ufo"



[edit on 21-3-2007 by yeti101]

1.) The military protects intelligence sources very aggressively by policy, and much more so than they protect technology. It wouldn't be the technology they were protecting at Roswell by lying about the flying disc, but the highly classified intelligence source. This sinlt something they do much soul searching over - if it's an intelligence source, you protect it, no question

Illogical. They didn't recover many previous MOGUL missing balloons, and many afterwards. No need to. Also, from Moore's own descriptions, the materials were made to be "expendable", as they really doubted they'd recover the balloons, and made little effort to do so.

2.) they were lying about the disc (it didn't exist), and it had nothing to do with the shape of the radar targets.

What would be the motivation for this? I can't think of one. If it was disinfo or coverup, then wouldn't the weather balloon cover be better?

Also, how do you account for the Ramey memo, which clearly states such phrases as "victims of the wreck", "disc", etc. ?

Originally posted by yeti101
the story in the press about flying saucers is relevant becuase it was on peoples minds at the time of the debris being discovered. I belive thats why the farmer & marcel initially thought it could be a flying saucer.

That doesn't make any sense.

Why would the military, if indeed were trying to cover up something about Project Mogul, use something "on people's minds"?

Wouldn't that just increase the interest of people?

danx when they annouced they had recovered a ufo they werent covering anything up.

They didnt know it was project mogul, when they found out they didnt want to say "it was a balloon listening for russians testing nuclear bombs" becuase that information itself was highly classified so they said it was a weather balloon.





[edit on 21-3-2007 by yeti101]

If these people can't tell a weather balloon from an alien space craft, they're straight up incompetent. How could a person not be able to distiguish a alien space craft from anything else on this earth? Doesn't make sense to me. I will never believe the governments explaination(s) on this...

How could a person not be able to distiguish a alien space craft from anything else on this earth?

becuase nobody knew what flying saucer debris would look like

Also, how do you account for the Ramey memo, which clearly states such phrases as "victims of the wreck", "disc", etc. ?

sorry but those photos dont say anything clearly.

[edit on 21-3-2007 by yeti101]