http://www.ufocentral.org/greenwood/mantell/1948_1_7_Intellegencer.jpg
This article is extremely important -- no CRUCIAL -- in killing the
Skyhook theory DEAD!!! It establishes the exact location of the
Skyhook and the exact time it was at that location. They confused
it with a weather balloon launch and garbled their understanding of
winds (weather balloons are NOT designed to stay aloft for 3-1/2 hours
that's just a crock of s--t the newspaper writer made up to explain how
a balloon supposedly launched at 4 AM from St. Louis would still be
aloft and visible from Edwardsville 20 miles east of St Louis at
7:20-7:50 AM; standard weather balloons have a climb rate of 100
ft/min and burst before reaching 100,000 ft hence are "designed" to
stay up less than 2 hours).
The Skyhook was supposedly launched at about 8 AM on Jan 6, 1948, from
the launch site in Minnesota (I'm no longer saying whether it was at
Milaca as shown on the tracking map or at Camp Ripley as claimed by C B
Moore, as it is not too relevant or important but the photos in the
Popular Science seem to show a military-base type of barracks in the
background which I can't imagine was available at a two-bit town like
Milaca). It was heading at about azimuth 190 degrees slightly W
of due South and was lost to sight after 3 hours at a distance of about
65 miles (so much for Skyhooks being visible for 150 miles, most of the
Skyhook launches were lost to view within about 100 miles EVEN WITH
OPTICS like theodolite telescope trackers). It's average speed
was therefore about 22 mph.
Then the Skyhook went mostly SSE for 580 miles or so in about 23.3
hours to the vicinity of Edwardsville (actually to a point almost
directly over Scott AFB at about 7:20 AM). According to the
newspaper article was seen to the SE (or actually S to SSE) roughly
over the direction of Troy, Ill. (but actually much larger and much
farther, over Scott AFB). This is an average speed of about 25
mph. It was lost due to clouds at 7:50 AM probably at a distance
of around 30 miles from Edwardsville.
Then the Skyhook veered slightly more eastward to a SE heading because
of a change of winds and floated about 250 miles to a point roughly 20
miles S of Nashville at 4:30 PM where it was sighted by astronomer
Seyfert. Average speed about 26 mph now.
Thus one can see a consistent flight path slowly veering more eastward,
from heading S to SSE to SE, and slightly increasing in average speed
from 22 to 25 to 26 mph until disappearing in the earth's shadow about
40 miles SE of Nashville at 5:12 PM.
This shows a gradual arc of the flight path which comes nowhere near
Godman or Mantell.
If I had a large digitized image of a map of the north-central
Mississippi Valley I could plot a devastating flight path of the
Skyhook showing graphically it was nowhere near Godman or the Mantell
flight. It has to be a map with ONLY STATE BOUNDARIES and ONLY A
FEW MAJOR CITIES. The rest has to be basically BLANK.
Having junk like numerous cities and topography just clutters things up
making it difficult to see anything.
This means we can pinpoint exactly where the Skyhook was located when
the UFO was seen from Godman Tower at 2-3:50 PM and when chased by
Mantell.
At 1 PM when the UFO sightings seemed to begin, the Skyhook was located
at about 22 miles W of Hopkinsville, Ky., in the Western part of the
state, just east of a town called Canton. This was about 140
miles from Godman Field.
At 2 PM the Skyhook was at about 12 miles W of Clarksville (and over
the south end of Fort Campbell), where aircraft operators said the
balloon seemed to pass over the Clarksville airfield. Since the
balloon was about 15 miles up this would be an elevation angle of about
50 degrees which would seem practically overhead to most people.
At this time Godman Field sighted the UFO at an azimuth of 215
degrees. The Skyhook was about 140 miles away at about azimuth
225 degrees from Godman slowly moving southward to their left, in
azimuth.
At 3 PM the Skyhook was at about 28 miles WNW of Nashville. This
was about 140 miles from Godman at about the same 215 degrees azimuth
of the UFO but low on the horizon, only 5 degrees above the
horizon. Whereas the UFO (according to one news? report we need
to locate) was seen from Godman at about 45 degrees elevation
angle. Besides being invisible at 140 miles, it would be strange
why anyone would try to climb to reach something so low on the
horizon. A counterargument might be that Mantell (as I
discovered) was not in a steep 17-degree maximum climb (4,000 ft/min at
180 mph) but was only in a slight 1-degree climb (500 ft/min at 360
mph). Still a 1-degree climb does not reach the Skyhook at 5
degrees or a UFO at 45 degrees, which leads me to conclude that Mantell
was not trying to reach the UFO by climbing in altitude but wanted to
get closer to it before deciding what it was and how to reach it.
At 4 PM just after Godman lost sight of the UFO (behind clouds) still
at 215 degs reportedly not having moved at all in 2 hours, the Skyhook
was at about 18 miles SSE of Nashville (now about 150 miles from Godman
at about 205 degs azimuth) almost directly over "coincidentally" the
town of Franklin, Tenn., the same name as the Mantell crash site town
and Mantell's birthplace of Franklin, Ky., over the border in Kentucky
to the north. I don't think any of this is a random chance
coincidence. Someone or something deliberately set this all up as
a sick joke. I won't comment on this further or respond to
questions.