Shootin' Balloons: A History

foreign [Music] recent events in the news led me to wonder how often really has the military been called out to shoot down a balloon the answer is more often than you might imagine certain historical events that merited a military or police response to a balloon deserve to be remembered it's not a shock that balloons can be perceived as a threat in one of the first tests of a hot air balloon brothers Joseph Michael and Jacques Etienne moncovier launched a 36 foot long hot air balloon on December 14 1782 when the balloon landed startled peasants believing the moon had fallen from the sky destroyed the balloon with pitchforks a Dozen Years Later a balloon was employed for observation by the French army during the Battle of Flores and in 1849 Austrian Imperial forces made the first known use of incendiary balloons designed to drop bombs during the Italian war for independence balloons continued in military use for observation in the 1861-64 U.S Civil War in the 1899-1902 second anglo-bore war and to get mail and passengers out of besieged Paris during the 1870 to 71 franco-prussian war balloons were used extensively for observation during the Great War meanwhile balloons were also recognized for their research potential French meteorologist Leon Philippe tisarank de Boer made what was likely the first use of balloons to carry instruments called sounding balloons or commonly weather balloons to study the atmosphere and weather starting in 1896. his research led to the discovery of the stratosphere and the tropopause the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere while other Technologies largely replaced military observation balloons in the second world war balloons still played a role in February 1942 Battle of Los Angeles in which anti-aircraft batteries fired more than 1400 rounds of ammunition at supposed Japanese planes over a period of three hours was finally attributed to war panic and meteorological balloons five civilians died three in automobile accidents and two from heart attacks as a result of the incident in which buildings and property were damaged by Falling shells balloons attached to wires called barrage balloons are commonly used as an anti-aircraft defense over 200 of the German V1 Terror bombs were down by barrage balloons over the United Kingdom troops of the 320th barrage balloon Battalion were among the first wave landing at Omaha and Utah beaches on D-Day was the first black unit in the then segregated American Army to come ashore in The Invasion both the allies and the axis use balloons and offensive roles during the war as well the British operation outward used balloons carrying piano wire to disrupt power lines in occupied Europe and the Japanese used fugo Balloons with incendiary bombs attached to ride the jet stream hoping to set forest fires in the United States Pacific Northwest in Canada the only casualties caused by the fugo balloons were six civilians five children and a pregnant school teacher the fugo balloons represented perhaps the first official government response to a balloon in the United States since the Civil War the Pennsylvania news station Penn Live recalled this week that in February 1945 Elder County Utah Sheriff Warren Hyde investigated a call from a local Rancher and discovered one of the fugo balloons knowing that it was both dangerous and that it was important to capture one intact the sheriff avoided the explosive and grabbed one of the balloon's Shroud lines but the wind picked up dragging the sheriff along for nearly half an hour and times lifting him 30 feet in the air and dragging him through barbed wire fences before he managed to secure the balloon it was the first fugo balloon captured fully intact so that it could be thoroughly studied the sheriff was credited with providing key intelligence in stopping a widespread Japanese attack on American soil during World War II you might think that by the end of the second world war balloons would have become obsolete for military use but that was not the case in fact the United States established at least two projects designed for offensive use of balloons the 1950 e-77 balloon bomb based on the fugo which would have been used to drop anti-crop agents over enemy territory and the U.S Air Force's 1954 ws-124a Flying Cloud which could deliver chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction although neither project went beyond the testing phase the U.S military also used high altitude balloons some designed as sounding balloons for a number of observation and spying projects under names like project Moby Dick project Moby Dick High project Skyhook project grandson project Mogul and project genetrix during the Cold War in the 1950s although these programs were largely rendered obsolete by the development of the Lockheed U2 high-altitude spy plane clearly the fear of anime balloons endured and there is some speculation that these top secret projects were responsible for some of the UFO sightings that became much more common during this period there were at least two events where U.S military aircraft encountered unidentified flying objects that were later determined to be balloons on January 7th 1948 25 year old Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Captain Thomas F mantel died when he blacked out due to lack of oxygen flying his f-51d in a steep climb chasing an unidentified flying object that Pilots described as bright something approaching a star the incident was widely reported and raised public concern that flying saucers represented a threat however military.com writes that the Air Force initially claimed that men tell and other Pilots have been mistakenly chasing the planet Venus but a later investigation found evidence including a telescope observation of the object where an astronomer described a pear-shaped balloon with tables and a basket attached concluded that mantel was most likely chasing a project Skyhook balloon that had been launched from Clinton County Air Force Base in Ohio the website notes that the balloons were metallic and enormous consistent with mantel's description of the UFO it was the most likely explanation much more likely than chasing the planet Venus as the High Altitude balloon project was top secret military.com notes that there was no way that mantel and the other Pilots would have known about Skyhook a similar incident involving a North Dakota National Guard f-51 the following October called the Gorman dogfight was attributed to a lighted weather balloon kxnet North Dakota news explained in 2018. after an investigation authorities concluded that what Norman chased and everyone else saw was a lighted weather balloon