Voyager Newsletter - Issue No. 7


* Socorro `64: Shaken but not Stirred *


In the last newsletter, I wrote:

"When the `UFO Research List' (UFORL) was set up earlier this 
year, my intention was to provide a discussion forum which 
addressed scientific evidence, including the interface between 
UFOs and `black projects'
 

During recent discussions on the list, I brought up the subject 
of `The Socorro 1964 UFO Case'.

My reason for doing so was a belief that this unexplained 
`classic' could still be resolved and to highlight a conceivable, 
yet maybe little known, rationale for the `UFO' which local 
Police Officer Lonnie Zamora encountered.

To briefly recap; on the 24 April 1964, Zamora was chasing a 
speeding car when he was distracted by a loud `roar' overhead. He 
witnessed a corresponding intermittent flame, although its source 
wasn't visible because of the bright light from the directly 
opposed sun.

Zamora broke off his chase and instead followed the aerial 
object, which had descended and seemed about to land in an 
arroyo, just behind a nearby, small hill.

Eventually, he came upon a white, upright, oval-shaped object on 
the ground and briefly, only for a couple of seconds, noticed two 
figures wearing what resembled white coveralls.

When he reached a closer vantage point, Zamora was startled and 
admittedly scared when the deafening flame recurred and the 
object slowly rose up from the ground. It took several seconds to 
reach a height of around twenty feet, then the `propulsion 
system' stopped and the object silently travelled parallel to the 
ground for a while, before slowly rising upwards again, 
disappearing out of sight. As the object departed in the 
distance, Zamora radioed to the police station, "it looks like a 
balloon".

The reliability of Zamora's report was never in doubt; the object 
had left trace evidence, including still smouldering bushes.


The rationale originated from claims published in 1996 by Larry 
Robinson, a Systems/Applications Programmer at Indiana 
University.

The Socorro `UFO' was, he believed, a hot-air balloon.

Larry's reasoning seemed sound - he had personally experienced 
the surprisingly loud roar made by a hot-air balloon's burner 
[which would apparently have been even louder circa 1964 
ballooning technology] and considered that overall "the effects 
and sounds were identical to the descriptions" which Zamora 
reported.

Added to this was the potential significance of two articles 
Larry recalled seeing:

"1963-1964: I saw an advertizement in a magazine showing a 
balloon belonging to, or sponsored by, the International Paper 
Corporation. The logo is a circle containing an arrow, made of 
the letters I and P, pointing up. They were going to go on a 
cross country exploration with it.

1965-Feb 1967: I saw an article or ad showing the results of a 
multi-state series of hot-air balloon flights. A map was 
included, showing the landing points of the balloon and some 
amusing anecdotes of things that happened to the balloonists. One 
of these was an encounter with a lawman who they thought was 
going to shoot it out with them. The balloon freaked him out. The 
article said, `We later found out that he thought he was seeing a 
space ship'."


The distinctive International Paper logo does look practically 
identical to the `insignia' which Zamora noticed on the object 
and later sketched.

Furthermore, if there was a balloonists' anecdote of a lawman who 
had been spooked by a hot-air balloon around that time, it seemed 
a reasonable assumption this referred to the Socorro incident.

However, as no evidence had ever been located to prove any hot-
air balloon connection, I thought it worthwhile following up the 
leads Larry had provided. Surely, some clarification of the 
issues had to be attainable.


Initially, I obtained an article from `National Geographic' 
magazine, entitled, `Hot Air Balloons Ride on Silent Winds', 
published in the March 1966 issue. Although this wasn't the 
article Larry mentioned, it did provide important clues to 
investigate further.

What subsequently became clear was an understanding of how 
development of the hot-air balloon corresponded with the history 
of helium and hydrogen balloon technologies during the 1950s and 
1960s. It's potential applications had not gone unnoticed by the 
military and intelligence communities...


Setting this in some context was an article published by `Balloon 
Life' magazine, as extracted from the July 1997 issue [Volume 12, 
Number 7]:

`Don Piccard - 50 Years of Ballooning Memories'
by Peter Stekel.

[...]

"During his years at Raven, between 1962 and 1964, Piccard 
devoted his energy to marketing the Vulcoon, one-man thermal 
balloons. Stressing his lack of security clearance at the time, 
Piccard says he worked strictly on sport balloons and had no 
contact with any of Raven's military contracts. Be that as it 
may, following a 1987 interview in Balloon Life with Don Piccard, 
where he described his civilian work with Raven, the CIA library 
in Langley, Virginia, began to subscribe to the magazine".

[...]

