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From: David Rudiak <DRudiak@aol.com>
Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 21:17:52 EDT
Fwd Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 12:32:52 -0400
Subject: Re: Voyager Newsletter, Mogul Parchment Parachutes


>From: James Easton <pulsar@compuserve.com>
>Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 20:29:09 -0400
>Fwd Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 13:58:22 -0400
>Subject: Voyager Newsletter - Issue No. 5

The Eastonian Times-Picayune is back, starting off with the
usual bird-brained theories about the original Kenneth Arnold
sighting.  Bruce Maccabee, myself, and others argued ourselves
blue in the face with all sorts of mathematical and other
arguments why birds couldn't possibly work  (can birds outfly a
plane?).  A lot of good it did.  Don't get me started.

But this post is about Easton's discussion of the alleged
parchment parachutes on Mogul Flight #4, the current debunking
explanation for the Roswell incident.

>In a recent discussion on the 'Project-1947' mailing list,
>Roswell case researcher Karl Pflock, mentioned:

>"More to the parchment point:  (1) the early "Mogul" arrays--
>among them, Flight 4, the Foster Ranch "saucer"--included 3 large
>reinforced PARCHMENT parachutes.  (2) Marcel mentioned seeing
>"other stuff there that looked very much like parchment" in his
>Dec. 9, '79 interview with Bob Pratt (see my "Roswell in
>Perspective," p. 123).  (3) In describing what he found to
>reporters on July 8, 1947 (Roswell Daily Record, July 9), Mac
>Brazel mentioned "tinfoil, [and] a rather tough paper." Note that
>the tinfoil and paper are mentioned as separate items, and that
>"rather tough paper" is a good description of parchment".

OK.  Privately, however, Brazel told neighbor, Floyd Proctor,
before Brazel ever went to Roswell and tangled with the US
military, that it wasn't paper of any kind because he couldn't
burn it or cut it with a knife.  So this was really, really
tough "paper."

>An aspect of the case which I had never personally seen set in
>context was from the interview with Major Marcel, as published in
>'The Roswell Incident', by Berlitz and Moore. Marcel reportedly
>stated, "One thing that impressed me about the [Roswell] debris
>was that a look of it looked like parchment".

For more complete quotes from Marcel, see below.  Marcel had a
bit more to say about the material other than it looked like
parchment.  According to Marcel, it was extremely tough,
wouldn't burn or smoke, he couldn't break it, it was covered
with strange writing, and there were large quantities of it.
These statements were corroborated in part by Floyd Proctor and
Brazel's sister.

>I pointed out to Karl that a 1997 commentary from David Rudiak
>spoke of the "ridiculous fictional 'parchment parachutes' of
>Mogul and claimed "they used small silk parachutes for the
>payload - its marked on the diagrams".

>If there were in fact parchment parachutes, that would offer an
>explanation - had it been confirmed that Flight 4 did use
>parchment and not silk parachutes?

>Karl replied:

>"Yes. Prof. Moore has confirmed this, as have others who
>participated in the project.

Since there are no known surviving records of Flight 4 detailing
its configuration (other than it having a sonobuoy payload), how
exactly have the parchment parachutes on this flight been
confirmed?  Seemingly all we have is the memory/guesswork of
Moore and unspecified "others."  In a moment, you will see
strong contradictory evidence.

>Moore recalls early New Mexico launches, including Flt 4, were
>configured like Flt 2, which had been launched on the East Coast.
>Flt 2 employed 3 parchment 'chutes.

This is the only instance of where Pflock and Moore are on part
way solid ground.  According to the engineering schematic of
Flight 2, reproduced in the 1995 USAF Roswell Report, it had 4
parachutes, one at the top and three at the bottom for the
payload.  In my  notes, Flt. 2 was on May 22, 1947 in Bethlehem,
Penn.  The schematic does not say specifically what type of
parachutes were used.  It says simply "Reinforced."  Since
reinforced silk makes no sense, I assume "reinforced" refers to
some type of paper 'chutes rather than silk ones.  (Paper
parachutes were standard meteorological equipment used with
conventional radiosonde weather balloons.)

So in essence what we have is documentation of Flt. 2 using
paper 'chutes, and then the apparent _assumption_ by Moore that
early New Mexico flights of June/July 1947 must have as well.
But is there any evidence at all that these early N.M. flights
actually used so-called parchment parachutes?

In reality, only ONE of these flights has any documentation as
using a parachute, and that was incontrovertibly a silk one.

