RECONNAISSANCE CAMERA

There is very little information on the nature of the payload. At the time Holloman AFB performed several flights of then classified reconnaissance cameras. These cameras were huge, weighing from 6,000 to 8,000 pounds, and were encased in ten-foot cylinders. The nature of the cargo on each flight was so sensitive that in many cases the balloons were tracked by several helicopters carrying armed military police to surround the payload after landing.

First pictures ever seen of this project were published in 1997 in "The Roswell Report, Case Closed" part of the effort carried out by the US Air Force to answer some of the misteries sourrounding the so-called Roswell Incident. Great part of the mythology generated around that infamous UFO-Crash-Retrieval case involved secret activities carried out by the balloon branch of the Holloman AFB.

Balloon launched on: 9/24/1967
Launch site: Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, New Mexico, US  
Balloon launched by: Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL)
Balloon manufacturer/size/composition: Zero Pressure Balloon  
Balloon serial number:  
Flight identification number: H67-67
End of flight (L for landing time, W for last contact, otherwise termination time): 9/24/1967
Landing site: In the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico, US
Payload weight: 6000 pds

• The Cold War's Classified Skyhook Program - A Participant's Revelation article by Bernard Gildenberg in Skeptical Enquirer, May/June 2004, Pag. 38
• The Roswell Report: Case Closed James McAndrews, Headquarters United States Air Force, 1997 pag. 156 - 158