Surveillance balloons - also part of UFO reports. The US flew many over Russia in the 50s, but with little success.
snip
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Behind their facade of official silence, the Soviets were not so easily deceived. They undoubtedly knew that the balloons were coming, but even so, it took time to devise effective tactics for engaging the high-flying intruders. The US had given them one out: at the last minute, the maximum altitude of the WS-119Ls was set at 55,000 feet, and minimum altitude, at which ballast would be automatically dropped to prevent further descent, was programmed at about 49,000 feet. This was at least 15,000 feet below the operating altitudes that the devices were capable of reaching. A MiG-15 fighter straining at full power in the thin air above 50,000 feet would therefore have a brief opportunity to shoot down a Genetrix. The Soviets also had heavy antiaircraft artillery pieces that were capable of lobbing shells to those heights. (Ironically, the Fire Can radars guiding the interceptors and guns were based on Lend-Lease models of the old US SCR-584, the same type used by the Sunset Project to combat the Japanese Fu-Go balloons a decade before, and the same type widely used in the US to track weather balloon RAWIN targets). The Soviets undoubtedly faced the same difficulties as the US Air Force had in detecting and tracking the Japanese Fu-Go and its own plastic balloons, but they quickly realized that the WS-119s were at their most vulnerable minimum altitude when their lifting gas was coolest -- just after dawn and just before sunset, the same hours when low sun angles made their glistening envelopes most conspicuous. The reason for the low cruise altitude setting is unknown. Perhaps Eisenhower felt that the Genetrix overflights would seem less provocative if the Soviets had at least a fighting chance of shooting the devices down.
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Trump didn't shoot down balloons either. Let's see, so far Republicans want Biden to resign over balloons and being mean to MAGA'Ts. Do we really pay their salaries?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11714657/Three-Chinese-spy-balloons-infiltrated-Trump-administration.html
Posted by: greg b | February 05, 2023 at 11:21