Bernard Gildenberg, a retired colonel of the US Air Force, participated in the secret programs of the CIA for thirty-five years and was recruited to them as a consultant for another quarter of a century, already retired.
In an article published in the American magazine Skeptical Inquirer in 2006, Gildenberg explains how the CIA's probe balloons have contributed to the chronicle of sensational UFO sightings.
For several decades, as part of the secret Mogul and Skyhook (Skyhook) projects, begun in 1947, the CIA launched huge balloons with automatic reconnaissance equipment. The volume of such a ball made of polymer film was twice that of the largest German airships of the 30s of the last century. A balloon inflated with helium with a diameter of 90 meters and a height from the gondola to the top of 130 meters was capable of carrying several tons of equipment at a given height (usually in the stratosphere) for a long time. Illuminated high in the sky by the rays of the sun, when it was already dark at sea level, such a ball could well arouse the interest of outside observers and generate many sensations. It is no coincidence that the first wave of reports of UFO encounters emerged precisely in 1947, with the start of the Mogul project.
The aim of the project was to identify in the upper atmosphere of radioactive isotopes arising from nuclear weapons tests. In addition, within the framework of the Skyhook and Moby Dick projects, similar balloons were launched with equipment to study wind currents in the stratosphere. The military intended to use these winds with constant direction and speed to deliver the balloons to the territory of the alleged enemy. It would be possible to change the direction of flight by changing the height of the balloon, which would make it alternately fall into multidirectional streams.
The soft landing of such a balloon with suspended equipment, which took place at night, accompanied by three helicopters, is accurately described in one of the books about UFOs: “At night, floating red lights appeared in the sky over the highway. They shifted towards the field and sank to the ground. One could see an object as high as a three-story building, above which other lights were moving, sometimes sinking towards the main object. There were indeed red beacons on the balloon gondola, the rest of the lights belonged to helicopters.
There was also a top-secret project WS-119L, which at various times was assigned more convenient verbal designations for pronunciation and memorization, for example, "Gopher" (a rodent living in North America). These balloons were intended to fly with huge aerial photographic installations over the territory of the Soviet Union. The project remained secret until the mid-80s, although back in the 50s, Soviet air defense managed to shoot down several of these balls, and the remnants of the shell and equipment were shown to the press.
The balloons of this program were first tested over the United States, they were launched from air bases in Alamogordo (New Mexico) and in the states of Montana, Missouri and Georgia. For example, in 1952, 640 flights were performed. It is not surprising that in these and surrounding areas, newspapers, radio and television channels began to report on mysterious flying objects. And when the gondola of one of these balloons crashed over New Mexico and the remnants of the secret equipment was hastily hidden at the Roswell airbase, rumors circulated that a downed alien apparatus with the embalmed bodies of these creatures was kept in the hangar at the base. Conversations about this are still going on.
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To fly over the USSR, balloons of the WS-119L program were launched from Turkey, from Western Europe and from the Pacific coast of the United States (and preliminary balloons were launched from there to study the direction of air flows). Many flights were successful, and since they were kept secret even from the closest allies, in 1958 the European headquarters of NATO worriedly reported in a secret report about the passage of several UFOs from the side of the Soviet Union at an altitude of 30 km over Western Europe. They were balloons launched from the southern tip of Alaska.
The military also considered the possibility of hanging a nuclear bomb from a ball and delivering it more or less accurately to a designated target, using the known trajectories of constant air currents at different levels of the stratosphere. But with the advent of reliable and accurate intercontinental missiles, the idea fell away.
In 1952, at the base in Alamogordo, an experiment was carried out to intercept a high-altitude balloon with an F-86 fighter to test whether Soviet aircraft could shoot down American balloons. The press got a message: the fighter tried to intercept the UFO, but failed. The date, time of the experiment and the type of aircraft were reported in the newspapers exactly, but the reporters added on their own that the UFO either hovered motionless, or in a matter of seconds it accelerated to 1200 kilometers per hour.
An experimental balloon launched from Alamogordo on October 27, 1953, due to a malfunction of the time relay, refused to descend in the United States 24 hours after launch and continued its flight. Six days later, the British Air Force discovered a UFO in the sky over the Atlantic, flying in the direction of London! There was a sensational clamor in the English press. British intelligence soon found out what the matter was, but preferred to remain silent for reasons of secrecy, especially since one of the ball launch points under the WS-119L program in the direction of the USSR was in Scotland. Nevertheless, in the UFO literature, this case still figures as an example of undoubted "contact with aliens."
In the 50s and 60s, Gildenberg participated in the program of launching balloons, which, having risen 32 km, were supposed to turn on bright light flashes (the altimeter for cruise missiles was being tested). It is clear that this mysterious phenomenon did not pass by the public's attention and caused a stir in the newspapers.
In 1967 and 1969, the author took part in testing new improved aerial cameras. Such an installation was placed in a cylinder 3 meters high and weighed 3-4 tons. The flight of the high-altitude balloon was watched by military helicopters with armed detachments, which immediately surrounded the landing site of the equipment in order to protect it from prying eyes. The descending installation was loaded into a helicopter and delivered to the nearest airbase. Of course, in the newspapers again there were reports that the military shot down a UFO and are hiding it from the public.
From 1956 to the beginning of the 70s, a secret program "Grab Bag" ("bag of gifts") was in operation, aimed at searching in the stratosphere for radioactive traces of atomic tests and plutonium production in the Soviet Union. The military was testing new technology. At a certain moment, by a radio signal or by a signal from a time relay, a valve in the cylinder was opened, part of the gas was vented, the balloon descended from 20-30 km to one or two kilometers and dropped the equipment by parachute, and in flight, preventing it from reaching the Earth, the plane intercepted it. The balloon, freed from the load, soared up and burst somewhere in the stratosphere. Newspapers and television reported: a UFO attacked a military plane, separating from a huge mother ship, which immediately soared upward with incredible speed and disappeared.
A powerful pump was turned on in the equipment, which was descending by parachute, and pumped the collected samples of stratospheric air into a metal container. This noise added mystery to the whole process. Sometimes some of the collected radioactive material fell on the ground, and UFO enthusiasts then noted a slight increase in radioactivity at the scene. The Grab Bag program was so secret that the military could not even inform the concerned local authorities, without disclosing the essence of what had happened, that they were conducting some tests here and there was nothing to worry about. The project generated the largest number of UFO reports over America.
In fact, the American authorities not only did not try to bring down the mass hysteria about the "flying plates", but also secretly encouraged it. The calculation was as follows: when American reconnaissance balloons fly over the territory of the Soviet Union, the Russians will write off the reports about them at the expense of the mysterious UFOs, about which there is so much noise in the American newspapers. Since these mysterious phenomena, which have now appeared over Russia, did not cause any harm to America and the Americans failed to intercept them, perhaps one should not attach too much importance to them.
Gildenberg believes that all these programs did not bring any significant intelligence data, and their only practical way out is to work out the technique of delivering capsules with filmed film and other data from satellites, and subsequently - and soft landing of astronauts.
