Classified United States Army Air Forces programme, 1947 to 1949, which flew long trains of neoprene balloons carrying low-frequency acoustic sensors to high altitude, listening for the sound of a Soviet atomic test. The constant-level trains ran to hundreds of feet and carried radar reflectors made of foil-backed paper and balsa sticks. The programme name was classified; the balloons themselves were not, and were launched from Alamogordo in New Mexico.
The 1994 Air Force report identifies the Roswell Incident 1947 debris as one of these trains, most likely NYU Flight 4 of 4 June 1947. The identification explains the foil, the sticks and the tape, and explains why an intelligence officer would not recognise material from a programme he had no access to. It does not explain the later testimony about bodies, which the 1997 report addressed separately.
Connections
Roswell Incident 1947 · Roswell Army Air Field · Jesse Marcel · Project Sign · Karl T. Pflock