"Reflecting back to those days at Raven, Piccard thinks the 
company's sport balloon division was a cover-up for the military 
applications of ballooning. `The sport balloon program, which was 
not believed in by the Raven Industry management, was strictly 
getting this crazy guy who liked to fly in balloons and make 
cover. So, when one of these other balloons went down, it would 
just look like a sport balloonist'. When the Navy terminated its 
contract with Raven, the sport balloon program died too. That was 
in December of 1964".
[End]


Piccard was one of the central figures in the development of hot-
air ballooning.

If the "military applications" program was terminated at the end 
of 1964, then all work must have taken place before then.

Which means that there were a number of publicly undocumented, 
hot-air balloon flights prior to December 1964.

During 1962 Piccard organised the world's first hot-air balloon 
race in Paris. According to that `Balloon Life' article, the 
nascent sport attracted four entrants:

"Don Piccard flew in a civilian balloon, Dick Keuser had an old 
brown silicon hot-air balloon that had been built for a research 
program. Yost flew a Mylar-nylon CIA balloon, and Tracy Barnes 
had a homemade balloon made out of parachutes".

The Ed Yost `CIA' balloon was interesting to read about. In 1956, 
Yost was one of Raven Industries' founders. It's common knowledge 
that an early commission came from the Office of Naval Research 
(ONR) and this funding seems to have continued through to 1964.

The company's work for the CIA also apparently ceased that year, 
the aforementioned article noting, "In the autumn of 1964, the 
CIA had canceled their contract with Raven".


During that 1962-1964 period, whilst Piccard was looking after 
the development of Raven Industries' new sporting hot-air 
balloons, Ed Yost continued to be was pivotal in the company's 
government/military research contracts.

Some background regarding Ed Yost, from a brief, authorised 
biography:

"Leaving General Mills, Yost and 3 others moved to Sioux Falls, 
South Dakota and formed Raven Industries. One of Raven's first 
projects was a commission from the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval 
Research (ONR) to create an aircraft that would carry one man and 
enough fuel to fly for three hours, carry a load to 10,000 feet, 
and be reusable. Additionally, the system was required to be of 
small size and weight and have a fast inflation and launching 
system that required a minimum of personnel.

In October 1955 Yost made the first moored flight of a modern 
hot-air balloon. The envelope was plastic film, and heat was 
provided by plumbers pots burning kerosene.

On October 22, 1960, Yost made the first free flight of a modern 
hot-air balloon from Bruning, Nebraska. By then Yost had switched 
to nylon for the envelope, and had created a propane heater. The 
gross weight of the balloon, including Yost and fuel, was 404 
pounds. He was in the air 25 minutes and landed 3 miles from his 
takeoff point.

The next flight was made November 12, 1960 from the Stratobowl, 
situated at 4500' MSL. Yost had increased the burner power, 
reinforced the envelope at the equator to add handling lines, and 
increased the opening at the top from 9 to 13 feet, doubling the 
deflation port size. The inflation took 6 minutes and he lifted 
off at 8:40 a.m. with a gross weight of 465 pounds. At 9:12 a.m. 
he made an ascent at 300 feet per minute to 9000', then made a 
600 feet per minute descent which he successfully halted with the 
new burner. He landed at 10:30 after a flight of 1 hour and 50 
minutes covering 39 miles.

In October 1961 Yost concluded his report to the ONR as follows:

`At the completion of this program in October 1961, all of the 
basic requirements had been met. A low-weight, manned flight 
system capable of safely carrying one man for three hours, at 
altitudes of up to 10,000 feet had been repeatedly flown'.

`Inflations and launchings in winds of more than 10 mph and 
temperatures as low as +5øF had been successfully accomplished. 
Operations at altitudes of 4,500 feet MSL (above mean sea level) 
had been demonstrated. Ground support equipment had been 
developed so that inflation, under light wind conditions, could 
be carried out in less than ten minutes. Controls, burners and 
instrumentation adequate to operate the system had been 
developed'.

`As a result of the work done under this contract, the 
feasibility of using hot air balloons for sustained flight was 
demonstrated. By the application of modern materials, design 
techniques and instrumentation, an aerostat which had been known 
for more than 175 years was resurrected and shown to have 
substantial value in modern research and operations. The limits 
of duration and lifting capacity appear to far exceed that 
developed under this contract; the low cost, simplicity of 
operation, and logistic advantage which hot air balloons provide, 
when compared with light-gas balloons, are most impressive. 
Within the altitude limits where hot air balloons may be used, 
these modern Montgolfier systems may become an important tool for 
atmospheric and low-level lifting and transport tasks'.

Raven Industries sold their first sport balloon in November 1961 
and the new sport of hot-air ballooning was born.