But before we get into detail on that, first an interlude on the
subject of parachute color.

> Prof. Moore told me they were
>dyed either red or orange-red, and the coloring faded VERY
>rapidly upon exposure to sunlight.

Of course presumably leaving absolutely no trace of their
original bright colors, so that Marcel would refer to the color
merely as brown.  How convenient.

Notice just how vague the term "VERY rapidly" is.  Would there
really be no trace of color a month later?

The meteorological paper 'shutes were made a little bit like
those tiny toy paper parasols they sometimes stick into
alcoholic drinks to be cute.  The paper was pleated to fold flat
and to a point on top where it was attached and lifted by the
balloon.  When the balloon burst and the payload began to fall,
air resistance would unfold it.  The edges of the paper were
attached to twine shroud lines, which were further attached to a
metal ring about 1-1/2 feet across down below.

What's my point here?  When everything finally hit the ground,
the parachutes would again collapse, some parts exposed to the
sun, but other parts underneath shaded from the sun.  If they
were also composed of something like Brazel's "rather tough
paper" to the point where they would resemble something like
parchment, one would also expect only minor or maybe moderate
shredding.  The parachutes should remain relatively intact with
uneven fading of color.  Furthermore, somewhere in the mix of
debris, there should also have been evidence of the twine lines
and the structural metal rings.

But nobody describes anything like that -- no metal rings, no
twine, just lots of pieces of something parchment-like scattered
about, described only as "brown" by Marcel and covered with
purplish writing.

It seems like the assumption here by Mogul advocates is that the
alleged parchment parachutes somehow became completely shredded,
and other components of the parachutes (twine, metal rings),
went completely unnoticed (or evaporated in the sunlight).

So everything else magically vanishes (along with hundreds of
feet of other Mogul twine which should have been scattered
about), and we have these pieces of shredded paper parachutes
scattered here and there (and, of course, shredded balloons and
radar reflectors).  This gives all the pieces equal exposure to
sunlight so that they can all fade equally fast from
red/red-orange to brown (why would it fade to brown?).  All the
pieces also conveniently flip over now and then so that both
tops and bottoms get their proper dosage of color-fading
sunlight.

Interesting combination of circumstances.  I've noticed over the
years that the manner in which Mogul components supposedly
deteriorated strangely depends on how exactly Mogul proponents
need for them to deteriorate to explain debris descriptions,
sort of how Warp 9 in Star Trek can be used to cross light years
in minutes or days depending on the plot line of the week.

E.g., the milky, pliable neoprene balloons deteriorate in
sunlight to brittle, black, ash-like flakes within 2 to 3 weeks
according to Moore.  (I even saw a TV demonstration of this by
Moore  a year and a half ago, complete with cellophane-like
crinkling sound of the tattered, decomposed, now non-elastic
rubber.)  That supposedly explains the darkened balloon material
in the Fort Worth photos and Mac Brazel's "smoky gray" rubber
debris.  But wait a second.  That balloon at Gen. Ramey's feet
still looks relatively intact and pliable after supposedly lying
in the sun for a month.  Oops!  And Brazel speaks of rolling up
his rubber strips into a bundle.  Again, how does one do that
with brittle, ashlike material?   Double oops!  When this is
pointed out, all of a sudden it now supposedly takes months for
the neoprene balloons to reach a fully deteriorated state,
despite Moore's own demonstrations to the contrary.

>In re silk parachutes, these were used on some later "Mogul"
>flights and on Skyhook and other high-altitude balloon research projects.

I've got to laugh here.  Again notice the imprecision.  What
exactly does "later" mean?

This is what it _really_ means.  Pflock reproduced the
engineering schematic for Flt. 5 in his book (see "Roswell In
Perspective).  Flt. 5, also according to Moore, was very
similarly configured to Flt. 4, launched only ONE DAY BEFORE.
These were the first New Mexico flights, on June 4 and June 5,
1947.

So does the Flt. 5 schematic show "parchment" chutes?  No way!
It is very clearly labeled with a single "SILK PARACHUTE."
Maybe Pflock should read his own book.

What about the rest of the early Moguls?  Schematics for Flts.
7, 10, and 11, 12, and 16 are also reproduced in the AF Roswell
report (along with 2 and 5)  Flts. 7, 10, & 11 were all early
July 1947 New Mexico flights -- no parachutes here.  Flight 12
was in August 1947 back in Lakehurst, N.J. -- still no 'chutes.
Flight 16 back in New Mexico is depicted with a single parachute
attached to a banner.  The type of 'chute isn't specified.  It
might be paper-- or maybe not.

