Over at the BBC's website, there's a fascinating new story involving the British Royal Air Force and, allegedly, a Soviet Sputnik satellite, or a spy-balloon, or, well how really knows? It begins as follows:
"A former RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team leader has told
how he sought evidence that a Russian satellite crashed in the Highlands 50
years ago. David 'Heavy' Whalley was intrigued by a story from the 1960s that a shepherd
found the remains of a Sputnik on a moor above Ardgay in Sutherland. An RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team member sent to the scene later told Mr
Whalley of finding unusual debris. Team members involved were allegedly told to 'keep quiet' about it."
And here's the complete article on a case that I'm sure will soon be championed in some quarters as a "British Roswell." And the last thing we need is another bloody case dragging on for 65-years!!
"The book places the incident in spring 1962.
ReplyDeleteIn September of that year, a chunk of Sputnik IV smashed into a street in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, after the satellite burned up in the atmosphere.
Keith Bryers, a Dingwall-based amateur historian, investigated the Ardgay incident in the 1990s.
He found mention of "problematic wreckage" among an informal RAF list of crashes.
Mr Bryers said his investigations left him 99% convinced the wreck was the remains of a crashed US high altitude spy balloon.
The balloons carried a gondola fitted with cameras and drifted over the Soviet Union on winter jet streams to photograph military airfields and bombers.
Mr Bryers said there was a cover story that the balloons were for researching weather conditions.
He said: "This was the period before spy satellites and the American U2 spy plane.
"The balloons were launched from various sites around Europe.""
That's not true. The U2 was already operational by 62.