Top Five Ufology Cases

reply to post by Seventytwo


I just watched this series and must thank you for posting it. Very credible case with lots of physical evidence. Plus the government and (possible US) military stepping in to quash the sightings themselves along with the witnesses.

The Coyne Helicopter and UFO Incident, Mansfield, Ohio, 1973 may not be the best case for physical evidence but in my opinion it's difficult to dismiss the multiple witness testimony.


UH -1 Huey

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The four-man crew of an Army Reserve UH-1H helicopter, based in Cleveland, Ohio, was returning from Columbus, Ohio, at about 10:30 p.m. following regularly scheduled physical examinations. It was a clear, starry night with no moon. They were cruising at 90 knots at an altitude of 2,500 feet above sea level, over farmland and rolling hills. Lt. Arrigo Jezzi, 26, was at the controls from the left-hand seat. Sgt. John Healey, 35, the flight medic, sat behind him. In the right rear seat was Spec. 5 Robert Yanacek, 23, the crew chief. Commanding the flight from the right front seat was Capt. Lawrence J. Coyne, 36, a 19-year veteran of the Army Reserve.


About 11:00 p.m. near Mansfield, Ohio, Healey saw a red light off to the left (west) heading south. Three or four minutes later, Yanacek noticed a single steady red light on the eastern horizon, and reported it to Coyne. About 30 seconds later, Yanacek announced that the light appeared to be converging on the helicopter, and they all watched it warily.

Flight Path Map - Columbus to Cleveland - object encountered over Mansfield

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As the light continued its approach, Coyne grabbed the controls from Jezzi and began a powered descent of approximately 500 feet per minute. He made radio contact with Mansfield approach control, requesting information on possible jet traffic. After Mansfield acknowledged their transmission, radio contact was lost on both UHF and VHF.

The red light appeared to be on a collision course, approaching at a speed estimated to be more than 600 knots. Coyne increased the rate of descent to 2,000 feet per minute until they reached about 1,700 feet, about 600 feet above the tree tops. With the unknown object about to ram them, the crewmen feared for their lives. Just as a collision appeared imminent, the light suddenly stopped and hovered above and in front of the helicopter. They saw a cigar-shaped, gray metallic appearing, domed object whose apparent size filled the entire windshield.

UFO as seen through the windshield of the Helicopter by Captain Coyne

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The object appeared solid, blotting out the stars behind it. It had a red light at the nose, a white light at the tail, and a distinctive green beam emanating from the lower part of the otherwise featureless "fuselage." The green beam swung up over the helicopter nose, through the windshield, and into the upper tinted window panels. The cockpit was bathed in intense green light. No noise or turbulence was noted.

After a few seconds, the object accelerated and moved off to the west. Coyne and Healey reported that it then made a distinct 45 degree turn to the right, heading toward Lake Erie. While the object was still visible, Jezzi and Coyne both noted that the altimeter read 3,500 feet with a rate of climb of 1,000 feet per minute. Yet the collective (steering mechanism) was still in the full-down position set during the descent.

As Coyne cautiously raised the collective, the helicopter continued climbing, as would be expected. At an indicated altitude of 3,800 feet Coyne finally felt that he had regained positive control. Then they felt a slight "bump." He descended to the previously assigned cruise altitude of 2,500 feet and made radio contact with Akron/Canton, which now was easily achieved. The remainder of the flight to Cleveland was routine.

At about 11:00 p.m., Mrs. Erma C. and four children were returning from Mansfield to their rural home southeast of town. As they drove south on Laver Road, they noticed a bright red light flying south. She turned the car eastward and continued on across the Charles Mill Reservoir, a distance of 3.6 miles, covered in about 5 minutes.

At this point they saw to the east a red and green light, moving together, coming down rapidly toward them. At first they assumed it was a low-flying light plane, but changed their minds almost immediately. The red was too bright, especially compared to the green. They could not see any shape or, at first, hear any sound. When they stopped the car and got out to look, they heard the typical sounds of a helicopter. As they watched, the red light and the helicopter converged.

