Page 24 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition
P. 24
24 They’re Balloons Dammit Not Alien UFOs!
Rob McConnell: “I Told
You So!
They’re Balloons Dammit
NOT
Alien UFOs!”
Continued from Page 23
Of these, more than 300 came down
prematurely over Soviet territory due to
equipment malfunctions or were shot
down by Soviet pilots, who quickly
learned to intercept the balloons in the
early morning when, due to lower night
temperatures, they descended to lower
altitudes. Many balloons successfully
reached their recovery zones, but could
not be retrieved due to bad weather and
other factors. In the end, only 44 radiation-resistant film developed for the
payloads were successfully recovered, balloon cameras was ideal for use in DEBUNKED: Alien
their photos covering only around 8% of outer space, and on October 7, 1959, Research Is Happening At
the Soviet and Chinese landmass. captured GENETRIX film aboard the Area 51.
Furthermore, as the balloons could not be Soviet Luna 3 probe was used to take the
steered towards targets of interest, the first-ever pictures of the far side of the
vast majority of these photos were of moon.
limited strategic value. Worse still,
GENTRIX proved a public relations In addition to GENETRIX, the Air Force
disaster, with the Soviet Union and its also ran Project ASHCAN, which used
client states angrily protesting the Skyhook balloons to sample the air
flagrant violation of their airspace. The above the Soviet Union for fallout from
Air Force therefore swiftly cancelled nuclear weapons tests and nuclear
GENETRIX in favour of the CIA’s new, reactors, the latter of which allowed U.S.
more capable U-2 spy plane. Intelligence to estimate how much
plutonium the Soviets were producing.
However, GENETRIX was not a The Air Force even developed the
complete failure. The cameras developed balloon-based WS-124A Flying Cloud
for the project would form the basis for platform as a means of delivering nuclear
later, more sophisticated photo and biological weapons to targets within The 1996 movie "Independence Day" is
reconnaissance systems, while the midair the Soviet Union. However, by the 1960s one of the sources of the Area 51 hoax,
which claims that aliens and their
recovery system would later be used to all such projects had been cancelled as technology — recovered from crashed
great success to retrieve film capsules manned aircraft, missiles, and satellites flying saucers — are being studied secretly
from CORONA spy satellites. The proved far more effective than balloons at a classified military base about 80 miles
balloon flights also generated data on in nearly every military role. (130 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas in
high-altitude winds that proved useful to the Nevada desert. Some people in the area
the U-2 overflight program. A more The heyday of projects like MOGUL and around the base claim that they have seen
unexpected benefit of the program was GENETRIX was a unique period in strange flights out of this area.
that the steel bar that secured the gondola military history, when surveillance
ballasting system happened to measure technology had not yet caught up to the While Area 51's true focus is classified, the
U.S. government has acknowledged its
91 centimetres – exactly the wavelength complex strategic realities of the Cold existence (although the CIA officially calls
of a Soviet radar system codenamed War. It was also a time of extreme it "Homey Airport" or "Groom Lake"). A
TOKEN. This caused the bar to resonate secrecy and paranoia, which furnished a part of Edwards Air Force Base, the area
when hit by TOKEN radar pulses, fertile breeding ground for wild was a known location for high-technology
allowing the CIA to locate previously speculation and conspiracy theories that airplane flights in the 1960s and 1970s. It
unknown radar installations and divert endure to this day. While the early UFO first served as a proving ground for
U2 flights around them. But perhaps the sightings of the 1940s and 1950s were Lockheed U-2 and A-12 OXCART spy
strangest legacy of GENETRIX almost certainly the product of top-secret planes as early as 1955. UFO sightings
reported in the area were indeed
stemmed from the fact that so many of Air Force spy balloons, the jury remains unidentified objects, but only because the
the balloons and their payloads were out on whether we are, in fact, alone in planes were top-secret — not because they
captured by the Soviets. Soviet scientists the Universe. But as a wise man once were flown by aliens.
quickly realized that the temperature and said: the truth is out there. []
