Flying Saucers Foiled Again

Three days before the saucer news broke from Roswell, New Mexico, a flying disc crashed on a farm in Ohio. In the following weeks (and years) other objects were found, some of them photographed and printed in newspapers.

July 7, 1947, Associated Press

Our Captured Flying Saucer Scrapbook begins with an item from The Circleville Herald, July 5, 1947: 

'Flying Disc' Believed Found On Pickaway Farm 

One of the "flying discs" which have been puzzling aviators all over the United States was believed Saturday to have been found on a Pickaway county farm. Sherman Campbell, who lives on the Westfall road in Wayne township, near the Pickaway-Ross county line, reported the finding of a star-shaped silver foil covered object which he believes is one of the mysterious "flying saucers."

While working in the field he spotted a strange object. He described his find as 50 inches high, 48 inches wide and weighing about two pounds. He said the silver foil was stretched over a wooden frame. The star-shaped object had six points. He said there was a balloon attached which had deflated and there was no way of knowing how big it was.

Discovery of the object was the first reported in the country. A Coast Guardsman on the west coast reported photographing one from a distance, but no one has seen one of the "flying discs" close. 

Another photo:

The Wisconsin State Journal, July 7, 1947

Yet another “flying saucer” was found in Oxford, Ohio, on Monday July 7, 1947, as reported in The Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN), July 9, 1947.

Saucers were everywhere. Amazingly, another strange object fell close to Circleville, Ohio. 

“The second such find was reported to Sheriff Charles Radcliff Tuesday afternoon by David C. Heffner, who said he discovered it on a line fence on his farm on the old Tarlton road four and one half miles east of Circleville. ... The gadgets found by Mr. Campbell and Mr. Heffner were … constructed of a light wood frame. Only a remnant of the thin rubber balloon remained attached to the Campbell find, but the other contraption discovered on the Heffner farm includes most of the remains of the balloon which must have measured more than 15 feet in diameter when it was inflated."

The Circleville Herald, July 5, 1947

The Roswell Debris

The now-famous headline, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region," appeared in the Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947. However they stated, “no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.” Newspapers the next day began revealing the disappointing details.

The Durant Daily Democrat, July 10, 1947

The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, July 9, 1947

The Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947, reported that Mac Brazel had been hounded by the press over his discovery, "Harassed Rancher who Located 'Saucer' Sorry He Told About It." The paper summarized Brazel’s description of what’d he’d found and shown Maj. Jesse A. Marcel from Roswell Army Air Field:

“Brazel related that on June 14 he and 8-year-old son, Vernon were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J.B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks. … There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.”

The debris was matched to other discoveries and military projects still in flight. The Kansas City Times, July 9, 1947, reported on a Rawin target recovered on an Adrian, Missouri farm.

The Kansas City Times, July 9, 1947

The Corpus Cristi Caller, July 10, 1947, reported:

Like New Mexico Saucer – The “rawin” – radar wind – reflector attached to the Navy weather balloon above, is the same type of apparatus which a New Mexico rancher picked up earlier this week, believing he had found one of the much-publicized flying discs which have been plaguing 44 states of the nation. Miss Mary belle Kuegle, Wave aerologist first class, holds the device which normally rises to a height of 50,000 feet before the balloon bursts and the rawin falls to the earth, aided by a parachute. (Official U.S. Navy photograph.)

The Corpus Cristi Caller, July 10, 1947

What is a Rawin? From Captain Joseph A. Pechman’s article in Air Corps, from The Coast Artillery Journal, May/June 1946:

“Radar made possible the determination of upper winds under most conditions of clouds or poor visibility. Wind data are obtained by an SCR-584 [radar unit] tracking the flight of a free balloon to which is attached a metal, foil-covered paper reflector capable of reflecting the radar signals back to the radar. Direction and speeds of the winds for various altitudes are evaluated on the basis of the horizontal projection of the flight of the balloon. This procedure is called ‘RAWIN’, a term combining the two words, ‘radar’ and ‘wind’.” 

Launching and tracking a rawin target.

Civilians were not only mistaking Rawin targets for flying saucers on the ground, but also in the sky. The United Press story in the Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), July 10, 1947, the US Navy disclosed that their  balloon launches had led to saucer reports. 