After the red-lighted object stopped, the green light flared up. "When we got out, everything was green. I saw that thing and the helicopter." The witnesses agreed that the helicopter was green "because of the light from the thing up above... It was so bright that you couldn't see too far. Everything was green. The trees, the car, everything.

ground witnesses observed the Helicopter and UFO

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The helicopter with the other object above and slightly ahead of it moved in tandem from southwest to northeast. Suddenly the green light went out and the object was gone. "When the light went out you couldn't see the object. And then the helicopter went northeast. Then we got back in the car and went on, and saw it [the helicopter] fly out over the lake."

Jeanne Elias, 44, was watching the news at her home southeast of Mansfield just after 11:00 p.m. She recognized the sound of an Army helicopter approaching so loud and near that she feared it was going to crash into the house. The sound persisted for "a long time," and when it was over her son John, 14, called out from his room. He had been awakened by the sound, and then had observed a bright green light that lit up the bedroom. The light persisted long enough for him to realize that "there must be some kind of object right above the house, because it was coming in so heavy in my room."

www.ufologie.net...
www.nicap.org...

Drawing of the UFO
www.ufocasebook.com...

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FOIA Document

To Commandor Flight Operations Off DATE 23 Nov 73 Cmt 1
83D USARCOM USAR Flight Facility
ATTN: AHRCCG Cleveland Hopkins Airport
Columbus Support Facility Cleveland, Ohio 44135


1. On 18 October 1973 at 2305 hours in the vicinity of Mansfield, Ohio,
Army Helicopter 68-15444 assigned to Cleveland USARFFAC encountered a near
midair collision with a unidentified flying object. Four crewmembers
assigned to the Cleveland USARFFAC for flying proficiency were on AFTP
status when this incident occurred. The flight crew assigned was CPT
Lawrence J. Coyne, Pilot in Command,1LT Arrigo Jozzi, Copilot, SSG Robert
Yanacsek, Crew Chief, SSG John Healey,Flight Medio,All the above personnel
are member of the 316th MED DET(HEL AMB). a tenant reserve unit of the
Cleveland USARFFAC.

2. The reported incident happened as follows: Army Helicopter 68-15444 was
returning from Columbus, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio and at 2305 hours east,
south east of Mansfield Airport in the vicinity of Mansfield, Ohio while
flying at an altitude of 2500 feet and on a heading of 030 degrees, SSG
Yanacsek observed a red light on the east horizon,90 drgrees to the flight
path of the helicopter. Approximately 30 seconds later, SSG Yanacsek
indicated the object was converging on the helicopter at the same altitude
at a airspeed in excess of 600 knots and on a midair collision heading.

Cpt Coyne observed the converging object, took over the controls of the
aircraft and initiated a power descent from 2500 feet to 1700 feet to
avoid impact with the object. A radio call was initiated to Mansfield
Tower who acknowledged the helicopter and was asked by CPT Coyne if there
were any high performance aircraft flying in the vicinity of Mansfield
Airport however there was no response received from the tower. The crew
expected impact from the object instead, the object was observed to
hesistate momontarily over the helicopter and then slowly continued on a
westerly course accelerating at a high rate of speed, clear west of
Mansfield Airport then turn 45 degree heading to the Northwest.
Cpt Coyne indicated the altimeter read a 1000 fpm olimp and read 3500 feet
with the collective in the full down position. The aircraft was returned
to 2500 feet by CPT Coyne and flown back to Cleveland, Ohio. The flight
plan was closed and the FAA Flight Service Station notified of the
incident. The FSS told CPT Coyne to report the incident to the FAA GADO
office a Cleveland Hopkins Airport Mr. Porter, 83d USARCOM was notified of
the incident at 1530 hours on 19 Oct 73.

3. This report has been read and attested to by the crewmembers of the
aircraft with signatures acknowledgeing this report.

www.cufon.org...

this incident won a award for being the best of 1973 !

The Coyne case (or "Army helicopter incident") stands out as, perhaps the most credible (in the "high strangeness" category) of the 1973 wave. An Army Reserve helicopter crew of four men encountered a gray, metallic-looking, cigar-shaped object, with unusual lights and maneuvers, as they were airborne between Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio. The crew won the NATIONAL ENQUIRER Blue Ribbon Panel's $ 5,000 award for "the most scientifically valuable report of 1973."

www.nicap.org...

reply to post by easynow


Thanks for this elaborate and very interesting story! Very curious to know as to what that green beam was, if my memory serves me right I've heard other stories mentioning this phenomenon.

reply to post by Droogie



sure no problem Droogie, glad you liked the story cause imo it's a good one. i have no idea what the green light really was but there have been quite a few reports that describe ufo's emitting different colored lights or beams of light. i don't have any of those reports handy right this minute to post but i can tell you the ufo i witnessed back in the mid eighties did something similar but it was a purple or lavender colored light.



another interesting case you might like is the "Kaikoura UFO sightings" - New Zealand 1978 and there were also multiple witnesses and plenty of photographic evidence. i think i would include this one in my top ten list.