But there is NO evidence at all that Flight #4 carried any
parachutes or had any need for them.  Most flights don't seem to
have used them.  And the balloon definitely closest to Flt. 4 in
time and likely configuration is CLEARLY labeled as using a
single, SILK parachute (and, incidentally, no radar reflectors,
as did Flt. 2).  Obviously the configuration of Flt. 2 back in
Pennsylvania can not be used as a precise predictor of the
configuration of the first New Mexico flights.

>Even some Skyhook flights seem to have used parchment
>'chutes at times (I've seen photos in which the 'chutes appear to
>be parchment). Apparently these came from old stock--like Charlie
>Moore's radar targets with "alien" symbols. In those days, it
>would seem there was still some concern about the taxpayers'
>money was used. In general, the NYU and other
>researchers/experiments used whatever was available, doing quite
>a bit of scrounging and creative cobbling".

More merriment.  Let's see if I have this straight.  Between
June 4 and June 5, they became very concerned about the
taxpayer's money and scrounged and creatively cobbled together a
silk parachute to replace those multiple expensive parchment
ones that supposedly explain that large quantity of
parchment-like material mentioned by Marcel.

No, wait a second.  I guess I have that backwards.  It's the
silk parachutes that are expensive.  So on June 5, they became
all worried about the taxpayer's money and went back in time to
June 4 to outfit Flight 4 with parchment parachutes to save the
poor taxpayer's money.  It's all so confusing.

As for all that Mogul angst over the taxpayer's money, we have
the following interesting quote.  "Money was no object.  We
seemed to have an unlimited budget."  That was from Col. Albert
Trakowski, Mogul Project Officer, quoted in the NY Times, Sept.
14, 1994, in their front page article on Roswell on the
just-released USAF report.  That was to emphasize the
high-priority attached to Mogul as part of a long-range Soviet
A-bomb detection system.

So again the skeptical inconsistently.  Sometimes Mogul was
really, really important, as supposedly evidenced by throwing
lots of money at it (N.Y. Times).  Why else would they have to
cover up some decomposing, shredded, nonremarkable,
unclassified, off-the-shelf meteorological balloon debris found
by some sheep rancher?

But then in next week's episode of Mogul Trek, we find
Eastonian/Pflockian revisionism.  These guys were begging for
money, practically scrounging around in dumpsters for their
equipment, forced to use good Republican paper parachutes
instead of those fat-cat silk ones.

>Thanks Karl, unless there's sustainable evidence to the contrary,
>that ties up one of the few remaining 'loose ends'.

Like I said, maybe Karl should read his own monograph and look
at the engineering schematic of Flight 5 -- Silk parachute, not
parchment, only one day after Flight 4.  Three of the next six
Moguls from June/July can also be conclusively documentated from
surviving engineering schematics as carrying NO parachutes.
Does that constitute "sustainable evidence to the contrary?"
Seems to me that this loose end is going to stay loose unless
detailed documentation for Flt. 4 magically appears.

Here are some more points.  Flight 5 was carefully tracked,
documented, and eventually recovered.  But Moore has emphasized
over and over again that Flight 4 was a throwaway test flight,
and there was never any effort expended to recover it.  This is
supposed to explain the complete absence of records on this
flight.

So answer me this.  Why bother to put parachutes on a balloon
when you have no intention whatsoever of recovering the payload?
Is this saving the taxpayers' money?

In fact, most of these Mogul flights did not seem to use
parachutes, either silk or paper.  According to Moore himself,
they purposely recovered payloads only if they wanted to
determine whether some piece of equipment was working properly.
Parachutes would be superfluous for everything else.  They
obviously didn't care about the other payloads, even the
sensitive listening devices (the only piece of Mogul equipment
that was actually classified).  They were left to rot in the
desert.  Recyclers they weren't.  As Col. Trakowski said, money
was no object for Project Mogul.

As for quantity of debris, those off-the shelf meteorological
paper parachutes were not that big.  I have a very nice picture
of one from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 10, 1947.  This
was a Navy radiosonde weather balloon demonstration (one of
several military demonstrations immediately following Roswell
with the intention of debunking the nationwide saucer reports).
The parachute was designed to lower the small radiosonde
transmitter once the balloon burst.  The parachute appears to
measure maybe 2-1/2 to 3 feet across, or maybe 5-7 square feet
of paper material, hardly a large quantity even if multiplied by
three parachutes.

