Kirkpatrick AARO Project Mogul Moore

Throughout history, there has been a consistent bias against the idea of alien visitation among those in positions of authority investigating the UFO phenomenon. It began in the late 1940s when General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, refused to accept an intelligence analysis suggesting that some flying saucers were alien craft.

After reviewing the report, known as the Estimate of the Situation (EOTS), Vandenberg ordered it declassified and then burned. This was likely an attempt to erase any record of the document’s existence, as destroying classified material typically requires documentation. By declassifying it first, no such record was needed.

Ed Ruppelt, the former head of Project Blue Book, claimed to have seen one copy of the EOTS, which concluded that some flying saucers were alien spacecraft. Vandenberg’s rejection of this conclusion set the tone for those under his command, discouraging any findings that contradicted his stance.

Ruppelt initially aimed for an unbiased investigation during his time leading Project Blue Book. However, once he was reassigned, the project fell back into the hands of those who were staunchly anti-saucer. According to Jerry Clark, what followed was a series of personnel who were rabidly anti-saucer, with little actual investigation taking place.

This bias persisted even when the CIA convened a panel of scientists in 1953 to review Project Blue Book’s findings. Dr. Michael Swords revealed that the panel’s final report, dismissing alien spacecraft visitation, was written before the panel even met, despite testimony from Ruppelt and Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), or AARO, has been a vocal proponent of the Project Mogul explanation for the Roswell incident. However, his assertions regarding Mogul’s involvement in the Roswell case are deeply flawed and contradict the available evidence.

Kirkpatrick claims that the debris found near Roswell in 1947 was from a crashed Project Mogul balloon, a top-secret spy program that launched “oddly shaped metallic spy balloons.” However, this characterization is inaccurate. The Mogul balloons were not “oddly shaped” or “metallic” in nature. They were standard weather balloons made of neoprene rubber, carrying an array of instrument packages and radar reflectors.

Furthermore, the balloon launches in New Mexico in 1947 were conducted by New York University and were not classified. According to the field notes and documentation created by Dr. Albert Crary, the leader of the Mogul project, the launch scheduled for June 4, 1947 – the date closest to the Roswell incident – was canceled. It’s impossible for a canceled flight to have dropped debris that matched the descriptions provided by eyewitnesses in the Roswell case.

Charles Moore, one of the engineers working on the Mogul project in New Mexico, confirmed in interviews that the early flights, including the attempted Flight #4 and the successful Flight #5, did not include any radar reflectors or “oddly shaped metallic” components. The documentation and eyewitness accounts contradict Kirkpatrick’s claims about the nature of the Mogul balloons and their potential involvement in the Roswell incident.

Furthermore, Kirkpatrick’s assertion that the public’s trauma from World War II caused them to misinterpret various military projects as an alien visitation is a speculative and unsupported claim. It does not account for the specific eyewitness testimonies and physical evidence that contradicted the characteristics of the Mogul balloons and other military projects occurring in the area.

Project Mogul Balloon	Roswell Debris (Eyewitness Descriptions)
Standard weather balloon made of neoprene rubber	Lightweight, metallic-like material that could not be bent or burned
Carried instrument packages and basic radar reflectors	Complex hieroglyphic-like symbols, strange membranes, and unusual properties
Unclassified project conducted by New York University	Debris allegedly retrieved and classified by the military

While Kirkpatrick claims to have conducted a “deep dive” into the Roswell case, his reliance on the flawed Mogul explanation and dismissal of contradictory evidence suggest a predetermined bias against the possibility of alien visitation. His investigation appears to have selectively ignored key testimonies and physical evidence that do not align with the Mogul hypothesis.