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The world famous ‘Kaikoura Lights’ sightings
of December 1978

In late December 1978, a spectacular series of sightings occurred over South Island skies. These sightings initially began on December 21 when the crew of a Safe Air Ltd cargo plane observed strange lighted objects around their Argosy aircraft. The lights, ranging in size to that of a house, tracked them for several minutes before disappearing, and reappearing elsewhere. They appeared on Wellington ATC radar, on the aircraft radar, and were sighted by hundreds of people.

www.ufocusnz.org.nz...

On December 30, 1978, a television crew from Australia recorded background film for a network show on interviews about the sightings. For many minutes at a time on the flight to Christchurch, unidentified lights were observed by five people on the flight deck, were tracked by Wellington Air Traffic Controllers, and filmed in color by the television crew. One object reportedly followed the aircraft almost until landing. The cargo plane then took off again with the television crew still on board, heading for Blenheim. When the aircraft reached about 2000 feet, it encountered a gigantic lighted orb, which fell into station off the wing tip and tracked along with the cargo aircraft for almost quarter of an hour, while being filmed, watched, tracked on the aircraft radar and described on a tape recording made by the TV film crew.

en.wikipedia.org...

other sources
brumac.8k.com...
www.ufocasebook.com...
www.rense.com...
ufos.about.com...

It has been almost 30 years since unidentified flying objects were observed off the coast of Kaikoura during the Christmas/New Year break of 1978.

The sightings are to be marked soon with a commemorative flight, a gathering of enthusiasts and even a musical.

At the time, news of the sightings was reported worldwide and to this day they remain a huge source of controversy.

But the remarkable thing about the sightings is whatever was flying around that night was not just observed, it showed up on radar too and was caught on film.

It is one of New Zealand's biggest mysteries and one of the world's best documented sightings of a UFO.

"The most important thing I think about his story is that even to this day, the flight crew and the air traffic controllers are adamant that we saw something highly unusual that can't be explained in mundane terms," says journalist Quentin Fogarty. "Now, 30 years later, they still believe that."

Mr Fogarty was the reporter, with a news crew, that filmed the UFOs on an Argosy freight plane the night of the December 30, 1978.

He was not expecting to see anything that night. He had been asked to do a news story on a UFO sighting that occurred 10 days before.

"My employers in Melbourne said, 'Would you break your holiday and get on a plane and basically just do a re-enactment?'"

John Cordy was the radar operator on the night of the first sightings on December 20.

"We saw some little targets on our radar just down off Blenheim, Cape Campbell way, and we joked that it was Father Christmas having a practice run with Rudolf in the front, because it was just before Christmas," he says.

Then the UFOs followed an Argosy freight plane.

"This target then moved toward the Argosy, turned with it, then tracked with it for a good 20 to 30 miles. The target and the aircraft were at 90 degrees to each other the whole time. And Vern Powell's aircraft said they could see a big red light that was definitely airborne."

www.3news.co.nz...

Originally posted by kidflash2008
For the Roswell case:

1. If the debris was just balsa wood, tin foil and common objects, why did the military cordon off the area to collect it? (They might have sent a detail to help the ranchers pick it up so no cattle would eat it, but they would not of cordoned off the area keeping out civilians.)

How do you know they wouldn't have cordoned it off? I wasn't there but the people collecting the debris may have known it was tinfoil and balsa wood, but they probably had never seen so much wreckage over such a huge area, far more than any weather balloon. So they didn't know what they were dealing with. I wasn't there so I don't know why they cordoned it off, but if I was there making the decisions I might have made the same decision if I didn't know what it was...it could have been a soviet spy craft made of the same materials so I would definitely restrict access to the area to make sure to collect as much of the object as possible for analysis. Don't forget the cold war paranoia.