Disc? Tsk, Says Navy

Saucy Soaring Saucers Sinking

Practical jokers continued to have a high time with flying saucers today as the navy advised the more serious-minded "eyewitnesses" that what they saw in the sky was only weather observation devices. It cost the navy $25 to assure itself. Lt. Rell Zelle Moore, naval air station aerology officer, launched a "ray winds" weather device is a $25 "operations saucer" at Atlanta, Ga. As the helium-filled balloon carrying a tin-foil screen soared over Stone Mountains, calls poured into Atlanta newspapers reporting "flying discs." The 4-by-10 foot screen looked like a round aluminum disc at a high altitude. "People are only just beginning to see these things aloft," said Lt. Comndr. Thomas H. Rentz. 

The Gastionia Gazette (NC), July 10, 1947 feature more from the Naval officer: 

HAS OPINION ON FLYING SAUCERS

Naval Officer Believes Flying Discs Are Tinfoil Screen Used In Weather Balloons To Reflect Radar Rays And Detect Wind's Velocity

ATLANTA, July 10 -- UP -- Lieut. Commander Thomas H. Rentz of the Atlanta Naval Air Station said today he believed the "flying saucers" reported over the country were tinfoil screens used in weather balloons. 

The Roswell tinfoil episode was forgotten, but the International News Service (INS) article from April 10, 1949, published under such titles as “Secrecy Shrouds ‘Saucers’ Probe,” mentioned Roswell in passing:

“… the USAF has sorted out the vast number of fantastic and imaginative reports received... Another incident resulted in ‘exile’ for an Air Force public relations officer in the West. This enthusiastic gentleman, without prior reference to Washington, announced to local newsmen that he had found a ‘flying saucer’.” 

Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1949, featured the first of two parts of a skeptical article by Sidney Shallet, “What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers.” It included a section on rawin targets as UFOs:

In addition to the 25 per cent or more bona fide cases of mistaken identification that can be blamed on astronomical phenomena, a large percentage can be accounted for by weather-observation and radar-target balloons.  . . . The most common sources of innocent deception in the balloon field are the so-called RAWIN (radar-wind) target balloons.  The balloons generally are white, and at 40,000 to 60,000 feet where they usually operate, they are invisible to persons on the ground.  Dangling below each balloon, however, is a six-cornered "target" of aluminum foil, strung out on kitelike sticks.  Radar operators on the ground track these aluminum targets for weather information. The targets oscillate and gyrate in the wind, and sunlight glinting from these shiny, wind-tossed objects can create a perfect illusion of a flying saucer.  Movies of airborne RAWINs were taken for me, and in some shots the oscillating aluminum targets appeared perfectly round. 

Further Sightings in the Fifties 

Around the USA, saucer reports kept being reported and sometimes, physical evidence was found. Here’s our two last entries that made the papers. 

The Captured Saucer of Concord, Pennsylvania

On March 28, 1950, an unnamed farmer spotted a UFO descending and land in his field. He reported the object, and it was subsequently carried to the Concord School where it was on display for the 300 students there and the general public. The Chester Times, March 29, 1950, reported the mysterious object was: 

“Four feet across at its maximum width, it was constructed of white and silver paper, on a thin wooden frame. Only identifying features on the strange-looking star shaped object with the numerals 1040. Obviously severed heavy strings were attached to a metallic ring on the object, indicating that a balloon had been hooked up to the ‘What-is-it.’ The balloon apparently broke loose when the strings gave away and it continued its flight. The farmer who first sighted the object reported this morning that spinning in the late afternoon sunlight, it gave every appearance of being a huge disk as rays were reflected from the white and silver body of the object.” 

Local Weather Bureau, Army officials, and scientists were consulted, but they could not initially identify the object’s origin. 

Chester Times, March 29, 1950

The next day continued the drama, “Concord’s ‘Flying Disc’ Subject of Much Speculation”

Chester Times, March 30, 1950

A subsequent story in the Chester Times, April 8, 1950, reported that the “kite-like affair” had been identified, “investigation disclosed [it] to be a corner reflector radar target.” 

