From: Steven Kaeser <steve.nul>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:49:22 -0500
Fwd Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:27:01 -0500
Subject: Re: Socorro & Balloons - Kaeser


>From: Robert Gates <RGates8254.nul>
>To: ufoupdates.nul
>Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:04:53 EST
>Subject: Re: Socorro & Balloons

>Let me be forth right about the so called balloon theories. This
>load of hot air floats in and out about every 3-5 years. After
>watching a number of theories advanced, people promoting this or
>that balloon, the bottom line is, and I suspect always will be
>is that nobody will be able to find any documentation about a
>balloon flight that happened on April 24 1964, and flew into
>Socorro then out again.

If Errol will permit, I was contacted by Don Berliner (Chairman
of the Fund for UFO Research) who had been watching this thread
on UpDates, and he sent a few comments that he wanted to share:

==begin forwarded comments==

Steve,

Enough of this imagineering of balloons that look like no known
balloons, nor fly like any known types of balloons in order to
explain what Lonnie Zamora reported..

Had the Socorro UFO been a hot-air balloon, the blast of flame
from the propane burner would have gone up into the bag to keep
the air heated.  Had it been directed downward (as Zamora
described, and which explains the charring, etc., the air inside
the bag would quickly have cooled and the bag would have been
deflating and distorting.

Had it been a helium - or (shudder!) hydrogen-filled balloon,
there would have had to be either some hefty mechanical device
affixed to the earth, or a crew of big groundcrew men holding
guy ropes, to keep it from ascending as soon as the crew got
out.  Nothing remotely like either of these was reported by
Zamora or Sgt. Chavez.  In the barren wilds of New Mexico,
neither could have been hidden.

I have flown in hot-air balloons and in helium-filled blimps,
and so have some experience.


Don

==end==