Hide Article Text (OCR)
Strange encounter hits southern townMONTGOMERY. Ala (I PI) — It was dark on Clark Street when something huge and white came fluttering down from the sky, tearing down utility lines, enveloping cars and parts of housesIt was, residents feared, a close encounter of some kind •‘There was a dull, thumping sound and then all the lights went out.” said Sam Calhoun We tried to call the police but the phone was dead Not all the phones were dead, however The folks over there thought the sky was falling,” said Lt. C.R. Henderson of the Montgomery police. “A couple of them mentioned it was a UFO or something. Another guy just called in and said a bunch of white stuff was coming down.”A few hours later, a motoristdriving to work outside Tuskegee. 35 miles to the east, saw a big silver object in a field He got out to look at it and itbeeped at him.He called police, who rushed out and. initially, reported the object was labeled “bomb Logically, they called the bomb squad at Fort Benmng, Ga.What settled upon Clark Street, it turned out. was a balloon. And what beeped at the Tuskegee motorist was its payload — a machine designed to detect X-Kays in spaceThe originators of the experiment said it was all a terrible mistake caused by unexpected high-altitude winds.“The balloon should have landed three or four miles southeast of Montgomery,” said Kalph Har-ju of the National Scientific Balloon Facilitv in Palestine.Tex “We sent a radio command that fires a separation device between the bottom of the balloon and the top of the parachute.” The X-Kav detector floated to earth under the parachute where it was supposed to land, he said, and the balloon sould have fallen a few minutes later.“Our meterologists were not aware of the high-altitude winds,” Harju said. “They usually get the directions pretty darnwell.' ’Clark Street was unimpressed. “Imagine if it had fallen on your house and covered everything and you tried to get out You might have smothered to death in all that. said Charles Willis, a city maintenance engineer who helped clear the balloon from the neighborhood.
Newspaper Details
New Castle News
New Castle, Pennsylvania, US
Tue, Jan 31, 1978
Page 13
Full Page
Clipped by
Luis P.
AR 08 Dec 2021
Other Publications Near New Castle, Pennsylvania
New Castle News
New Castle News Weekend
New Castle Weekly News
New Castle Daily City News
New Castle News Holiday