The Horton Disc of 1953 

A UFO was seen in the skies of Atlanta, Georgia on July 6, 1953. The next morning, near the Fulton County Airport, Ralph Horton recovered an unusual flying object that had crashed on his lawn. From The Atlanta Constitution, July 8, 1953: 

“Experts Tuesday were as baffled as ever about the multi-colored, cone-shaped ''thing" that dozens of Atlantans saw moving across the twilight sky around supper-time Mondav. The experts didn't think the ‘thing’ was the kite-shaped, balloon-bearing apparatus Ralph Horton found Tuesday morning in his front yard near the County Airport. U. S. Weather Bureau officials said Horton's find apparently is a ‘ra-wind,’ an instrument used to plot wind currents in the upper air. Such an instrument, they explained, would have been released by the Air Force at 4 p.m. and would not have remained aloft as long as 7:15 p.m. when Atlantans all over the city reported they saw the ‘thing.’”

The Atlanta Constitution, July 8, 1953

By this time, such discoveries were common. Once the Weather Bureau identified it as a rawin target, no investigation by Project Blue Book – or anyone was conducted. Until… 

Working on a proposed flying saucer book, James Moseley made a cross-country trip in 1953-54 tracking down UFO witnesses. In Georgia, he found the Ralph Horton article in the files of the Atlanta Constitution. Moseley with Karl Pflock described what he did next in his 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist: 

“Of course, I lost no time getting out to see Horton, who obligingly hauled the saucer out of the woods behind his house, where he tossed it after the excitement had died down. ... I photographed Horton with the saucer which he then offered to me. I took it with thanks. Unfortunately, it got lost in the shuffle over the years.” 

Ralph Horton and his discovery. Photo by Jim Moseley 

Crashes of other military or meteorological balloon packages have resulted in other “crash-retrieval” cases, from the famous to the forgotten. While no single answer has been found for the flying saucer mystery, sightings and discovery of rawin targets added to the confusion, becoming part of UFO legends and history.

. . .

Noah Clubb and the UFO Crash Retrieval Case

There’s a UFO crash retrieval case that’s been forgotten. In April 1949, newspapers reported that fragments from a flying saucer had been recovered, and were being examined by the Air Force. 

The story begins like another you may have heard, with a rancher finding some strange metal debris from the crash of an unidentified flying object. While riding on horseback in late April 1946, rancher Noah L. Clubb was in an open, rocky treeless terrain 6 miles south-southwest of Delta Colorado when he made a discovery, but it wasn’t made public until three years later. Clubb was 55 years old at the time, a respected citizen and family man, not prone to foolishness. After seeing the constant news coverage about flying saucers, he came forward with what he’d found, and dutifully reported it to the authorities. The story as disclosed in the United Press article from April 7, 1949: 

Flying Disc Segments Recovered in Colorado 

MONTROSE, Colo. (UP) Air force intelligence men have recovered two segments of what may have been one of the flying discs that caused widespread speculation during the summer of 1947, and have supposedly been seen during the last few days. One of the segments was in the possession of Noah L. Clubb of Montrose, until he was requested Tuesday to turn it over to the intelligence men. The intelligence men were reported to have spent two days scouring a mile square section of rugged country about 15 miles west of Delta, where a second and longer segment was reported found. Pieced together the segments evidently were part of a wheel-shaped instrument about four feet in diameter, the rim being of aluminum construction. It was slightly less than two inches across and one inch thick. On the inner edge of the wheel, at intervals of about three inches, were tube-like wicks about two inches long and of brass construction. Each wick, which witnesses said might have been fuel feeders, bore an even number.

 Another version from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 7, 1949.

It seems too close in time for it to be coincidence, but the same month, the FBI was also being questioned about the recovery of a flying saucer, one said to be made in Japan.

Believe It or Not!

Robert Ripley was the creator of the famous Ripley's Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, then brought the franchise to radio, then as an NBC television show in March 1949. 

On April 13, 1949, Ripley sent a Western Union telegram to radio commentator Walter Winchell: 

“Have the only authentic Japanese flying saucer ever recovered in this country. … Would like very much to have you join me on the Believe it or Not television show next Tuesday April 19th NBC network 9:30 to 10:00 PM and give your comments on the flying disc and your exclusive knowledge…”

Winchell forwarded the telegram to the FBI with the handwritten note:

“To J. Edgar Hoover – True?” 

