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  "PageContent": "<h3>Cipher Mysteries - The latest news, views, research and reviews on uncracked historical ciphers...</h3>For decades, Roswell researchers have tried to gain access to Project Mogul documents. Most famously, UFO skeptic Robert Todd submitted numerous FOIA requests during the 1980s and 1990s to try to access some of them. According to the McAndrew US Air Force report, it was Todd’s efforts that ultimately led to the Project Mogul account of the Roswell Incident emerging (or ‘being constructed’, depending on your point of view), mostly by… looking at his FOIA requests. And if that sounds a bit useless, it’s because it is.Still, where are all the Project Mogul documents?The Roswell ReportThe Roswell Report contained large sections of Project Mogul-related text (albeit carefully curated):New York University, Constant Level Balloons, Final Report, March 1, 1951New York University, Constant Level Balloons, Section 1, General, November 15, 1949New York University, Constant Level Balloons, Section 2, Operations, January 31, 1949New York University, Constant Level Balloons, Section 3 , Summary of Flights, July 15, 1949New York University, Progress Report No. 6, Constant Level Balloon, Section 11, June 1947New York University, Special Report No. 1, Constant Level Balloon, May 1947New York University, Progress Report [No. 7], Constant Level Balloon, Section 11, July 1947New York University, Progress Report No. 4, Radio Transmitting, Receiving and Recording Systemfor Constant Level Balloon, [Section I], April 2, 1947To be clear, these were taken from reports on the contract portion of the project that was carried out by the group at New York University. And there’s no obvious sign to me that those reports themselves have ever been made public, or indeed any document relating to the project (as opposed to just the contract), which was top secret.Request for Lt. H. F. Smith (USNR)Incidentally, while once again grinding my way through these sections of the Roswell Report, I noticed a short report of a meeting on p. 807 that I’d previously overlooked re. Harris F. Smith:6/25/47Mr. Gordon Vaeth, Commander G. W. Hoover, J. R. Smith, C. B. MooreSands Point Office of Naval Research, Port Washington, L. I., N. Y.Request for clearance on General Mills Balloons. Request for Lt. H. F. Smith (USNR) to accompany project to Alamogordo.Granted.References in a Holloman AFB documentI found a separate (non-classified) https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA323109.pdf Holloman AFB balloon history document that referred to the NYU project reports, along with monthly Guided Missile group progress reports (which were from Holloman AFB itself):Research Division, College of Engineering, New York University, Technical Report No. 1 (New York, 1 April 1948)Research Division, College of Engineering, New York University, Technical Report No, 93.03. Constant Level Balloons Final Report (New York, 1 March 1951)Progress Summary Report on U.S.A.F Guided Missile Test Activities (HAFB, published monthly 1 November 1947-1 June 1950)\r\nProgress Summary Report, 1 August 1948Progress Summary Report, 1 October 1948Progress Summary Report, 1 March 1949Progress Summary Report, 1 May 1949Progress Summary Report, 1 May 1950According to DTIC document ADA375116, Maxwell AFB apparently has at least some of the HAFB monthly Progress Summary Reports on microfilm. So I submitted a request to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB to ask them what they have, and whether it is declassified / accessible etc.Robert Todd’s “Cowflop Quarterly”Back in 1995-1997, UFO skeptic Robert Todd (who died in 2007) published parts of his research via a newsletter he called “The Cowflop Quarterly” (“Reporting on Ufological Frauds and Fantasies“). I’m guessing the one time he called it “KowPflop Quarterly” was some kind of not-very-subtle dig at Roswell researcher Karl Pflock.Very helpfully, though, Todd explained (on p.3 of The Cowflop Quarterly No.4) how Project Mogul connected to other projects:A search using the code name “Mogul” would be worthless, especially since the name was later changed to “Rockfish”. For reasons too complicated to explain here, Project Mogul also was known as, or became a part of, Project MX-968, which itself was a part of the much larger Project “Whitesmith”, which was later changed to Project “Bequeath”, which was later changed to Project “Centering”, which was still later changed to Project “Cottonseed”. During the Operation “Sandstone” A-bomb tests in the Pacific in 1948, Operation “Fitzwilliam” was formed to test various methods of detecting nuclear explosions at long range. The Project Mogul portion of Operation “Fitzwilliam” was known as Project “Blackheart”.I bet you’re glad that’s clear now!Yet Todd also cautions that “[he] spent five years looking for the Project Mogul project files, without success” (on p.4 of The Cowflop Quarterly No. 4).Additionally, in The Cowflop Quarterly No. 5, Todd mentions (pp. 2-3) two interesting sounding files of AMC correspondence out of a 36-box-large load of files retired to the National Archives:000- Flying Discs- “Sign”, “Grudge”\r\nMX-1011 – “ROCKFISH”, “MOGUL” Projects\r\nAcoustical Research (1946 thru 1950)These files were supposed to be retained, but (p.3) “[were] destroyed during [a] disastrous fire in July 1973” at the National Personnel Records Center, St