that had been launched 10 minutes before Gorman saw and chased the UFO this is not a UFO Channel I'm not taking a stance on Little Green Men but it is obvious that at least since the 1940s that the U.S military has operated top secret high altitude balloon projects that could plausibly have been misidentified as an identified flying objects it even provoked a response from unwitting members of the same United States military in fact one of the most famous instances ever of the Air Force becoming involved in a UFO story has also been attributed to a balloon Smithsonian Magazine wrote in 2017. on June 14th 1947 a Rancher named W W Mack brazzell and his son Vernon were driving across their rangeland some 80 miles Northwest of Roswell when they encountered something that they'd never seen before it was in Brussels words a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips tin foil and rather tough paper and sticks Brazil brought some of the debris to the local sheriff in nearby Roswell New Mexico who asked the help of the commander the 509th composite group an air Wing stationed at Roswell Army Airfield tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons the base dispatched an intelligence officer major Jesse Marcel to investigate based on comments from Marcel the local paper the Roswell Daily Record reported on July 8th the intelligence office of the 509th bombardment group at Roswell Army Airfield announced at noon today that the field has come into the possession of a flying saucer but the Air Force has since argued that the debris was not from a flying saucer but the remains of a U.S military high altitude balloon project called project Mogul a top secret attempt to detect Soviet nuclear testing by placing listening devices on high altitude balloons a 1994 investigation by the New York Times explains that to the untrained eye the reflectors looked extremely odd a geometrical hash of lightweight sticks and sharp angles made of metal foil photographs of it taken in 1947 and published in newspapers show bits and pieces of what are obviously collapsed balloons and radar reflectors the problem was apparently keeping such a project secret as the times explains the squadrons of huge balloons were like having an elephant in your backyard and hoping that no one would notice it thus the Air Force report of a flying saucer Smithsonian Magazine quoted Roger Lunas former curator of space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum apparently it was better from the Air Force's perspective that there was a crashed alien spacecraft out there than to tell the truth a flying saucer was easier to admit than project mogul and the fear of these flying saucers as well as the increased use of both scientific and Military high altitude balloons continued to provoke a response both from the public and authorities on September 19 1950 the Associated Press reported that a mysterious object was cited over Poplar Bluff in Southeast Missouri the AP noted that the local newspaper and Highway Patrol headquarters office swapped with calls want an explanation the next day the AP reported that an Air National Guard fighter jet flown by Lieutenant Claude Haverty was dispatched from Memphis and determined the object to be a large weather balloon Haverty who followed the object for about an hour was quoted it was some kind of weather balloon I am sure apparently the public had become more sanguine by 1966 when the Saint Joseph Missouri News Press reported that a similar object was again cited over Missouri this time the Air Force didn't bother to send an aircraft with Colonel Byrne Logan of the Air National Guard merely saying it definitely resembled a weather balloon in contrast to 1950 the News Press reported that the Colonel's office had relatively few inquiries about the balloon and neither the police know the patrol was swamped with calls viewers seem content just to continue to watch the silvery white object in the Eastern sky but Chasing UFOs isn't the only reason that the military might be called out to shoot down a balloon sometimes sounding balloons can become a hazard to air travel on the 2nd of March 1978 the Tampa Bay Times reported that a sounding balloon owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration failed to self-destruct over Wyoming as planned and instead got into the upper atmosphere jet stream which carried it Eastward at more than 100 miles an hour the balloon was deemed a hazard to aircraft and was dispatched over the Atlantic Ocean by two F4 Phantom Jets from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina the Durham North Carolina Herald Sun reported that the balloon shaped like a large inverted soda bottle was down by 20 millimeter cannon fire the paper reports you can sleep tonight the Air Force is awake ready to do combat against any Hazard that might threaten from the skies even a large weather balloon but what if 20 millimeter cannons are not enough in 1998 a balloon that was part of a joint Canadian French U.S project to measure atmospheric ozone levels called the middle atmospheric nitrogen Trend assessment or Mantra did four high altitude balloon tests using massive balloons when deflated they were large enough to cover five football fields and carried a package of scientific instruments the balloons were designed such that when they had successfully gathered data a package would release dropping the instruments to the ground via parachute and a valve would open on the balloon allowing it to safely descend an official report on the project published in 2005 in the Canadian meteorological and oceanographic societies Journal atmospheric ocean explains that the first Mantra Mission took place in August 1998 with the primary balloon flight on 24 August being the first Canadian launch of a large high altitude alone in about 15 years at first the balloon launched from Saskatchewan went to plan but the report notes when it came time to drop the instrument payload via parachute two explosive squib systems failed to separate the balloon from the gondola and parachute and the operation of the balloon valve to release helium at 9 45 PM also failed to bring down the payload that is to say the Mantra balloon and its expensive scientific payload wandered away with efforts to bring the balloon down unsuccessful the report stated it started to drift eastwards this eventually became a problem during the day on 26 August the balloon was spotted by several aircraft and was seen east of Thunder Bay in the early afternoon it reached the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on 27 August by which time it had descended to nearly altitude of transatlantic Airlines at this point