Lists,
I agree with Dick Hall's posting.
The arguments surrounding balloon appearance and
behavoir in recent
postings are becoming more and more ridiculous and silly.
I have some sixteen years experience in meteorology
that involves
thousands of balloon observations of all types.
Two of the Army's mainstays were the 1000 gram
high riser and the double
balloon (balloon within a balloon), the fast riser.
Uninflated they
sometimes appear almost brown, however when inflated and nearby
you can
still sometimes see the brown color, but they almost appear white
as they
expand when they ascend they look completely white or sometimes
metallic if
the sun is hitting them right.
White or tanslucent balloons often appear metallic at
a distance!
In Sept 1954 a large research balloon was observed
over eastern
Connectiuct. Press accounted noted that some observers
reported it as
metallic, while others said it was bright white.
During the 1947 wave various balloon
configurations were reported all
over the US. Clusters, one large balloon and a number of
smaller ones
ringing the outside, large skyhook like balloons, etc. No
doubt, there were
a number of military and scientific research project going on for
which we
have no accounting as yet. (A Vancouver newspaper said that
radiosondes
were raining down on Vancouver Island.) NYU was not the only
ones
experimenting with large balloons. Princeton also had
various high altiude
work going on. The Navy and AAF (McCoy was later involved
here) were
working on another high altitude manned balloon flight
attempt.
In Colorado private planes left a local air field and
climbed to very
high altitudes (for private pilots) until they were able to
identify an
unknown object as a very large balloon carrying an instrument
package below
it.
A large balloon partially deflated was also reported
near descending near
Boulder, CO during the 1947 wave.
There are also a large number of balloons reported
within the Project
Blue Book files for these early days. I suggest that some of
these reports
be consulted before people begin make generalizing about balloon
appearances.
Jan Aldrich