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DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE WASHINGTON DC 20330-1000 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY JUN 2 [994 SAF/AA 1720 Air Force Pentagon Washington, DC 20330-1720 Dr. Athelstan F. Spilhaus Box 1063 Middleburg, VA 22117 Dear Dr. Spilhaus As you may know, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has instituted an audit that wili review the Department of Defense's policies and procedures relating to acquiring, classifying, retaining and disposing of official government records dealing with weather balloon, aircraft and similar crash incidents. Among other things, the audit seeks to fully explain the claims that the US …

STATEMENT OF WITNESS Uh 3 Jun 94 Place: Middleburg, VA I Athelstan F Spilhaus, hereby state that Jeffrey Butler, was identified as a Colonel, USAF and Jim McAndrew, was identified as a Lieutenant, USAF on this date at my home and do hereby, voluntarily and of my own free will, make the following statement. This is done without having been subjected to any coercion, unlawful influence or unlawful inducement. te I was the Director of the NYU Balloon Project and also involved with many other sénsitive activities. Until these discussions, I had no indication of what the "Roswell incident” was. I w…

it with your hands. There was also debris collection on sticky paper. Most of the balloon projects were not concerned with weather--that's why there weren't radiosondes on all the balloons. The "cosmic ray train" was probably just a cosmic ray experiment on one of our ballons. The balloons were made of sections and had tape reinforcements but [recall any specifics on the tape material. Mylar was not called that originally--it may have originated as polyethelene. All the polyethelene we use was of a translucent material. Neoprene was used during the war; generally for meterological and artiller…