Symposium on unidentified flying objects: hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, second session, July 29, 1968.

68"the
pilot
* * *
sighted
a
round
white
light
below
him,
circling
and
rising
at
a
speed
estimated at
150
to
200
knots
as
it
proceeded
on
a
southeast
course."
Menzel
states
that the
B-36
"made a
sharp
descending
turn
toward
the
light,
which
was
in
view
for
a
period
of
three
to
[we
minutes."
The
light
was
blinking,
and
Keyhoe
mentions
that the
blink
-interval
was
esti-
mated
at about
2
seconds.
Menzel
concurs
in
the
official
evaluation
of
this
as
a
"weather
balloon",
noting
that
a
pilot
balloon
had
been
released
at
Fairchild
AFB
at
1:00
a.m.,
and
remarking
that the
"winds
aloft
at
altitudes
of
7,000
to
10,000
ft.
were
from
the
northwest
with,
a
speed of
about
fifty
knots."
He
says
that
"computations
showed
that the
existing
winds would
have
carried
the
balloon
to
the
southeast,
and
it
would
have
been
over
Rosalia,
which
is
12.5 nautical miles
southeast
of
Fairchild,
in
about
fifteen
minutes."
In
fact,
Rosalia
lies
33
statute
miles
SSE
of
Fairchild,
or
about
twice
as
far
as
Menzel
indicates.
The
net
drift
of the
balloon
cannot
be
deduced
simply
from
the
winds
in
the
7
-10,000
-ft.
layer;
and,
in
fact,
an
examination
of the
upper-winddata
for that
area
on
February
6
indicates
that the
winds
at
lower
levels
were
blowing
out
of the southwest.
The
trajectory
of the
balloon
would have
taken
it
initially
east-northeast,
then
east,
and
finally
curving
back
to
the
southeast
as
it
got
up
to
near
the
10,000
-ft.
levels.
By
that
time,
it
would have
been
already
east
of
Spokane,
nowhere
near
Rosalia.
The
small
light
(candle or
flashlight
bulb)
used
on
night
pibal
runs
is
almost
invisible
to the
naked
eye
beyond
a few
miles' distance.
(A
1
-candle
source
at
3.000
ft.
is
equivalent to
a
star
of
about
the
'first
magnitude.
At
6
miles,
then,
one
finds
that the
same
source equals
the
luminosity of
a
sixth
-magnitude
star,
the
limit
of
human
vision
under
the
most
favorable
conditions.
For
a
pilot,
looking
out
of
a
cockpit
with
slight
inside
glare to
spot
a
1
-candle
source
against
a
darkbackground
would
require
that
the
source
be
only
a few
miles
away.)
At
some
30
miles,
the
B-36
pilot
could
not
have
seen the
small
light
on
a
ballon
east of
Spokane.
Menzel
states
that
"the
balroon carried
white
running
lights
which
accounted for the
blinking
described,
and
the
circling
climb
of
the
UFO
is typical
of
a
balloon's
course."
Neither
inference
is
supportable.
The
light
used
on
pilot
balloons
is
a
steady
source;
only
if
one were
right
above
it,
with
its
random
swing
causing
intermittent
occultation,
would one
ever
perceive blinking.
But
then,
flying
at
B-36
speeds,
the
pilot
would have swept
over the
sector
of
perceptible occultation
in
only
a
matter
of
seconds.
Yet
here
the
pilot
watched
it
for
a
reported
3-5
minutes.
Furthermore,
"circling
climb" cannot be
called
"typical
of
a
balloon's
course."
The
balloon trajectory
is
controlled
by
the
ambient
wind
shears
and
only with unusually strong
directional
shears
would
a
pilot flying
a
straight
course
perceive
a
pilot
balloon to
be
"circling."
In
all,
there
appear
to
be so
many
serious
difficulties
with the
balloon
explanation for the Rosalia
sighting
that
it is
not
possible
to accept Menzel's
statement:
"Thus
all
the evidence supports
ATIC's
conclusion that the
UFO
was a
weather
balloon."
4.
Case
34.
Boston, Mass.,
June
1,
1954
At 0930
EDST,
a
Paris
-New York
TWA
Constellation
was
passing
near Boston
when
the cockpit
crew
spotted
"a
large,
white
-colored disc
-like
object"
overhead
(
Ref. 41). Capt. Charles
J.
Kratovil,
copilot
W.
R.
Davis,
and
flight
engineer
Harold
Raney
all
watched
it
for
a
total
time of
10
minutes as
they
flew
on
their
own
southwestward
course to
New
York.
They would
occasionally lose
it
behindoverlying clouds.
Knowing
that they
were
flying into
headwinds, they concluded
that
it
could not be
any
kind of balloon,
so they radioed the Boston
airport
control
tower, which informed
him
that
jets
were scrambled
and saw
the
object,
but could not
close
with
it.
After landing in
New
York, Capt. Kratovil
was
informed that
official
spokesmen
had
attributed the sighting to
a "weather balloon" released
from
Grenier
AFB,
in
New
Hampshire.