So what have we got?  Maybe 20 square feet of "parchment"
parachutes on Flight #4.  That's not a whole lot. This is
assuming, of course, that Flt. 4 actually was configured with
such parachutes, for which there is conjecture based on an
earlier fight elsewhere, but NO solid evidence.  But to read
Pflock, he tries to make it sound like the issue has been 100%
settled.

Let's now look at more complete testimony from Marcel and others
with regards to such material, since another Eastonian/Pflockian
tactic is to carefully edit the remarks to leave out all
contrary evidence.  Do these sound like the descriptions of
"parchment" (thick paper) parachutes?

JESSE MARCEL

(Berlitz & Moore)
"There was a great deal of an unusual parchment-like substance
which was brown in color and extremely strong...  One thing that
impressed me about the debris was the fact that a lot of it
looked like parchment.  It had little numbers with symbols that
we had to call hieroglyphics because I could not understand
them.  They could not be read, they were just like symbols,
something that meant something, and they were not all the same,
but the same general pattern, I would say. They were pink and
purple.  They looked like they were painted on.  These little
numbers could not be broken, could not be burned.  I even took
my cigarette lighter and tried to burn the material we found
that resembled parchment and balsa, but it would not burn --
wouldn't even smoke."

(Friedman & Berliner)
"One thing that impressed me about the debris that we were
referring to is the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment.
...the parchment we had [would not burn] [like the beams just
previously mentioned which also would not burn]."

(FUFOR television interview; also in Hesemann & Mantle)
"Then there was a kind of parchment, brown and very tough..."

And here was some corroboration for Marcel's statements:

FLOYD PROCTOR
(Husband of Loretta Proctor, neighbor of Mac Brazel.  Brazel
came to the Proctor house before going to the authorities in
Roswell with his discovery. )

(Berlitz & Moore interviewed June 1979, around the same time as
the first Marcel interviews)
"[Brazel described it as] the strangest stuff he had ever seen.
...He described the stuff as being very odd.  He said whatever
the junk was, it had designs on it that reminded him of Chinese
and Japanese designs.  It wasn't paper because he couldn't cut
it with his knife, and the metal was different from anything he
had ever seen.  He said the designs looked like the kind of
stuff you would find on firecracker wrappers ... some sort of
figures all done up in pastels, but not writing like we would do
it.  ... He was in a talkative mood, which was rare for him, and
just wouldn't shut up about it. ... he really tried to get us to
go down there and look at it."

LORRAINE FERGUSON
(Lorraine Ferguson was Mac Brazel's older sister)

Berlitz & Moore, interviewed June 1979)
"Whatever he found it was all in pieces and some of it had some
kind of unusual writing on it -- Mac said it was like the kind
of stuff you find all over Japanese and Chinese firecrackers;
not really writing, just wiggles and such.  Of course, he
couldn't read it and neither could anybody else as far as I
heard ... Everybody up there by the ranch knew about it, but as
far as I know, nobody ever identified what it was or what its
purpose might have been. At first they called it a weather
balloon, but of course it wasn't that ..."

In summary, whatever this stuff was, it was covered with
squiggly writing of some sort (2 or 3 sources). Marcel's
testimony suggests large quantities of it.  Marcel said it was
brown in color.  Marcel referred to it being extremely tough and
unbreakable (implying stiffness beyond what one would expect
from paper parachute material).  Similarly Brazel (through
Proctor) claimed it couldn't be cut with a knife.  According to
Marcel and also Brazel (again through Proctor), the material
would not burn.

What sort of superpaper did they make these "parchment"
parachutes from such that they couldn't be cut with a knife or
made to burn?  Why cover them with strange writing?  Why would
the brightly colored parachutes completely fade in the sun but
not the reported writing?   How could three small paper
parachutes account for the large quantities of parchment-like
material Marcel referred to?

And oh yes, could the skeptics please point me to all that
parchment parachute debris in the photos taken at Fort Worth?
Isn't that supposed to be everything brought back by Marcel from
Brazel's place according to you guys?

And if there were parachutes recovered, shouldn't there also be
the associated _payload_ very close by?  Why have parachutes
without a payload?  The payload for Flight 4 was a sonobuoy (and
beneath that was the ballast control equipment).  One would
think Marcel and Cavitt would have found it mixed in with those
alleged parchment parachute pieces (and other structural
components of the parachutes).  But did either say anything
about it?  No.  So where are those other expected parts in the
Fort Worth photos?  That is the "real" Roswell debris, isn't it?


David Rudiak