Further, because they were launching balloon arrays that could foul up air traffic in southern New Mexico, they were required to post a notice to airman (NOTAM) about the launches. So, while the purpose of Mogul was a secret, they fact that balloon arrays were being launched in southern New Mexico was not.
The point here is that Mogul just doesn’t make a very good solution for the case. The facts don’t add up and the skeptics tend to forget those parts that point in another direction. They can’t even prove there was a Flight No. 4, and if there wasn’t, then Mogul explains nothing. It merely clouds the issue, as so much else has.
Moore Knew of Mogul
Some things just never change. We have been bombarded for years by the idea that Project Mogul was so highly classified that even the men who worked on it didn’t know the name. I’ve argued that while the purpose was classified, the equipment wasn’t so the men at Roswell should have been able to identify for what it was, that is, weather balloons and radar targets. And now I learn that some of these assumptions simply aren’t true.
In Karl Pflock’s anti-Roswell book, Roswelclass="underline" Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, we learn, on page 145, that Charles Moore (seen here), one of the project engineers, didn’t even know the name of the project until 1992 when Robert Todd told him. It makes it sound as if Mogul was quite important and that it was so highly classified that it’s not surprising that the officers and men at Roswell didn’t know a thing about it.
I have reported, in the past, that Moore told me that he, along with a couple of others traveled from Alamogordo to Roswell to ask for assistance in tracking the balloon arrays. This would mean that there were officers and men at Roswell who did know about the project and what it was. And given the way the military works, at least one of those officers would have also been involved in the recovery on the Foster (Brazel) ranch and would have identified it.
And even if that wasn’t true, we also know that the Mogul people were required to issue NOTAMs, that is, Notices to Airmen, about the launches so that had this been what had been found, one of the men, probably the operations officer, would have suggested that the debris was actually one of these balloons, had it been.
Now we have even more evidence about this.
Writing on Errol Bruce Knapp’s UFO UpDates, Brad Sparks tells us that Moore knew the name of the project long before Robert Todd told him what it was. Sparks gives us a look at a letter that was written in 1949, which was unclassified and which mentions Project Mogul by name. So, even the name of the Project was not classified.
The letter can be found at: http://roswellproof.com/McLaughlin_Van_Allen_letter.html
In the letter, dated May 12, 1949, Robert B. McLaughlin is describing, for James A. Van Allen (seen here), that C. B. Moore, yes, our Charles Moore, who he was. He then writes, “In addition to this, he had been head of Project Mogul for the Air Force.”
I suppose you could say that Moore was unaware of the letter but according to Brad Sparks, Moore had received a courtesy copy and the copy that Sparks reproduced came from Moore’s own files. So, it would seem that Moore knew the name long before Robert Todd told him what it was.
Even more impressive, are the diary notes written by Dr. Albert Crary (seen here), chief of the project and reproduced by the Air Force in their massive The Roswell Report released in 1995. In Section 17, Journal Transcripts, Albert P. Crary, April 2 1946 — May 8, 1946 and December 2, 1946 — August 16, 1947, we can see that on December 11, 1946… “Equipment from Johns Hopkins Unicersity (sic)transferred to MOGUL plane…”
On December 12, Crary noted, “C-54 unloaded warhead material first then all MOGUL eqpt (sic) which went to North Hangar.”
I’ve seen Jesse Marcel, Sr., the air intelligence officer at Roswell called a liar and worse over just these sorts of things. We can now document that Moore knew the name even as he insisted that neither he nor any of the others knew it in 1947. Clearly that statement is not accurate.
What we learn from all this is that even the name wasn’t all that important. While the ultimate purpose might have been classified, it is quite clear that not even the name was. Crary puts in it his diary and then McLaughlin writes about it in an unclassified letter, of which Moore has a copy.
So, once again, we can ask the question… How is it that these balloons, which were not classified, in a project with an unclassified name, could be mistaken for something extraterrestrial? The simple answer is, “They couldn’t.”
And now we have more evidence that the situation in 1947 is not what we have been told by the Air Force and others. That makes Mogul and even less likely answer.
Lies and Moore Lies
Let the firestorm begin.
Yes, I have grown tired of the double standard applied to Roswell witnesses by nearly everyone. If the witness says what you want to hear, then he, or she, is believed. If not, then the smear begins.
Every little slip is suddenly a false claim or a lie or a slander, and the person is attacked, vilified, and left for dead. It doesn’t matter if the attack is accurate or invented, just as long as it is nasty.
I suggested that we cut Major Jesse Marcel, Sr. some slack because what he said in an interview with Bob Pratt didn’t conform, per-fectly, to what his military records said. There are those who suggest that Marcel engaged in nothing more outrageous than a little resume inflation. Others said that this proved he was nothing more than a despicable liar and if he told you the sky was blue, you had better go out to look.
What it really boils down to is that Marcel apparently told Pratt he had some advanced education and the records only seemed to bear out about a year and a half with no degree. The Pratt interview suggested Marcel said that he had a degree, or so it seems, but the transcript provided is a little garbled and the tape no longer exists. Attempts to verify an advanced degree for Marcel have failed.
I thought we could all agree that Marcel was who he said he was, that is, the Air Intelligence Officer of the 509th Bomb Group because the records proved that. We could see that he was respected by his superiors and that the “mistake” over the weather balloon had not damaged his career. When discussing the relevant portions of the Roswell case, Marcel hadn’t told any lies. He might not have told everything he knew, but he wasn’t lying.
I suggested that we could show that Charles Moore, of Project Mogul fame, had engaged in a little of the same thing, that is, what he said wasn’t reflected by the record. He had told people that he didn’t know the name of Mogul until Robert Todd told him. The record showed that the Mogul name was known to the participants in the project as early as 1946. A slip of the tongue or a lapse of memory. I wasn’t going to call him a liar over that.
It turns out that this wasn’t really a lapse of memory because I now have the full story on the letter Moore sent to Dr. James van Allen. Moore, according to Brad Sparks, reviewed his files for James McDonald, and pulled out the letter. According to the annotations on it, Moore reviewed that letter in 1969. He was explaining who the Bob who signed the letter was, meaning R. B. McLaughlin. Moore clearly knew that he was being described as the chief engineer for Project Mogul.