Project Mogul UFO Sightings
One of the ironies of using Project Mogul to try to explain away the Roswell case and other New Mexico sightings is that Mogul and later Skyhook balloon personnel themselves contributed many high-quality UFO sightings.
One very famous Mogul sighting involved Charles Moore on April 24, 1949. An additional irony here is that this is the same Charles Moore that has been trying so hard in the present-day to debunk the Roswell case as one of his Mogul balloons. Moore's sighting was written up in the equally famous 1952 LIFE Magazine article of high-quality UFO reports and in a 1950 TRUE Magazine article by Naval Commander Robert B. McLaughlin, head of the Naval missile program at White Sands (who unequivocally stated that the flying saucers being spotted by White Sands personnel, including himself, were not only real but extraterrestrial in origin). Moore's sighting is also found in a number of government documents, including those of the CIA, whose scientists were very impressed by it.
A lesser-known example dates from late August, 1947, about 6 weeks after the Roswell events. (The report was collected by Project SIGN at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1948.) The witness spotted an object traveling at high speed while observing balloons and a radar target through binoculars. The witness added he had at other times observed during optical tracking other anomalous objects that were "unexplainable."
A further irony of this witness' report is that the Air Force tried to debunk it as a "false radar target" picked up on radar, even though it was a visual, not a radar sighting.
Note at the top mention of a radar sighting by another Mogul person of multiple objects hovering motionless at an altitude of 200 miles!!
In January 1952, Cpt. Edward Ruppelt, first director of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, was to visit the General Mills balloon people in Minneapolis. In his book (see Chapters 6 & 9) he said they had nearly all had baffling UFO sightings and were confirmed saucer "believers." One person told him the saucer sightings were so common to one tracking crew that they were no longer interested in them. Whenever Ruppelt suggested that maybe they were just seeing their own balloons, he joked that they got so angry that they practically threw him out into the blizzard raging outside.
Adding to the ironies, the Air Force in 1951 began putting out stories that nearly all the UFO sightings could be explained by Skyhook balloons, yet these were the people launching the Skyhook balloons! Two of these sightings on Oct. 10 & 11, 1951, took place from the ground and also in the air by the crews of a manned Skyhook. One of the ground observers was the ubiquitous Charles Moore! Both sightings are listed as unknowns in Project Blue Book records.
The New York Times was to report these two sightings on April 12, 1952. A final irony was an editorial 3 pages away mocking the pro-UFO LIFE Magazine article that had just come out on April 7. Didn't the LIFE authors know, the Times sneered, that nearly the all flying saucer reports were caused by Skyhook balloons?!
For a more detailed list of UFO sightings by Mogul, Skyhook, and White Sands personnel, please go to the next page.