2. If it was debris of just a balloon and the measuring equipment, why did the military ship it to Ft Worth and then to Wright Patterson AAF?

They probably shipped it out to have it analyzed. If it was a soviet spy vehicle they wouldn't dilly dally around.

3. For those who say it was an experimental top secret air craft, why would the air force not say it was an experimental top secret air craft?

To not draw unnecessary attention to it, perhaps? If they made that disclosure that would only entice the soviet spies to investigate.

4. Why were many flag (general) officers notified of the wreckage if it was just the balloon during the weekend of the Fourth?

Why not notify them? Especially since the story about the "flying disc" brought some attention to the subject.

All these things which apparently seem like mysteries you you don't really seem that strange or mysterious at all to me. It's interesting how we can both look at the exact same facts and come up with entirely different interpretations of them.

Then there is the Hill case:

Good points. As I said, the Hill case is harder to dismiss than the Roswell case.

Originally posted by easynow
The Coyne Helicopter and UFO Incident, Mansfield, Ohio, 1973 may not be the best case for physical evidence but in my opinion it's difficult to dismiss the multiple witness testimony.

I like the Coyne case too.

And like the 1976 Iran case there's little physical evidence as you said.

Somehow it seems like the ultimate irony or contradiction that the "best" cases have the least amount of evidence, like no photos, etc.

And as unreliable as eyewitness testimony can be, it seems like the witnesses in the Coyne incident are relating events as accurately as they can. That's a really strange event.

Originally posted by FireMoon
If you are going to continue posting this fairy story e, every time you do I am going to post that.. "The person who invented this explanation has since, RESCINDED IT, ON FILM and accepted that Halt could not have seen the lighthouse from where the UFO was being observed.

Is this because the light from the lighthouse didn't shine in the direction where Halt was standing? I already addressed that by mentioning a reflection of the light. I agree the light wouldn't have been shining directly toward him. But that wouldn't prevent him from seeing the light bounce off some haze or fog. Has the person who came up with the theory also ruled out a reflection of the lighthouse light? What's your source by the way?

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Halt takes the guy on film to the place where the sighting happened and stands there and says to camera. "You could not have seen the lighthouse from here".

An unknown object was tracked on Radar, only three sweeps admittedly, but it was tracked on Radar then vanished from the screen about, if memory serves me right some 6 miles from the base.

The object was seen above the forest by an independent witness who also saw the lights of the search party wending its' way through the woods. The independent witness also reported that the animals in the local area were *upset*.

The lighthouse lamp is white Halt clearly describes a small red light. Later in the tape they voice says. "Two lights, one light to the left". "It's almost so bright through the star scope it almost burns your eye". "Now we have up to multiple sightings of up to 5 lights" "We are getting 3 klicks on the meter and there are strange lights (plural) in the sky"...


In other words the people who tend to support the lighthouse theory have, In my opinion, doctored the tape to fit their explanation by editing it.




Lighthouses do not fly and lighthouses do not appear on Radar read outs.

Originally posted by FireMoon
In other words the people who tend to support the lighthouse theory have, In my opinion, doctored the tape to fit their explanation by editing it.

That's not what Halt said when he was asked about the lighthouse theory. He never claimed anyone doctored his tape. He said he was starting and stopping the recording, as if that somehow explains the exact match to the lighthouse interval.

Lighthouses do not fly and lighthouses do not appear on Radar read outs.

I agree with that, and I'm sure there was more going on than just the lighthouse. It's only Col Halt's recording that matches the lighthouse 5 second interval exactly. Other aspects of the incident may have nothing to do with the lighthouse. And some aspects are completely fabricated as the discrepancy between Burroughs and Penniston's accounts demonstrate.

[edit on 18-7-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Somehow it seems like the ultimate irony or contradiction that the "best" cases have the least amount of evidence, like no photos, etc.

sometimes that's true but since most ufo sightings are a surprise or unexpected it makes perfect sense.

]And as unreliable as eyewitness testimony can be, it seems like the witnesses in the Coyne incident are relating events as accurately as they can. That's a really strange event.

in my opinion witness testimony has to evaluated case by case and saying it's unreliable for the most part is painting it with a broad stroke and inaccurate.

what do you think about the New Zealand UFO sightings ? there were multiple witnesses, radar tracking and photography ? i think it's a strong case for ufo's.

just to add an interesting observation about the October 1973 , Coyne Helicopter incident, the report stated when they first noticed the UFO it was a red light coming at them and just one month prior, September 20, 1973, the crew aboard the Skylab 3 space station photographed a Red UFO that was following them.

