The records at Wright-Patterson Field show that the winds that afternoon would have carried a balloon over exactly the course the UFO followed: from southern Ohio west into Kentucky. It would have climbed rapidly and at about 35,000 feet would have entered the southward-flowing jet stream; shifting direction, the balloon would have traveled south at a high rate of speed, still climbing. Somewhere south or southwest of Godman Field it would have climbed through the jet stream to enter a region of calm at about 60,000 feet; slowing down, it would have drifted south or southeast into Tennessee. Of its fate after that we can only guess[III-4, p. 19]. Without the Skyhook records for the day in question, this solution cannot be called absolutely certain. But the chances of its being correct are overwhelmingly high--infinitely higher than the probability that Mantell died while chasing a spaceship from another planet. _A Radiosonde over Virginia_ In the years that followed, the pattern of sightings in the Mantell case has often reappeared but, fortunately, without the same tragic outcome. After each Skyhook launching, a flood of UFO sightings came in to ATIC from towns that lay under the path of the balloon. The Skyhook project sometimes was able to relocate a “lost” balloon by following newspaper reports of flying saucers. By the summer of 1952 the existence of giant balloons was no longer classified information. When on June 15 an unidentified flying object appeared over several towns in Virginia and followed a course that closely resembled that of the Mantell UFO, Air Force investigators recognized the pattern and began looking for a balloon as the probable explanation. The reports were as follows[III-1, p. 192]: 3:40 P.M., Unionville, Virginia. Very shiny object sighted at high altitude. 4:20 P.M., Gordonsville, Virginia. Round, shiny object sighted in the southeast. 4:25 P.M., airliner near Richmond, Virginia. A silver sphere sighted at eleven o’clock high. 4:43 P.M., south of Gordonsville, Virginia. Jet pilot sighted and tried to intercept a round, shiny sphere. 5:43 P.M., south of Gordonsville. An Air Force jet pilot sighted and tried to intercept a shiny sphere; at 35,000 feet the object was still above him. 7:35 P.M., Blackstone, Virginia. A round, shiny object with a golden glow sighted, moving south. 7:59 P.M., radio station at Blackstone. Shiny object sighted. 8:00 P.M., Blackstone. Jets from Langley Air Force Base tried to intercept object. 8:05 P.M., object disappeared.