FBI files contain an Office Memorandum. Subject: Flying Discs. To: Mr. [Redacted], From: [Redacted] 26 May 49. An FBI agent consulted Colonel [Redacted] of USAF Office of Special Investigations (OSI) about a recovered saucer. For whatever reason, the results were negative:

“He advised he would check with the authorities at right field to determine if any information is available concerning the recovery of a Japanese flying saucer. Colonel [Redacted] has now advised that there is no information available in any arm of the Air Force to the effect that any flying saucers of any kind have been recovered in the United States.”

FBI “Unexplained Phenomenon” files pages 26 and 27 of, “UFO Part 6”
https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO%20Part%206%20of%2016/view#document/p26
https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO%20Part%206%20of%2016/view#document/p27

Robert Ripley died weeks later of a heart attack at the age of 59, on May 27, 1949. We found no mention elsewhere of Ripley presenting a Japanese flying saucer anywhere, so apparently his plans did not come together. Read on to see how his claims may have been connected to the UFO parts discovered by Noah Clubb.

Back to the Saucer Debris Investigation

Like with the Roswell flying disc story, the mystery of Clubb’s saucer was solved in one day. 

Project Blue Book file: 4 April 1949, X Delta, Colorado 

From page 5 of the April 8, 1949, Phoenix, Arizona Republic:

Relic Is Identified As Jap War Gadget 

DENVER, Apr. 7 (AP) That "whazzit" found in Southwestern Colorado wasn't a forerunner of a new war. It was a relic of the old one part of a Japanese incendiary balloon. So said Maj. Lester J. Seibert of the Lowry Air Force Base office of special investigation Thursday. Noah Clubb found the curved, hollow piece of metal near Montrose Wednesday. Knobs protruded from the inside of what looked like a small portion of a wagon wheel.

As is often the case, the hype gets the newspaper front page, but the disappointing correction that follows gets lost deep inside. Far more people saw the initial story than the news it was solved.

Project Blue Book files state that the Air Force investigators recovered about half of the device and shipped them to Wright Field to be photographed and examined. The fragments were determined to be: “Definitely identified as ballast ring from a Japanese incendiary balloon.” 

Noah Clubb was named, but his discovery was discussed in “Something in the Sky,” for Daniel Lang's “A Reporter at Large” column for the Sept. 6, 1952, New Yorker Magazine. (Later collected in his 1954 book, The Man in the Thick Lead Suit.)

For a time in the spring of 1949, it looked as though a Colorado rancher had been harboring a piece of a flying saucer for three years. Back in April, 1946, the rancher, riding his horse on a high, rocky mesa, had come across a bit of tattered rigging attached to a steel ring. He took it back to his house, tossed it into a closet, and forgot about it. Then, belatedly reflecting on the wave of saucer sightings, he recalled the contraption in his closet. He showed it to two friends, one of whom, an omniscient type, stated definitely that it was part of a flying saucer. ‘I've seen too many saucers not to know one when I'm holding one in my own hand,'’ he said. The rancher forwarded his find to Wright Field, where it was identified as a remnant of one of the incendiary balloons the hopeful Japanese dispatched across the Pacific during the war in an effort to start forest fires.

The Pre-Saucer US Government Cover-Up

In 1944-5, over 9,000 incendiary balloons were launched from Japan’s island of Honshu. The balloons travelled at a high-altitude across the over the Pacific Ocean carried by the high-speed currents of the jet stream. Fu-go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America by Ross Coen provides more information. The balloons were fusen bakudan (balloon bombs), but the Japanese Imperial Army gave them the code name fu-go. 

“Measuring over 30 feet in diameter and filled with hydrogen… Each balloon carried four incendiary bombs and one thirty-pound high explosive bomb, all designed to drop in a timed sequence once the vehicle had completed its transoceanic voyage…” 

These balloon flights resemble later UFO events in a few ways. There was a government policy of secrecy, and it had two goals, prevent the Japanese military from getting valuable targeting information, and to avoid a public panic. Western Air Command held meetings with civilian pilots who were asked to report sightings to the military while remaining silent to the general public. Many confirmed sightings were reported, but there were also many false ones, the most common cause for which was the planet Venus. One report not made public at the time, was from a credible witness reported a relatively incredible thing. A woman in Selawik, Alaska claimed to have seen a balloon in the middle of the night from which “Little Men came down a ladder to the earth.” The local Alaska Territory Guard searched the area but found nothing.