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The sighting is reported in the following document compiled by James Oberg in 1977: The second manned Skylab visit was within five days of returning to earth after a record-breaking 59 day expedition. The crew had awakened at 0700 GMT and would go to sleep at 2300 GMT. They had eaten lunch in the wardroom and were doing a 'procedures review' in the wardroom prior to beginning a new series of experiments in the afternoon. During the sighting the crew was out of contact with the ground control. The on-board tape recorder was not turned on and the first recorded mention of the incident was on a ground link some 4.5 hours after the event. Garriott had taken four photographs. During the taped discussion the conversation went as follows: LOUSMA: "Did you tell him about that satellite we saw? BEAN: Yes, we saw a great satellite. We didn't know if we told you about it. LOUSMA: The closest and brightest one we've seen. BEAN: Huge one. LOUSMA: We've seen several. It was a red one. CAPCOM: No, you may have told somebody, but it wasn't this team. I don't remember hearing about it. LOUSMA: I guess we didn't report it. It was reflecting in red light and oscillating at, oh, counting it's period of brightest to dimmest, about ten seconds. It led us into sunset. That was about three revs ago, I think. Something like that, wasn't it Owen? (no answer by Owen; topics changed.) Note: "Three revolutions ago," at about 1.5 hours per revolution is 4.5 hours before. Garriott said later that the object did not lead the Skylab into sunset, but rather followed the Skylab into sunset.

www.brumac.8k.com...

Astronaut - LOUSMA:
I saw a couple of satellites that appeared like a satellite would on earth.

I saw one that was not like one you would see on earth

www.brumac.8k.com...

NASA has the UFO listed as a Satellite but with no identification

[edit on 19-7-2010 by easynow]

And some aspects are completely fabricated as the discrepancy between Burroughs and Penniston's accounts demonstrate.

In my opinion, Burroughs and Penniston were both the victims of a form of black op debriefing. Their stories would have been laughed off had it not returned the next night and full colonel ended up a witness. There is the third witness to the first nights events Cadonagh? Sp*. He makes it plain there was something weird going on that night as well.

Dont forget, Betty Hill's 'star map' that turned out to be Zeta Reticuli...alegged home of the Greys

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by HomerinNC
Dont forget, Betty Hill's 'star map' that turned out to be Zeta Reticuli...alegged home of the Greys

en.wikipedia.org...

That's according to Marjorie Fish, an elementary school teacher, from your source:

Marjorie Fish of Oak Harbor, Ohio read Fuller's Interrupted Journey. She was an elementary school teacher...

So you take her "expertise" over that of a professional astronomer with a PhD like Carl Sagan?

For about a year afterward, the opinions page of Astronomy carried arguments for and against Fish's star map. Notable was an argument made by Carl Sagan and Stephen Soter, arguing that the seeming "star map" was little more than a random alignment of chance points.

Actually that may not even be an accurate representation of Sagan's analysis. It doesn't look like a random alignment because the points don't even align. If you really want to see Sagan's analysis of the Hill star map, you can see it on this episode of Cosmos:

Cosmos - Encyclopedia Galactics-(Hill Star Map Episode)
Quotes from Sagan:

Noone would be happier than me if we were being visited

The star map analysis begins around 5 minutes in the episode, before that is a recap of the case.

If you can pick and choose from a large number of stars viewed from any vantage point in space you want, you can always find something resembling the pattern you're looking for. I'm surprised that nobody could find a better fit to the Hill map.

I am surprised too. Do you really think these maps match?

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I don't think it even looks close. Those two maps look nothing alike to me, when you just look at the stars without all the lines cluttering up the view.

Originally posted by FireMoon
In my opinion, Burroughs and Penniston were both the victims of a form of black op debriefing. Their stories would have been laughed off had it not returned the next night and full colonel ended up a witness.

I wasn't aware that a full colonel was a witness,who was that? Source?

Originally posted by easynow
what do you think about the New Zealand UFO sightings ? there were multiple witnesses, radar tracking and photography ? i think it's a strong case for ufo's.

