The objects looked like balloons, behaved like balloons, and weather balloons had been released in the area that day. Conclusion: the saucers were weather balloons[III-2]. A number of other publicized cases listed as “Unknown” were in all probability balloons. Since a probability, however good, is not the same as an established fact, these sightings remain in the Unknown category even though their actual explanation is reasonably certain. Such a case was that near Hermanas, New Mexico, which, like that a few weeks earlier at Hamilton Air Force Base, may have been stimulated by the 1952 saucer panic in Washington (_Chapter_ VII). On August 24, 1952, an Air Force colonel was flying from California to Georgia in an F-84-G plane at an air speed of about 290 miles an hour. At 10:15 A.M. M.S.T., when near Hermanas, New Mexico, he observed two round, silvery objects about six feet in diameter some two miles north of him and traveling east at high speed; they showed no trail or exhaust. During the three minutes they were in view, one object suddenly began a right turn while the second accelerated rapidly; they changed in shape and in color, became elongated and gray, and then disappeared. A few minutes later over El Paso, Texas, he saw two similar silvery objects, also traveling east. During the ten minutes they were in view, one object seemed to climb straight up for 2000 or 3000 feet, followed immediately by the second one. Assuming that the same pair of objects was involved in both sightings, the observer concluded that they were going much faster than any plane, and reported the incident to ATIC. The behavior described is typical of that of balloons. Rising into a new wind stream, they may move rapidly and change their orientation so that they look sausage-shaped instead of round; reflecting the sun at a different angle, they look gray rather than silver. Investigators checked with Biggs Air Force Base, White Sands, and El Paso International Airport; both White Sands and El Paso had released weather balloons at 8:00 that morning which had traveled southeast and burst some time before the sighting at Hermanas. Since no single recorded balloon could account for the sighting, it was listed as Unknown[III-2]. This inquiry can scarcely be called thorough. No check seems to have been made at Holloman Air Force Base or at more distant bases whose weather balloons might well have traveled into the area. The investigators apparently accepted the pilot’s assumption that the objects in the two sightings were identical and were therefore traveling at incredible speeds; yet there was no evidence to support the assumption. It is far more probable that he was observing two sets of objects, not one. The estimates of size, distance, and speed are all uncertain because no fixed reference point existed. The report does not state whether the objects seemed to be above or below the plane, and does not give the exact heading of the objects.