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Essay on The Roswell Incident
The likeness of weather balloons to UFOs has been exploited by the US Air Force. In their own report about the famous Roswell incident, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, they wrote: “Modern polyethylene balloons, some as long as several football fields when on the ground, expand at altitude to volumes large enough to contain many jet airliners. Polyethylene balloons flown by the U. S. Air Force have reached altitudes of 170,000 feet and lifted payloads of 15,000 pounds.
During the late 1940'sand 1950's, a characteristic associated with the large, newly invented, polyethylene balloons, was that they were often misidentified as flying saucers. During this period, polyethylene balloons launched from Holloman AFB, generated flying saucer reports on nearly every flight. There were so many reports that police, broadcast radio, and newspaper accounts of these sightings were used by Holloman technicians to supplement early balloon tracking techniques. Balloons launched at Holloman AFB generated an especially high number of reports due to the excellent visibility in the New Mexico region. Also, the balloons, flown at altitudes of approximately 100,000 feet, were illuminated before the earth during the periods just after sunset and just before sunrise. In this instance, receiving sunlight before the earth, the plastic balloons appeared as large bright objects against a dark sky. Also, with the refractive and translucent qualities of polyethylene, the balloons appeared to change colour, size and shape.
The drawings of a large triangular craft provided by UFO witnesses are identical to a sketch of the experimental tethered ‘Vee’ balloons. Not surprisingly, witness drawings of alien craft, such as those reproduced in the best-selling UFO book, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell, look amazingly like these experimental balloons. There are many balloons in the atmosphere recording weather conditions. They are numerous, metallic and reflect light in peculiar ways. Most people are unaware of their existence......