In 1963, Ed Yost made the first hot-air balloon crossing of the 
English Channel. With crew member Don Piccard, he made the flight 
from Rye, Sussex, England to Gravelines Nord, France, in 3 hours 
and 17 minutes in a 56,000 cubic foot Raven balloon named 
`Channel Champ'."


A photograph of Ed Yost's inaugural hot-air balloon flight can be 
seen at:

http://www.nott.com/favorite_balloon_flights.htm


In my correspondence with Don Piccard, he confirmed that the 
`Channel Champ' adventure took place on Easter Monday, 1963.

A separate source, who was also directly associated with Raven 
Industries at that time, explained, "This exhibition [flight] was 
sponsored by a new French travel magazine called `VIA'. There was 
a logo on the side of the balloon with the magazine name in 
large, bold letters".

"The VIA emblem had white letters on a black background. It was 
attached to the balloon envelope (actually, draped) just below a 
permanent insignia showing origin of the balloon -- which was in 
red. That inscription included: RAVEN (possibly 2 to 3 ft tall), 
followed by an American flag. Then U S A vertically; SIOUX FALLS 
in half the height and SOUTH DAKOTA just below it. Finally, there 
was the registration number N-xxxx".

Although ostensibly to promote Raven's hot-air balloons as a 
sporting pastime, this exhibition flight had another agenda, as 
we shall see.

The `Balloon Life' article recalls:

"An Air Force tanker flew Piccard and Yost from Milwaukee to 
England, `Loaded everything on board and away we did go!' The two 
balloonists were designated, `Majors in the Wisconsin National 
Guard: uniforms, I.D. cards; everything.' He pauses and chuckles 
softly. `All in the national interest, of course'."

The `Channel Champ' balloon was a model `S 50' and its back-up an 
`S 45'. Both balloons were brought back to America, returning by 
airplane to General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee.

Incredibly, there may be a connection between this promotional 
flight, Raven's work for the government and Lonnie Zamora's April 
1964 `UFO' sighting.


During my research, the most profound discovery was evidence of 
`classified' hot-air balloon flights which took place in the New 
Mexico area during 1963 and 1964. Publicly, their existence was 
previously unknown and full details are disclosed here for the 
first time.

As would be expected, these test flights involved Raven balloons.

US researcher Karl Pflock contacted Ed Yost, who acknowledged 
having flown in the tests which took place. However, Yost was 
adamant that none of the balloons were ever within some 50 miles 
of Socorro. He didn't say whether any activities took place on 
the 26 April, 1964, only that they did extend into 1964.

Thanks to Karl, it's also known exactly where they were launched 
and if anyone claims to have first-hand evidence, they should be 
able to confirm that location.

What were these tests possibly concerned with?

Both Karl and fellow researcher Joel Carpenter noted that in 
addition to the reconnaissance benefits offered by manned, hot-
air balloons, there were clear indications of the CIA's specific 
interest in agent insertion and extraction operations.


It was my understanding, from an informed source, that two hot-
air balloons involved in the New Mexico tests were the `Channel 
Champ' model `S 45' and its back-up balloon, the `S 50'.

Independently, another informed source suggested this was more 
than likely, as these balloons were effectively owned by the 
government.

I can now confirm this was not only correct, it seems the 
`Channel Champ' flight was, extraordinarily, something of a US 
government/military public relations and marketing exercise.

It can also now be substantiated that even before the advent of 
hot-air balloons, gas filled balloons were being used for covert 
agent insertion operations during the `cold war', in Eastern 
Europe.

The source of these confirmations is Ed Yost.

The July 1999 issue of `Balloon Life' [this magazine should be 
compulsive reading for all researchers!] published a feature 
entitled, `Ed Yost honored by the Aero Club of New England', 
written by Jim Ellis.

Reporting on a formal presentation to Yost of the prestigious 
Godfrey L. Cabot Award, Ellis wrote:

"Over 200 aviation enthusiasts and dignitaries were in attendance 
for the presentation of the award. Yost chose to save his most 
interesting stories for an informal get-together in a room at The 
Harvard Club following the formal presentation of the Cabot 
Award.

About two dozen aviation enthusiasts, primarily New England 
balloonists, got to hear the father of hot air ballooning give 
his bluntly honest answers to a range of questions. It was a rare 
look at the start of hot air ballooning as we know it from the 
man who literally started it all".

"Yost said that throughout the 1950s he was involved with 
military and other classified government programs using balloons 
to carry leaflets and even men across the Iron Curtain from three 
launch sites in West Germany. Using different sized balloons, 
most of Eastern Europe could be covered, carrying anywhere from 4 
pounds to over 750 pounds of leaflets.

