Scanning through my books I happened on my copy of this "Case Closed" book on Roswell. I thumbed through, stopping to read notes made, and reminding myself of previous research.
Page 40, "High Altitude Polyethylene Research Balloons"
The author for the Air Force was Captain James McAndrew, and in this section he writes that in 1946, Charles B. Moore was "a graduate student working under contract for the U.S. Army Air Force."
Since Moore's biography states he graduated with a B.A. in 1947, I was interested in how he could be a graduate student the year before.
The author then also states "Polyethylene balloons, first produced in 1947 for Project Mogul..." with the inference they were used on the alleged "lost flight # 4" that allegedly landed on a ranch north of Roswell.
Yet according to the interview with Moore in the government report - those polyethylene balloons did not arrive until the last week of June 1947 - too late to fit the alleged flight # 4 scenario. Indeed, on arrival Moore and his team had to use regular neoprene metrological balloons that were no different than the balloons regularly sent up from Air field and military bases regularly all over the country. When Irving Newton was called into the offices in Ft. Worth to identify the debris they had spread out there he had no trouble identifying any of it. He said it was a balloon and a RAWIN target. There was nothing top secret or classified or innovative in any manner. Thus, the puzzled look on the face of Marcel in some of the images.
Later definition would infer that the "black box" component would have been the only odd and classified element of the entire configuration. Nothing on the floor was anything not already seen and sent aloft from Roswell and nearly every other military base or weather station.
Of course, the whole acceptance of the Test # 4 flight being the "Roswell Incident" source ignores the fact that a team member, Albert Crary, indicated the flight never lifted. The next one was found and that could not be it nor others all accounted for. (See previous entry on Roswell and the interviews in Fact vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert).
The whole question of the RAWIN (Radar Wind) target device is also a little sketchy and contradictory. Its presence and public identity is made plain in photos from the time of Roswell (see the young woman holding one in the photo from Ohio. It had a reward attached to it as well.). On the one hand the military wanted to convey the idea the target was the unusual aspect, at another the balloon, and at another some other element entirely. It was if the story was - evolving. A January 1947 scholarly article in Engineering and Science Monthly by Patrick J. Harney clearly defines "RAWIN" as a term designated by the services to define information about winds aloft by electronic means. He further stated it referenced a balloon borne target with or without a radiosonde attachment. So, clearly, the term was in common weather worth use in January of 1947 and infers its use earlier. The use of weather balloons - even the plastic coating or material of such - was common fodder of small news filler pieces from 1941 and forward.
Oddly, for such a top secret project coming out of Alamogordo. Local New Mexico newspapers were soon flooded with claims that they were responsible for the rash of "flying saucer" sightings across the country. When in truth a map of weather stations and air currents seems to contradict that claim too. See some fascinating images that did not seem to get picked up and carried as widely as one might have thought they would have been (Alamogordo_July9a (roswellproof.com)). A widespread move by the military to debunk the flying saucers as weather balloons meant many bases and posts held demonstrations (in Oklahoma one such event was held in August of 1947 at Tinker Air Field) "militarydebunk (roswellproof.com).
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See this article for the common view. Note the inference that the Roswell balloon was poly or mylar coated. Roswell UFO ‘Strange Metal’ Mystery | Skeptical Inquirer
Link to copy of Fact Vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert is here - /tardir/mig/a326148.tiff (dtic.mil)
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