The UFO Phenomenon

US Navy once fired at a 'balloon weapon' that turned out to be Venus

By T.K. Randall
February 15, 2023

Image: Global View of the Surface of Venus (1991)
Credit: (PD) NASA/JPL Back in the 1940s, at a time when Japan was using balloons to drop bombs and other incendiary devices over the United States, the crew of a US Navy vessel spotted a spherical object in the sky that they believed to be one such weapon.

"We opened fire at what we thought was the altitude of the [balloon]," Lanson B. Ditto, who had been serving on the ship at the time, later recalled of the incident. "We had to estimate."

"We set a fuse to go off at an estimated altitude. We started out at 5,000 feet [1,524 meters] and could see that it was coming up short, so we raised to about 7,500 feet [2,286 meters] and could see that it was short, too. So, we raised it up to the maximum of 10,000 feet [3,048 meters]."Despite their best efforts, however, the crew were unable to hit the object.

The reason, it turned out, was because what they were actually firing at was the planet Venus.

Since "Chinese Spy Balloon" is trending: In 1945, the crew of USS New York spotted a sphere that they thought might be a Japanese balloon weapon. The captain ordered it shot down but none of the guns could score a hit. Finally, a navigator realized they were attacking Venus. pic.twitter.com/aKwedtrr2G

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) February 3, 2023

Source: IFL Science

Tags: US Navy, Balloon