Of the thousands of fu-gos launched, only about 300 were known to make it to North America, most in the U.S., some seen or discovered in Canada and Mexico. Most of them caused no harm, with one notable exception. On May 5, 1945, Bly, Oregon, minister Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife Elsie, and five children from their Sunday school class were on a morning picnic. As Mitchell parked the car, the others found a strange balloon on the ground. The bomb it carried exploding and all six people were killed. The site of the tragedy is now marked by the Mitchell Monument to honor the only Americans killed by enemy action during World War II in the continental United States. 

Noah’s discovery has been forgotten for the most part by ufologists, but Rick Hilberg included a partial account of his story in “Saucer Fragments” in Flying Saucer Digest, Fall 1970.

As far as we can tell, Noah Clubb lived a full life thereafter away from the flying saucer business. He died on the morning of Nov. 15, 1970, at the age of 76.

. . .

Months after Noah Clubb's discovery, a few miles south of Baltimore, Maryland, the Air Force was called out to investigate the remains of  flying saucer discovered in a barn.

The OTHER Air Force Captured Flying Saucer Retraction

The Two Arizona UFOs and Lester Bannick

Lester J. Bannick is best remembered for his one-man autogyro, the “Model T of the Air,” but he also experimented with other forms of aircraft. Two models had circular aerodynamic shapes. In other words, he built flying saucers.

Herald and Review (Decatur, IL) Oct. 10, 2007

He built a 17-foot diameter flying saucer, then a much larger hot air balloon in the same shape. At least two UFO sightings were reported due to his inventions.

Arizona Republic Dec. 8, 1969

Great suffering saucers! (Republic Photos by Nvle Leaflham)

Seen against the background of the Superstition Mountains, the silver object at left bears enough resemblance to the classic flying saucer to start a brand new outer-space invasion scare.  

That was exactly the shape Lester Bannick, center, had in mind when he designed his 66-foot-diameter balloon of mylar, silver foil-covered and lifted by hot air generated by a butane torch. Bannick was a Phoenix resident, known for his "flying lawnchair" gyrocopter, but now lives in California.

He built the balloon at Newport Beach but returned here for test flights at an abandoned airfield 10 miles east of Mesa. Even in the desert, the sight attracted a small crowd, including the Republic photographer.
 

The Engine-Powered Flying Saucer

 Lester Bannick’s first saucer was powered by a "souped-up auto engine. It had flown imperfectly about 17 times up until 1972 when he retired it. 

New Times Weekly (Phoenix, AZ) circa 1980.

 The story from the  Yuma Sun June 13, 1982:

The Arizona Republic, July 14, 1982, reported that Bannick’s low-flying saucer had ended up as part of a nightclub sign, but it was removed due to code violations. After that, Bannick gave it to David Farrington, president of the Scottsdale, Arizona chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Farrington kept the grounded saucer alongside his airplanes in his hangar at Falcon Field.

 

The Mesa UFO Sighting of 1972

Lee Bannick's silver hot air balloon seems to have caused some excitement in the early 1970s. The APRO Bulletin, July 1977 featured a picture of a UFO on its cover, a classic flying saucer. Ufologist Wendelle C. Stevens (promoter of the Billy Meier hoax, and later sentenced for child molestation) wrote a story about the UFO sighting of Lee Elders. “Four color photographs were taken of [a domed cone-shaped object] in the skies over Mesa, Arizona, …on 11 November 1972.”

"The object was originally noticed by two kids who alerted Elders, “He thought that the object was immobile, or at best moving very slowly. …The children continued watching it for another 30 to 40 minutes until it went out of sight. …Mr. Skip Bryant, Ms. Harriet Hineman and 3 other friends… at the Arizona State – Oklahoma State football game, watched a strange pear-shaped bright silver object in the sky to the southeast with binoculars. It appeared to be more of a flat finish… shaped like a fat ice-cream-cone with the large end up… moved very steadily, with no bobble or wobble, and they didn't notice any rotation."