Transport Canada the federal agency in charge of Transportation determined the balloon to be a hazard to air travel and the Canadian Department of National Defense sent two cf-18 fighter jets to remove the 25-story tall hazard Reuters reported on August 31st they caught up with the balloon over Newfoundland and the pilots opened fire blasting the balloon with over a thousand rounds of 20 millimeter cannon shells but um tough balloon the AP reported but it remained Aloft the Air Force hopes the now leaking balloon will come down a newspaper in the United Kingdom snarked Top Guns couldn't pop a balloon BBC News reported that Lieutenant Colonel Steve Willis of the Canadian Air Force said he was not embarrassed by their failure with something like this which is stationary in the air when the cf-18s are flying very very fast it is difficult to shoot it the Canadian planes carried missiles but the Associated Press reported the pilots refrain from using heavier Firepower not only might missiles have offered a threat to the public below but Air Force spokesman major Roland Lavoy told the AP it might be Overkill spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a missile to shoot down a balloon that's drifting away a columnist in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix found the story to be incredible How could a giant helium balloon be perforated this many times and continue flying he asked clearly this balloon is not made from the same kind of rubber as ordinary party balloons it must be made from some kind of synthetic High tensile polymer impervious to automatic cannon fire I believe Old Dutch makes its potato chip bags out of the same material those things are almost impossible to open he cheekily added whether balloon smether balloon this looks more like some kind of death balloon we should all be proud to know that Saskatchewan is a world leader in death balloon technology the Canadian broadcast Corporation reported undeterred the blue meandered into British airspace forcing air traffic controllers to divert transatlantic flights and catching the attention of the British press atmospheric ocean notes that the balloon also merited the efforts of the royal Air Force which tracked it with an mr-4a Nimrod Patrol aircraft and the United States Air Force which attracted with a P3 Orion aircraft as the balloon passed over Norway the Norwegian Air Force had a more languorous response taking no military action and telling Reuters maybe it will soon move out of Norwegian airspace the blue and we entered over Russia without apparently causing undue alarm and finally crashed on the Allen islands in the Baltic Sea off of finland's southwest coast kind-hearted scientists of the Finnish meteorological Institute recovered the payload and returned it to Canada atmospheric ocean rights the instruments suffered minor damage from a bullet shrapnel in The Landings but are all reusable three further Mantra balloon launches went without a hitch but if the Mantra balloon event was exciting it was downright terrifying in 2009 when the nation was mesmerized by news reports that an out of control weather balloon had a six-year-old child stowed away on board in what the Washington Post described as a live-breaking Grimm's Fairy Tale six-year-old Falcon Heen of Fort Collins Colorado had supposedly snuck aboard a flying saucer-shaped weather balloon belonging to his parents amateur Storm Chasers that was then the post rights floating seven thousand feet above Colorado towards the heavens at the mercy of the Wind the boy's Father Richard told the press that he had yelled at his son earlier for playing in the balloon's battery compartment the balloon slipped its tether around 11 30 a.m on October 15th and Falcon's nine-year-old brother Bradford told his parents that he saw his brother sneak onto the balloon after a frantic surge the parents concluded that their son was in the balloon the Toronto Canada National Post noted that news anchors and experts speculated about the temperature inside the balloon and whether Falcon would have enough oxygen the response involved local and County authorities but also the United States Air Force rescued coordination Center and the Federal Aviation Administration the Colorado Air National Guard sent two helicopters an oh-58 Kiowa and a uh-60 Blackhawk in case they were needed for Rescue Larimer County Emergency manager Eric Nielsen said we can't get this thing down we may end up having to breach the balloon possibly with small arms fire authorities also consider trying to push the balloon down using the downward push of a helicopter but the post reported in the end the balloon slowly deflated and landed in an empty Farmer's field reports that a sheriff's deputy saw something fall from the balloon led to what the post called a massive search along the balloon's flight path then the post writes at about 4 pm local time the boy was found safe in a box in the Attic of his parents garage upon hearing his family shouting for him Falcon had apparently decided to hide thinking that he was in trouble speculation that the event that the Press dubbed balloon boy was nothing but a publicity stunt was vehemently denied by the heans and discounted by local police who said that every indication was that the family's angst and anguish of the situation was entirely genuine according to the Denver Post just this year the heans continue their meteorological research look I'm a historian I'm not here to speculate about UFOs or talk about Chinese spy balloons but it does deserve to be remembered that there's a long history of balloon panics that provoking military or police response and it's not just here in North America in 2021 the India times noted that a farmer came panicked to a police station because he said a UFO had crashed in his field the optic was later determined to be a weather balloon but not before hundreds of local villagers had trampled the man's standing crops in an effort to see the aliens and it's not surprising that these events continue to occur because as the India times notes meteorologists around the world launched some 900 to 1500 hydrogen or helium-filled weather balloons every day that work for you you're very handsome I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide check out our community on thehistory.guild.locals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on Cameo and if you'd like more episodes of Forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe foreign [Music] 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 128,015

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, balloons

Id: yqC9ICdfhQM

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023