Yost said that the leaflets were actually small newspapers that 
would give inhabitants of Communist dominated countries news of 
the West they couldn't get any other way. He said `the thing 
worked too damn good and we got the Hungarian Revolution. 
Eisenhower stopped the program. We should have been dropping
45s.'

It is apparent that the Communist bloc countries were in the 
habit of looking for and shooting down the gas balloons. Yost 
said that `we were launching big balloons in the daytime. Some 
days there would be a trail of balloons across the sky. Fighter 
planes were blowing them out of the sky, so they changed to 
launching at night.'

The modern hot air balloon evolved from experiments in the mid-
1950s which Yost was conducting aimed at using hot air as a 
lifting gas. Yost was well aware of early smoke balloon flights, 
and began experiments to quantify the lifting properties of hot 
air compared to helium and hydrogen. Beginning with plumbers pots 
fueled by white gas used to heat air in plastic balloons indoors, 
he determined that 64 cubic feet of hot air would be required to 
lift one pound compared to 16 cubic feet of helium. Possibly 
throwing out a challenge to today's balloon experimenters (Brian 
Boland was among the balloonists in the room), Yost pointed out 
that steam would require only 32 cubic feet to lift one pound. 
One of the balloons was photographed holding a man on a harness 
under the tethered balloon, and Yost used the photo to negotiate 
a 47,000 dollar contract from the Office of Naval Research".

"By the time he and his team had met all of the Navy requirements 
for a one-man balloon and the final report was written, Yost had 
developed and flown hot air balloons incorporating all of the 
major characteristics of today's modern hot air balloons 
including non porous coated synthetic fabrics, liquid propane 
fueled burners with preheater tubes and fast acting valves, and 
maneuvering and deflation vents for control of the aircraft 
during flight and landing".

"Perhaps the most fascinating story Yost told was of his flight 
across the English Channel. He said that the flight was not a 
sport balloon flight but rather the idea of his government 
sponsor, who wanted to demonstrate the range and endurance 
capabilities of the balloon. When told by European air traffic 
control officials that there was too much traffic at the shortest 
point near Calais, he said that was no problem because he had 12 
hours of fuel on board and wanted to go where the Channel was 
wider. The balloon was flown to England on an Air Force KC-97 
tanker/cargo aircraft which left from Minnesota".

Copyright 1999 Balloon Life. All rights reserved.
[End]


Additional and insightful information on related CIA operations 
can be found in the declassified document, `Operation Mongoose-
Propaganda Balloon Operations Plan, 10 Oct., 1962'. See:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/DOCUMENT/930827.htm


I'm still looking for a photograph of the 1963 `Channel Champ' 
and one of the balloon museums indicate they may be able to 
assist. Meantime, I have been able to locate a photograph of the 
balloon's platform, which carried Yost and Piccard on what, as 
Yost acknowledges in the full article, was a seriously hazardous 
flight.

The platform, on display at the `Musee des Balloons', Chateau de 
Balleroy, France, can be seen in an earlier `Balloon Life' 
article, at:

http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9512/history
.htm

[This URL will wrap around]


Yet, despite these previously undocumented, `classified' New 
Mexico flights taking place at around the same time as Zamora's 
encounter, there's perhaps no relationship at all. It may simply 
be coincidental.

However, what I can add is I know, for a fact, that the balloons 
involved in those New Mexico tests were white and the crew were 
carried on a platform much like the one used on the `Channel 
Champ'. These balloons were large though and I suspect too big 
for the object Zamora described, which seems to have been much 
smaller. If it was a hot-air balloon `test' he witnessed, it 
could have been a model which was specifically designed to be 
unobtrusive, with clandestine operations in mind. The attire worn 
by crew members could well have been white coveralls, which was 
common.


There is another candidate for a hot-air balloon having 
responsible for Zamora's encounter and it takes us back to Larry 
Robinson's recollections.

I was able to ascertain that almost certainly no `International 
Paper' hot-air balloon had been built by 1964. If one ever 
existed, it may have been a helium-filled, cable driven balloon 
used for carrying logs from mountain slopes, a development in 
later years. According to a Raven Industries source: "Experiments 
were made and eventually routine operations conducted using 
helium balloons to lift logs off of mountain slopes. These were 
cable-driven, not free flying. This work started in the summer of 
1967 and we were actively involved in providing and testing new 
models for at least a decade. Such balloons may still be in use 
today".

I have suggested to Larry that the article he saw in 1963 or 1964 
may have included an artist's impression of a balloon with the 
company's logo. He agrees that is a possibility.