Louis, Missouri. But all the same, that suggests another AMC project number (MX-1011).Some quick thoughts…The Project Mogul documents seem to be caught in a peculiarly American tangle. The reports produced under the NYU contract (which I think was confidential rather than secret) have been indirectly released via the Air Force’s “Roswell Report” but not declassified. So, unless you know better, these documents don’t appear in DTIC or anywhere else, apart from the Roswell Report excerpts. Similarly, even though Project Mogul itself was an Air Materiel Command project, it doesn’t appear to have been declassified at all.All the same, the two MX- references that Robert Todd dug up (MX-968 and MX-1011) can be cross-referenced using modern search engines, with surprising results…Project MX-968 and Project MX-1011First, the easy one. MX-1011 was (according to this site) “Aerojet General X-8 Aerobee research rocket”. The Aerojet General X-8 rocket was ordered by the US Army Air Force for high-altitude research as part of Project MX-1011: this was used at Holloman AFB for many of the space biology launches I discussed a few days ago. So it seems as though the reference on the outside of the AMC correspondence file may not have been correct.We’re onto more solid ground with MX-968, though. According to this MX designation website, MX-968 was “[Project] “Cottonseed” (unidentified project; Power Plant Lab requirement)“, which is – according to Robert Todd – the name that Project Mogul ultimately morphed into. Note that “Power Plant Lab” was the section of Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson AFB that designed engines specifically for planes, so this is probably a sign more of what the project later became than what it originally was.A much more direct reference describing what MX-968 actually was appears in this DTIC file, pp. 45-46:Although this approach [Project Mogul] did not prove fruitful, the newly-established Geophysics Research Directorate at Watson Laboratories started a follow up program, MSX-968 [sic], early in 1948 to explore radiological, acoustic, and seismic techniques for long-range detection. Work on the radiological technique, originating under a Watson Labs contract with Tracerlab, Inc. in Cambridge, MA, developed airborne measurements of post-nuclear particles that diffused through the atmosphere. It led to a successful identification of the first Russian nuclear explosion in 1949.Footnote 89 (pp. 70-71) is also very revealing:Memo from Capt Albert Trakowski to AFOAT-1, subj: Mogul and MSX-968, 10 December 1948, Geophysics Directorate History File, Hanscom AFB, MA. For these programs, which originally were classified Top Secret, see Charles A. Ziegler and David Jacobson, Spying without Spies: Origins of America’s Secret Nuclear Surveillance System (Westport, CO: Praeger, 1995), esp. chs. 3-7. Also Bates, Gaskell, and Rice, Geophysics. 87-88. As the memo above indicates, the Tracerlab contract was transferred from Watson Labs to AFOAT-1 later in 1948.(In case you’ve forgotten my post from a few days ago, AFOAT-1 was where Walt Singlevich worked: the Air Force Office of the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Atomic Energy, Section 1. This was later renamed the Air Force Technical Applications Centre (AFTAC). There’s also an excellent CIA history of AFOAT-1 and the detection of JOE-1 online.)Unfortunately, Ziegler’s “Spying without Spies” is currently £70+ on bookfinder (ouch), so I guess I’ll have to park that purchase for the moment. But it seems like it could be a helpful book: Trakowski did say (Roswell Report, p.198, and then much the same on p.258):Charles Ziegler was working on the history of nuclear weapons detection capability. He had some letters/papers that I did not have such as the letters the Gen Spaatz directed the establishment of project Mogul.Putting all these pieces together (finally)All in all, I think this helps us read the few references in the Roswell Report reasonably well. For example, Roswell Report p.198, Albert Trakowski witness statement:“Through 1949, I [Trakowski] was the director of both MX968 and Mogul.”Roswell Report p.224, interview with Charles Moore:A: [Moore] At [Tracerlab], have you come across Charlie Ziegler at Brandeis?Q: No.A: [Moore] He worked for [Tracerlab, Inc] and is just bringing out a book on the early detection system.Q: That was Project Center. MX-968.A: [Moore] There was another one that followed on this to measure krypton. It was called Grab Bag in our lexicon.Q: Did you ever hear of the project Bequeath?A: [Moore] No. Being a civilian and outside, I was more knowledgeable, essentially, of the intent and what was required rather than the project names.Roswell Report p. 260, interview with Col Trakowski:Q: Until ’49, were you still on Project MOGUL?A: [Trakowski] Yes, indeed. And Project MX-968.So the big picture seems to be that Project MX-968 was actually Project Center (which might be a McAndrew transcription mishearing for “Project Centering”, as per Robert Todd), which was the follow-on project launched in 1948 to achieve by different means what Project Mogul had proved unable to do.Even though I still don’t know what Project Bequeath or Project Whitesmith was (though web scraped data implies that the latter is discussed in “Spying without Spies”), I think it’s likely that Mogul became Rockfish, and in turn became Cottonseed.",
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