A while ago I was wandering around on the White Sands Missile Range, looking at the various missile displays when I found something interesting... a flying saucer in among the rockets and the missiles. 
The legend said:
AEROSHELL "FLYING SAUCER"
This spacecraft was a section of the Voyager Balloon System which was launched near Rosewell [sic], NM. and landed on White Sands Missile Range. These bright, shiny aeroshells projected an illusion of flying saucers. Aeroshell was designed for slowing down a missile for landing on Mars. This display is believed to be the only one "in captivity".
U.S. Air Force
DIAMETER: 15 Ft.
PROPELLANT: Liquid/Solid
SPEED: MACH 1.6 (1,100 mph)
RANGE: Maximum 140,000 Ft.
FIRST FIRING DATE: 1966/1967
I’m not sure why the Air Force didn’t trot this out to explain some of the Roswell case. Although launched some twenty years after the crash, that time problem would mean little to the Air Force. I mean, they came up with the anthropomorphic dummies (seen here, Photo Courtesy US Air Forc
e) that weren’t used for testing until the 1950s with the first drop near Roswell in 1957. Dates never seemed to get in the way.
In reality, this craft might have explained some of the later UFO sightings in New Mexico and there seems to be no suggestion that it ever flew anywhere else. And, if nothing else, it does look like a flying saucer.
The Aeroshell was designed to utilize atmospheric friction to slow a Mars craft for a safe landing? It's remarkable that such an approach can work in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere. The planet is nearly airless.
ReplyDeleteSure the Aeroshell looks like a flying saucer. But as an "explanation" for Roswell it had drawbacks, besides the great temporal difference. It couldn't account for bodies, nor a debris field. MOGUL was seemingly better as an "explanation" for the latter and dummies for the former.
I have lived in New Mexico for over 80 years and worked 13 of them at WSMR, but have never read or heard of any UFO sighting (including my own) which could be accounted for by this "saucer" in any wsy.
ReplyDeleteNever said that I believed it would explain Roswell and noted that it didn't fly until a decade or so after Roswell... not that anything like that would stop the Air Force from trotting it out as an explanation.
ReplyDeleteNever said that it did explain any UFO sightings, only that it might. Afterall, it is a flying saucer.