liberately placed it between the moon and myself three
times to try to identify a solid body. I and my two crewmen all had a
good view of the light as it passed the moon. We could see no solid
body. We considered the fact that it might be an aerologist's
balloon, but we did not see a silhouette. Also, we would have rapidly
caught up with and passed a balloon.

During its descent, the light appeared to slow down at about 10,000
feet, at which time I made three runs on it. Two were on a 90-degree
collision course, and the light traveled at tremendous speed across
my bow. On the third run I was so close that the light blanked out
the airfield below me. Suddenly it started a dive and I followed,
losing it at 1,500 feet.

In _this_ incident the UFO _was_ a balloon.

The following night a lighted balloon was sent up and the pilot was
ordered up to compare his experiences. He duplicated his dogfight--
illusions and all. The Navy furnished us with a long analysis of the
affair, explaining how the pilot had been fooled.

In the case involving the ground observer and the F-47 near the
atomic installation, we plotted the winds and calculated that a
lighted balloon was right at the spot where the pilot encountered the
light.

In the other instance, the "white object with two windows," we found
that a skyhook balloon had been plotted at the exact site of the
"battle."

Gorman fought a lighted balloon too. An analysis of the sighting by
the Air Weather Service sent to ATIC in a letter dated January 24,
1949, proved it. The radioactive F-51 was decontaminated by a memo
from a Wright Field laboratory explaining that a recently flown
airplane will be more radioactive than one that has been on the
ground for several days. An airplane at 20,000 to 30,000 feet picks
up more cosmic rays than one shielded by the earth's ever present haze.

Why can't experienced pilots recognize a balloon when they see one?
If they are flying at night, odd things can happen to their vision.
There is the problem of vertigo as well as disorientation brought on
by flying without points of reference. Night fighters have told
dozens of stories of being fooled by lights.

One night during World War II we had just dumped a load of bombs on
a target when a "night fighter" started to make a pass at us.
Everyone in the cockpit saw the fighter's red-hot exhaust stack as he
bore down on us. I cut loose with six caliber-.50 machine guns.
Fortunately I missed th