PROJECT-MOGUL · DECLASSIFIED
Project Mogul
CREDIBLE WITNESS
Classified program to detect Soviet nuclear tests using high-altitude balloon-borne acoustic sensors. The government cited a Project Mogul balloon as the official explanation for the 1947 Roswell incident. The project remained classified for over 40 years, which prevented officials from providing explanations at the time of the incident.
Project Mogul was a classified US Army Air Forces and New York University program to monitor Soviet nuclear tests using balloon-mounted acoustic sensors at high altitudes. The project was based at Alamogordo Army Air Field, New Mexico — adjacent to the area where the Roswell debris was recovered.
The Air Force's 1994 report on Roswell, "The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert," concluded that the debris recovered by rancher Mac Brazel in 1947 was from a Project Mogul balloon train. This explanation was accepted by the mainstream press as the definitive resolution to the Roswell incident.
Critics of the Mogul explanation note that experienced military officers who handled the debris consistently described materials unlike any balloon components, including metallic fragments with unusual memory properties and symbols resembling hieroglyphic writing. Former base public information officer Walter Haut, who issued the original press release claiming recovery of a flying saucer, signed a notarized affidavit before his death maintaining that he had seen the actual craft and non-human bodies.