Chinese baloon story could be overblown

THE EDITOR:

I can remember as a child living in the aftermath of the Second World War, that the big event twice a day was watching a weather balloon launched from the U.K. government’s meteorological office near my home in Camborne, Cornwall.

I have just learned that over 900 meteorological offices around the world still launch similar balloons twice a day.

I can remember the saga of Balloon Boy in 2009, when a Colorado couple alerted authorities that their six-year-old son had somehow gotten into a home-made balloon they had just launched. It drew huge media attention floating around for a day or so before landing.

Now, the world’s media had been taken for a ride in the hot air that filled that magic balloon; as the boy was kept hidden at home the entire time, in what was an elaborate hoax and publicity stunt.

There was a similar outcry in 1938, when Orson Welles converted H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds" into a fake news radio broadcast, which was so realistic that many listeners were convinced that martians had landed in New Jersey.

These incidents flashed though my brain while watching the BBC-TV World News on Saturday, Feb. 4. The Chinese balloon which had captured world media’s attention for a few days had just met its demise, when deflated by a missile fired by a U.S. fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina.

A couple of eye winesses from nearby Myrtle Beach had filmed the proceedings on their cell-phones, and were explaining what they saw to a very excited BBC news anchor. He kept repeating himself for a complete hour, looking at times as if he may be experiencing some kind of medical emergency, or at least an orgasm.

Apparently, this balloon from China is the size of three school buses, and is now scattered debris somewhere in the deep Atlantic Ocean, after plummeting from over 60,000 feet. It is presently unknown how much will be retrieved, and what information will be believable, if it is even shared.

Nothing about this balloon is quite as tangible as the American U-2 spy plane that was shot down over Russia in 1960. Lest we forget, CIA Pilot Gary Powers was the real spy in the sky.

Belson Street, Parksville