The 1965-Feb 1967 article about a "multi-state series of hot-air 
balloon flights" would most likely have been a feature on the 
first transcontinental crossing of the U.S. by balloon. This 
endeavour was undertaken by a known balloonist between April to 
September 1966, a story which appeared in a number of magazines.

As it seems the article Larry remembers must have been written 
after the successful crossing, it narrows the publication date to 
September 1966-February 1967. Of course, if it was the tale of a 
lawman who was startled by a balloon during the 1966 flights, it 
couldn't relate to Zamora's 1964 experience. It would have to be 
the account of an earlier incident.

Of more consequence now is having identified the 1966 pilot and 
obtaining contact details, he should be able to clear up all of 
these points first-hand. Someone will hopefully be speaking to 
him presently, or will have done by the time this newsletter is 
published.

In the meantime, it's not the intent of this newsletter to debate 
the merits of any views on whether Zamora may have observed an 
early hot-air balloon, which in 1964 he was most unlikely to ever 
have seen or heard previously. Also perhaps now best wait to see 
what ongoing enquiries might reveal.


In 1964, the US Air Force's `Project Blue Book' was the official 
channel for investigating UFO reports.

Two years later, Blue Book's chief, Major Quintanilla, confided 
in a then classified CIA publication, "He [Zamora] is puzzled by 
what he saw, and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented 
case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of 
thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus 
that scared Zamora to the point of panic".

Even if immaterial, it does look as though the existence of those 
`classified' New Mexico hot-air balloon flights had not been 
considered, investigated and eliminated by `Project Blue Book' 
before reaching that conclusion. It seems there's no firm 
evidence they had considered a private hot-air balloon flight 
either.


Looking to establish the overall context of balloons being used 
for such intelligence operations, I asked some questions of an 
acquaintance in the US who is an `Intelligence' historian.

He advised, "The Office of Naval Research did a lot of balloon 
work and they were involved in inflatable aircraft work with 
Goodyear Rubber Co. CIA was also interested in both of these 
areas. The Navy's Strato-Lab program ran, at least, into the 
early 1960s because, on May 4, 1961, the Strato-Lab V balloon 
carried two Navy flight surgeons to an altitude of almost 115,000 
feet. The General Mills Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, also 
did early (late 40s, early 50s) balloon work.

CIA, and others, have been interested in clandestine methods for 
agent infiltration and exfiltration since the `Iron Curtain' 
descended across Europe. While balloons have some potential for 
agent infiltration (moving from west to east), there are obvious 
problems in using them for exfiltration (prevailing wind 
direction).

I know there was some work done by CIA, including some manned 
`flight testing' of a one-man balloon. I have done some checking 
and I find no indication that this information has been 
released".

Which implies this newsletter may be the first public disclosure 
of specific details about these `one-man balloon' test flights. I 
can reveal that a knowledgeable source indicates the project 
being referred to was carried out in Minnesota during the early 
1960s and definitely before 1964.

Although the Don Piccard `Balloon Life' article reports that 
equipment for the 1963 `Channel Champ' flight was flown to 
England from Milwaukee, the July 1999 Ed Yost article claims, 
"The balloon was flown to England on an Air Force KC-97 
tanker/cargo aircraft which left from Minnesota".

I'm sure this can be clarified.


So, what started out as an exercise in search of the `UFO' 
evidence Larry Robinson cited, became an adventure into the world 
of James Bond.

There's still some way to go before reaching a conclusion about 
recent developments and any relationship to Zamora's sighting, 
Karl Pflock expressing his conviction that the object was not a 
hot-air balloon. Although I'm not so sure, there are grounds to 
be optimistic that the new evidence can be augmented and will 
eventually become self-determining.

One point which should be emphasised is that no matter what the 
outcome, Lonnie Zamora was an exemplary witness. He simply 
reported and then documented exactly what had been observed, 
leaving others with more `expertise' to come up with an 
explanation.


Considerable appreciation is expressed to the various unnamed 
sources -they would prefer to remain anonymous - who have helped 
to unravel a fresh perspective. Also to Karl, Brad Sparks, Larry 
Robinson and all others who have provided input during recent 
discussions.

My thanks in particular to Joel Carpenter, whose contribution in 
researching this material has been immense.


James Easton,
Editor.

E-mail: voyager@ufoworld.co.uk
UFO World: http://www.ufoworld.co.uk


Anyone who supports the UFO Research List's objectives can 
subscribe by sending a blank message to:

UFORL-subscribe@listbot.com

It's a moderate forum and a moderated one.

(c) James Easton
September 1999