APRO Bulletin & Elders’ color photo from Open Minds: 1972 Mesa UFO Sighting

Stevens wrote there had been “a hot air balloon contest held at Mesa on the two weekends preceding the date…but all of the balloons were gone a week before the day of the sighting and photographs.” One had been flown by a Mr. Marvin Cooley, a silver balloon built by Lester Bannick. Stevens insisted the object photographed could not possibly have been one made by Bannick. “Whether we have a case of UFO mimicry here is difficult to say…. The mystery remains unsolved.”

Hey, Kids! Hoax UFOs!

Real UFO sightings in 1947 inspired flying saucer hoaxes and the exploitation of the topic for sales and marketing. It took a while for hoaxing to be commercialized for the retail market, but by the early 1960s, kids were being encouraged to buy and fly their own phony saucers.

"Out of this world (it even looks like a flying saucer when inflated!)... The neighbors will run screaming!"  Versions of the ad below ran in Warren magazines such as Spaceman, Famous Monsters, and Creepy from the 1960s into the 1970s.

The Space Age Distributing Company began manufacturing and advertising a 9-foot hot-air balloon in 1964.

Within two years, the company offered a similar product in the shape of a flying saucer. The ad below is from Boys' Life July 1966. "Are these what people are seeing?"

Similar advertisements ran in other magazines and comic books, like this one from the Johnson Smith Co. circa 1968, featuring two pesky UFO suspects. 

Both the balloon and saucer required considerable assembly, probably a disappointment for most buyers. Wire, sting and tissue paper were included, but the builder supplied his own glue. The saucer model was included white tissue paper for the body, red to be used to paste on "portholes."

Unlike most hot-air balloons, these were not self-propelled by candles or any internal flame. The balloons were made to be filled with indirect hot air from a flame, rise for a relatively short flight, and then fall to be recovered for the next launch.

The product was advertised by by Edmund Scientific Co. as, "Hot Air Flying Saucer Kit." This ad ran in Popular Science throughout 1970. The version pictured below also included an ad for "Giant Weather Balloons."

UFO Cases

There's at least one instance of a similar balloon being reported as a UFO.

UFO Photographs: Portraits of a Myth? by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos
(page 41 of the PDF)

"MESA, ARIZONA:  On November 11, 1972, a group of children in Mesa, Arizona, were playing in the garden when they saw a strange object hovering in the sky. One neighbour, Mr. Lee Elders came out and took several photographs during the long period the object stayed there, so much that witnesses preferred to went home to watch a football match on TV! Here, a couple of the photos. 

This object was later on identified as a tethered, helium balloon sold by Edmund Scientific Co."

There was another Arizona case where such a balloon was a suspect. Ufologist Raymond E. Fowler wondered if there was some hot air involved in the 1975 Travis Walton UFO abduction case. He thought it could have been staged by... 

"Planting an accomplice(s) behind the pile of slash with a flash-gun and a tethered glowing (from candles within) 'flying saucer model' such as sold by Edmund Science. (See attachment). If one allows for some misconception, by the innocent observers and exaggerations by the hoaxers, the model (powered by hot air) would look similar to the sketch made by the witnesses. The 'ribs' for example, which are not usually reported by other legitimate observers, would be reported if such a model were employed."

Raymond E. Fowler letter to J. Allen Hynek,  Feb. 11, 1976 (page 39 of PDF)

Later versions of the saucer product were called, "The Original Space Age U.F.O." The pictures below are from an old eBay auction listing.

The hot-air saucer product was sold throughout the 1970s. The last ad we spotted for it was in the Johnson Smith's Fun Catalog in 1979, rechristened "9-Ft. flying U.F.O." 

Were these big hot air balloons responsible for UFO sightings in the 1960s and 1970s? Unless modified with an internal heat source, for or self-propulsion, these couldn't fly very high or far. The flimsy paper construction would billow in motion, not providing the illusion of a solid metallic craft. It's possible, a few people might have been taken in, but unlikely that anyone who got a good look was fooled. 

Hot air balloons with internal heat sources can fly high and long enough to be seen at great distances, and have been responsible for many UFO sightings over the years. Back around the 1960s most youthful hoaxers preferred to build rather than buy balloons or sky lanterns, making them from plastic bags and candles. See our earlier article, The U.S. Air Force vs Man-made UFOs for several documented cases.