From: Brad Sparks
Subject: Analysis: Roerich Case; Aug 5, 1927
Cat: 1
To: CE, SHG
Aug. 5, 1927;
Himalayan
Mountains
Explorer Nicholas Roerich and others in his caravan observed a shiny
oval-shaped object move overhead, changing course. (Sparks: There is a
date discrepancy. It is actually 1927 instead of 1926 , according to
Leon Davidson who checked Roerich's published travel diary, the 1929
book Altai- Himalaya. See quote on the Internet) "On august fifth
- something remarkable! We were in our camp in the kukunor
district, not far from the humboldt chain. In the morning about
half-past nine some of our caravaneers noticed a remarkably big black
eagle flying above us. Seven of us began to watch this unusual
bird. At the same moment another of our caravaneers remarked:
'there is something far above the bird,' and he shouted his
astonishment. We all saw, in the direction north to south,
something big and shiny reflecting sun, like a huge oval moving at
great speed. Crossing our camp this thing changed in its direction from
south to southwest, and we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue
sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite
distinctly the oval form with the shiny surface, one side of which was
brilliant from the sun." [wrong date of 1926 in NICAP UFO Evidence,
1964, Hall, I]
Analysis:
Long-time UFOlogist Leon Davidson claimed that Roerich's sighting
was due to a weather balloon supposedly launched by another expedition,
the Sven Hedin Sino-Swedish expedition, but gave no documentation that
such a balloon had actually been launched on the date of the Roerich
sighting or that the expeditions were close enough.
Simple calculations show that the small 2-1/2 to 4 foot diameter
balloons launched by Hedin's meteorologist Dr. Waldemar Haude would
have had to be launched no more than 1 mile away from Roerich in order
to even be visible to the naked eye. The two expeditions would
have almost literally bumped into each at such short ranges and such a
launching would have been plainly visible to Roerich and his team,
along with the loud, smoky motor vehicles that Hedin was using.
Yet no such thing happened, the two expeditions did not see each other
and in fact were never closer than about 400 miles from each other
(Hedin's group was following the old Silk Road trade route in the Gobi
Desert to the North of Roerich, heading West to Urumchi from the
northermost part of the Yellow River).
Davidson did not present any meteorological records of the launch
which should have been available, unless destroyed by WWII bombing of
Germany. Even so, Haude published his balloon data prior to the
WWII bombings, and these might have the necessary records. Haude
launched two sizes of balloon, a small 2-1/2 foot type and a larger
4-foot type, each with approximately 500 and 800 ft/min ascent rates,
respectively.
Simple order-of-magnitude calculations show that this weather
balloon explanation for the Roerich sighting was impossible, on
quantitative grounds that do not rely on non-quantitative statements of
"huge" object at "great speed": When Roerich said that the shape
of the object could be discerned in field glasses this indicates it had
an angular size too small to easily see its shape with the naked eye,
thus it was on the order of 1/10 Full Moon or about 3 arcminutes
(1/1,000 radian which is 1:1,000 size/distance ratio or for a 4-foot
sized object 4 x 1,000 = 4,000 ft distance).
Thus such the largest 4-foot weather balloon would have been about
4,000 feet (approx 3/4 mile) away from Roerich's party (sailing
overhead more or less) having been launched within about 4-5 minutes
prior (as determined by the 800 ft/min rise rate), nominal winds thus
on the order of 10 mph. With much more distance the balloon would
have been invisible, never having been spotted in the first place,
having exceeded the limits of human visual acuity (Minimum Angle of
Resolution, MAR, about 1 arcmin). (Once spotted when reasonably
close, say about 1/2 to 1 mile away, they could continue to follow it
out to the extreme limits, about 2 to 3 miles, but they would never
have _initially_ spotted it at those 2-3-mile extreme limits of
distance.)
They would have been within shouting distance of the other
expedition less than 1 mile away and would have been acutely aware of
any such balloon launching operation! Within that vast flat
region around Lake Koko Nor they had a clear view up to 50-100 miles or
so around them. The maximum possible distance this other alleged
expedition could have been at, assuming an outlandish 100 mph surface
wind blowing the balloon over the heads of the Roerich party would
still have only been 5-10 miles from Roerich (100 mph in 3-6 mins),
easily seen (and any such hurricane force wind would blown the eagle
away that Roerich had first seen just before the UFO, and would have
been commented on in the diary). They would have known all about
the other (alleged) party, seen their campfires at night, run into each
other on the trails before or soon after, and seen other balloons they
launched before and after. Roerich's group obviously was nowhere
near any such other expedition.
Also, as mentioned any expedition launching weather balloons makes
records of the weather data which would be archived and would verify
the expedition's time-date and location of launches, along with the
weather data itself.