I've never seen a good explanation of the 1978 Kaikoura NZ case, but fuzzy lights in the night sky just aren't nearly as interesting to me as all the strange happenings in the 1973 Coyne incident, or the 1976 Iran incident.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Arbitrageur: How do you know they wouldn't have cordoned it off? I wasn't there but the people collecting the debris may have known it was tinfoil and balsa wood, but they probably had never seen so much wreckage over such a huge area, far more than any weather balloon. So they didn't know what they were dealing with. I wasn't there so I don't know why they cordoned it off, but if I was there making the decisions I might have made the same decision if I didn't know what it was...it could have been a soviet spy craft made of the same materials so I would definitely restrict access to the area to make sure to collect as much of the object as possible for analysis. Don't forget the cold war paranoia.

Response: Again, if they already knew it was a balloon, then they would not of sent a group of military there to cordon off the whole area. Suggesting they would do such a thing means it was much more than a weather balloon. The Cold War was just getting started, and SAC (Strategic Air Command) had not been formed yet. The only concerns the ranchers and military might have is the harm caused by cattle eating such debris (and the cost of replacing such cattle.

A: They probably shipped it out to have it analyzed. If it was a soviet spy vehicle they wouldn't dilly dally around.

R: The argument of the skeptics is the debris was easily identifiable as a weather balloon. This statement takes that away and suggests it was much more.

A: To not draw unnecessary attention to it, perhaps? If they made that disclosure that would only entice the soviet spies to investigate.

R: My apologies, I should of stated why haven't the Air Force come clean now about that. Not dating it makes it seem like they would of made a comment during the time frame the crash happened.

A: Why not notify them? Especially since the story about the "flying disc" brought some attention to the subject.

All these things which apparently seem like mysteries you you don't really seem that strange or mysterious at all to me. It's interesting how we can both look at the exact same facts and come up with entirely different interpretations of them.

R: I asked the flag officer question as I served in the military for over ten years and worked in maintenance and logistics. I know how they function and who would be notified. The flying disk press release to me proves they had found something other than a weather balloon, which all the military personnel would have seen while working on the base. Also, for something small like a weather balloon crashing during a holiday down week (4th of July), only top base personnel would of been immediately notified so they would know what was going on. The DCM would of handled it as it is the job of logistics to repair or condemn the parts.

We both disagree about this case, but I am looking at it through different glasses than some others. I respect your opinion on it, but I do believe all of these coincidences and other activities like flying out weather balloon debris to be analyzed at Wright Patterson raises a red flag that something major happened at Roswell. Some in ufology want this one to die, but there is too big a paperwork trail pointing out this was not an ordinary incident. I am just trying to show the questions and activities that were done that would not make any sense if it was just a weather balloon.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Of the Hill Star Map (taken from the book Captured):

Dr George Mitchell of the astronomy department of Ohio State University in Columbus states Marjorie Fish's map is very accurate. There is a whole chapter in the book dedicated to the research on the star map itself.

I just wanted to show that there are other astronomers out there who state the possible reality of the star map.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for bringing Carl Sagans analysis into the discussion of the Hills case, he has got an intelligible and persuasive way to explain things. However, the Betty and Barney Hill case is still very intruiging. And I haven't seen anyone mention the yellow substance that was found on one of their jackets, I believe it was featured on a UFO Hunters episode.

Originally posted by kidflash2008
The argument of the skeptics is the debris was easily identifiable as a weather balloon. This statement takes that away and suggests it was much more.

Well this provides a lot of insight into why we interpret the same evidence differently. This is NOT the claim of skeptics. Though the materials were similar to a weather balloon, there was WAY TOO MUCH material for it to be a weather balloon. If you listen to Jesse Marcel recount his description of the debris field, this is how he knows it can't be a weather balloon, there's way too much debris for that.

So one difference in our opinion apparently is that you think skeptics claim it was identifiable as a weather balloon. I say that's not the case, not even close. Just in the neoprene material alone there would have been 28 times as much of it, so anybody who know what a weather balloon was could look at that amount of material and immediately conclude it wasn't a weather balloon.

And this is important because this is why I believed Jesse Marcel's story that it was definitely NOT a weather balloon that crashed at Roswell. And, of course he was right, as the Air force admitted in 1995.

