instruments descend by parachute, and the balloon, rising quickly,
explodes from the sudden expansion.

Occasionally a balloon starts leaking, and it then remains relatively
low. At first glance, this might seem the answer to the Kentucky
sightings. If the balloon were low enough, it would loom up as a large
circular object, as seen from directly below. Some witnesses might
estimate its diameter as 250 feet or more, instead of its actual 70
feet. But this failure to recognize a balloon would require incredibly
poor vision on the part of trained observers--state police, Army
M.P.'s, the Godman Field officers, Mantell and his pilots.

Captain Mantell was a wartime pilot, with over three thousand hours in
the air. He was trained to identify a distant enemy plane in a split
second. His vision was perfect, and so was that of his pilots. In
broad daylight

{p. 41}

they could not fail to recognize a balloon during their thirty-minute
chase.

Colonel Hix and the other Godman officers watched the object with
high-powered glasses for long periods. It is incredible that they
would not identify it as a balloon.

Before its appearance over Godman Field, the leaking balloon would
have drifted, at a low altitude, over several hundred miles. (A leak
large enough to bring it down from high altitude would have caused it
to land and be found.) Drifting at a low altitude, it would have been