Appendix D
SKYHOOK BALLOONS
The Aeronautical Division of General Mills, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minnesota, launched and tracked every skyhook balloon that has been sent aloft previously to the middle of 1952. “They knew what their balloons looked like under all lighting conditions and they also knew meteorology, aerodynamics, astronomy, and they knew UFOs . . . . . What made these people so sure that UFOs existed? In the first place, they had seen many of them. One man told me that one tracking crew had seen so many that the sight of a UFO no longer even especially interested them. And the things that they saw couldn’t be explained.”*
Given below are testimonies of two separate sightings of UFOs by Mr. J. J. Kaliszewski, Supervisor of Balloon Manufacture at General Mills, which serve as additional illustrations of such observations, an example of which is given in Captain Ruppelt’s book.
From: J. J. Kaliszewski
Subject: Unidentified Object Observation
Time: 1010, 10 October, 1951
Place: 10 miles east of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin
Observers J. J. Kaliszewski and Jack Donaghue
We had just spotted our trajectory flight and were approaching from the north at an altitude of 4,000 feet. We started a climb towards the balloon on a course of 230°. At 6,000 feet I noticed a strange object crossing the skies from East to West, a great deal higher and behind our balloon. I estimate that our balloon was approximately 20,000 feet at the time.
Using our balloon for comparison, this object appeared to be about 1/4 the size of the balloon. We were climbing and about six miles northeast of the balloon. The object had a peculiar glow to it, crossing behind and above our balloon from East to West very rapidly, first coming in at a slight dive, leveling off for about a minute and slowing down, then into a sharp left turn and climb at an angle of 50° to 60° into the southeast with a terrific acceleration, and disappeared.
Jack Donaghue and I observed this object for approximately two minutes and it crossed through an arc of approximately 40°- 45°. We saw no vapor trail and from past experience I know that this object was not a balloon, jet, conventional aircraft, or celestial star.
s/J. J. Kaliszewski
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* Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, E. J. Ruppelt, Doubleday & Co., c. 1956, p. 161
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From: J. J. Kaliszewski
Subject: Sighting of Unidentified Objects
Time: 0630, 11 October 1951
Dick Reilly and I were flying at 10, 000 feet observing the grab bag balloon when I saw a brightly glowing object to the southeast of the University of Minnesota airport. At that time we were a few miles north of Minneapolis and heading east. I pointed it out to Dick and we both made the following observation: The object was moving from east to west at a high rate and very high. We tried keeping the ship on a constant course and using reinforcing member of the windshield as a point. The object moved past this member at about 5° per second.
This object was peculiar in that it had what can be described as a halo around it with a dark undersurface. It crossed rapidly and then slowed down and started to climb in lazy circles slowly. The pattern it made was like a falling oak leaf inverted. It went through these gyrations for a couple of minutes. I called our tracking station at the University of Minnesota airport and the observers there on the theodolite managed to get glimpses of a number of them, but couldn’t keep the theodolite going fast enough to keep them in the field of their instruments. Both Doug Smith and Dick Dorion caught glimpses of these objects in the theodolite after I notified them of their presence by radio. This object, Dick and I watched for approximately five minutes.
I don’t know how to describe its size, because at the time I didn’t have the balloon in sight for a comparison.
Two hours later we saw another one, but this one didn’t hang around. It approached from the west and disappeared to the east, neither one leaving any trace of vapor trail.
s/ J. J. Kaliszewski