So I didn't believe the weather balloon story before 1995. When the Air force published their report in 1995, and they admitted they lied about the weather balloon story, I think most people who had studied the case already knew they were lying about the weather balloon. But when they gave the description of what it REALLY was, I must say, it matches what Jesse Marcel and Mac Brazel describe exactly, or as close to exactly as one can expect to recall something after decades. Obviously there are small differences in recollection like Marcel's son recalls an i-beam shape to the sticks which almost nobody else recalls, etc. But it all sounds pretty much like mogul.

Also, you know about compartmentation, right?

From "The Roswell Report", page 3 (1995):

To attempt to limit unauthorized disclosure, the Air Force employed a security mechanism known as compartmentation. Compartmentation controlled access to classified information by dispersing portions of the research among several facilities and institutions. Each participating entity received only enough information necessary to accomplish its assigned tasks. In the case of MOGUL, only a small circle of Air Force officers received the intimate details that linked together these unrelated research projects. The use of cbmpartmentation along with strict enforcement of the need to know enabled MOGUL to remain a secret-despite its obvious security difficulties-and to remain unevaluated for many years as the cause of the Roswell Incident.


The issue of compartmentation was significant because some UFO researchers assert that the persons who recovered the MOGUL equipment, members of the 509th Bombardment Group stationed at Roswell Army Airfield, should have been able to recognize the debris collected at the crash site as that of a research balloon. Although members of the 509th possessed high-level clearances, they were not privy to the existence of MOGUL; their job was to deliver nuclear weapons, not to detect them. The unusual combination of experimental equipment did not encourage easy identification that undoubtedly left some members of the 509th with unanswered questions. Some UFO enthusiasts have manipulated these unanswered questions to support their flying-saucer recovery scenario, while eagerly supplying unfounded explanations of extraterrestrial visitation and cosmic conspiracy. Additionally, many claims of a flying saucer crash at Roswell rest on the description of debris collected at the Foster ranch site. UFO researchers, including those who are said to have known ail about MOGUL, apparently did not compare the descriptions of the suspect debris with that of the components of a Project MOGUL balloon train. MOGUL reports and documents that contain descriptions, illustrations, and photographs have been publicly available for at least twenty years. Had the researchers completed even a cursory comparison, they would have found that the materials were suspiciously similar: detailed examination would have shown them to be one and the same.

It almost seems like your response does not take compartmentation into account. That would partially explain why even some high level officials may not know the true purpose of what was found. See page 25:

AAZD personnel located and obtained the original study papers and reports of the New York University project. Their efforts also revealed that some of the individuals involved in Project MOGUL were still living. These persons included the NYU constant altitude balloon Director of Research, Dr. Athelstan F. Spilhaus; the Project Engineer, Professor Charles B. Moore; and the military Project Officer, Colonel Albert C. Trakowski

All of these persons were subsequently interviewed and signed sworn statements about their activities. A copy of theses statements are appended at Atchs 20-22. Additionally, transcripts of the interview with Moore and Trakowski are also included (equipment malfunctioned during the interview of Spilhaus) (Atchs 23-24). These interviews confirmed that Project MOGUL was a compartmented, sensitive effort.

So it WAS compartmentized!

And from page 20:

"All the records, however, indicated that the focus of concern was not on aliens, hostile or otherwise, but on the Soviet Union. Many documents from that period speak to the possibility of developmental secret Soviet aircraft overflying US airspace. This, of course, was of major concern to the fledgling USAF, whose job it was to protect these same skies."

So whatever special treatment the materials could have been given might be due to uncertainty about whether it could be a Soviet spy craft (which could be made of the materials found).

From page 22, the FBI memo is mentioned that describes the "disc" resembles a weather balloon:

the telegram from
the Dallas FBI office of July 8,1947. This document quoted in part states: “. . The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by a cable, which balloon was approximately twenty feet in diameter... the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector... disc and balloon being transported...”

So it's interesting to see the way they say it resembles a balloon with a radar reflector, yet still calling it a disc "suspended from a balloon".

Again here, it seems like compartmentation was successful, along with the fact that there was too much debris to be an ordinary weather balloon. It was recognized to have some similarities to a weather balloon, but at the same time, it was obviously NOT a weather balloon, as Marcel claimed and as all the records show.