Albert P. Crary’s 1947 field diary — Roswell-relevant entries (verbatim)
The June–July 1947 New Mexico entries from Dr. Albert P. Crary’s field diary (Crary was the on-site Mogul geophysicist running the ground/acoustic stations), as read into the record and reproduced in the public-domain USAF Roswell Report (within the 8 June 1994 interview of Prof. Charles B. Moore by Lt. James McAndrew; physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/pt02a.pdf). Captured 2026-05-31. This is the Roswell-relevant 1947 portion the report reproduces, not Crary’s complete lifetime diary (his fuller papers are archived elsewhere). For roswell-incident-1947 and 2026-05-31-could-roswell-debris-be-project-mogul.
Note on dates: the report reads the entries somewhat out of order in the interview; dates below are as attributed in the report’s discussion. Bracketed notes are clarifying context from Moore’s reading.
Early June 1947 (the “service flights”)
- “Mirs and Hackman got balloon ascension off at 1:00 p.m. today without plane to follow it. Donyo. Bill and I out to E. Don and Godby out to White Sands to record Hermes.”
- “C-47 with Moore, Schneider and others from NYU, also Irewin, Minton, Olson, NYU men worked on balloons, north hangar.” [arrival / setup]
June 4, 1947 — the entry at the heart of the dispute
- “Out to Tulerosa Range and fired charges between 0-0 and 0-6[00].”
- “No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy mike with cluster balloons and had good luck with receiver on ground but poor on plane.”
Moore’s gloss in the interview: “no balloon flight, again, on account of clouds. By that he means none of their [formal] flights” — then a “regular sonobuoy mike on a cluster of balloons” was flown. And: “As to that flight … we have no record of it here in the NYU summary” (i.e., it is not a numbered flight in the NYU flight log).
July 3–5, 1947 (the numbered-flight / V-2 period)
- “On Thursday morning, July 3rd, a cluster of GM [General Mills] plastic balloons sent up for V-2 recording, but V-2 not fired. No shots fired. Balloons up for some time.”
- “Thursday morning, cluster of GM balloons sent out, V-2 not fired, no shots fired. Balloons up for some time, no recording. Pi Ball showed no West winds. Balloons picked up by radar, WS [White Sands].”
- “C-54, located on Tulerosa Range by air. Out PM with several NYU men by weapons carrier, but we never located it. Rocket postponed until 7:30 p.m. Thursday night.”
- “But on last minute before balloon went up, V-2 was called off on [account] of accident at White Sands. Sent up cluster balloons with dummy load. Balloon Flight 10 on dawn, July 5th, had gone out with C-54, again with Moses and Dufeld to hunt for Flight 8 but not sure was found then.” [Moore’s added note: “Flight 8 was never recovered.“]
- “C-54 went to El Paso July 4th and picked up single Smith plastic balloon and GM cluster plastic balloons.”
July 7, 1947 — Flight 11A (the flight that drifted toward Roswell)
- “Balloon Flight 11A, off at 5:07. Big plastic balloon with small auxiliary plastics … Picked up on radiosonde receiver at Roswell then followed. Then came down. At 10,000 feet, cap should have punctured plastic. Then it came down near Highway 70, between Roswell and Tulerosa.”
- “C-54 off about 10:30 with 23 people, all NYU, Watson Lab including Vivian, Eileen …”
Later
- “Worked today on balloon flight. Studied Watson Lab records of them briefly and wrote memorandum to Peoples about results. Left in car this PM later. Flat tire between Roswell and Tulerosa, and stayed there.”