WHAT FIRE BALLOONS CAN AND CANNOT DO

The prank candle balloon (fire balloon) has been and is a frequent cause of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). They have been used by kids to cause UFO sightings. This was especially true in the 1960s, after an article describing their construction appeared in a science experimentation magazine. They do a good job of scaring the bejeebers out of many people. The following is a description of the fire balloon, how it behaves, and why it fools so many people:

A candle balloon is a folk toy, dating from the 19th century. It used to be called a fire balloon. They have been implicated in some of the 1897 "airship" sightings. It is possible that this is the first time they were used to make people see unidentified flying objects. No one would have thought seriously of airships before. There are four types of true fire balloons, plus one hybrid type:

• Type I - The original: This was made of tissue paper, string, and a paper or tin cup of oil or tallow with a cloth wick. The disadvantage of this design was that it fell in a ball of fire if the tissue paper or paper cup caught fire, setting fire to whatever it landed on. Usual flying time is 30 minutes to an hour.
• Type II - The newer design: This uses a dry-cleaning bag sealed at the top with Scotch tape. The bottom is held open with drinking straws or balsa wood, and candles are taped to these. The heat from the candles makes the bag fill with hot air and fly. These usually fly 10 to 20 minutes.
• Type III - The long-life version: Several dry-cleaning or cheap trash bags are split and Scotch-taped together to make a larger bag. The huge new leaf pickup bags might work also. Church candles are used in these, and they can fly for over two hours. Good trash bags are too heavy to fly. The thin ones can fly quite well. These are the ones that split apart and spill your garbage on the cat when you try to pick them up.
• Type IV - The bright version: This is constructed like the long-life version, except that small emergency flares are substituted for the candles. These usually last 15 minutes, half an hour, or an hour, depending on the flares used.
• Type H - A gas balloon is the lifting device, and flares are only used to make light.

DANGER: DO NOT MAKE OR FLY THESE. They still have the possibility of setting fire to a forest, a crop, brush, or somebody's house. They are illegal in most places. At least one UFO has been blamed for a house fire, several others for brush and crop fires.

Here is a list of what fire balloons have been observed to DO:

1. They do not look like balloons at night. The bag either is lost to sight, or makes a glow or projection appear above the object. Often the witness sees the bag as a dome.
2. They either look like a single light, a ring of lights, or a row of lights.
3. They are usually red, orange, yellow, or white. They can change from one color to another. Sometimes when a blue cleaner bag is used, the lights can look green or blue, or change color. The colors can be quite vivid.
4. They can rotate about a vertical axis. This makes the lights appear to rotate like a slow frisbee.
5. The usual number of candles is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, or 9. Additional lights can be produced by reflections off the straws or the bag.
6. They can appear to have rectangular windows below the lights, and some form of structure (many times described as a fin or a dome) can appear above the lights. The balsa wood strips or drinking straws reflect the candlelight and look like windows. The bag can reflect light, and look like an irregular structure. A halo around the light, and a "peace sign" shape have been reported.
7. They can maneuver: wobble, flutter, move like a falling leaf, or swing like a pendulum. Changes in wind speed make the bag tilt, as the heavier bottom lags behind the top due to inertia.

   This gives rise to the concepts of ultra-maneuverability and non-ballistic behavior of UFOs. Since only the bottom of the balloon is visible, it seems to require a lot of energy to behave as it does. After the change tilts the bag, it rocks back and forth until it settles out. Note that although they can do this, they do not have to do this.

8. They seem much bigger and much farther away than they are. Since most sighters think they are vehicles, they make them appear in their minds at least as big as a car. To make the image seem that big, they see the object as farther away than it is. Remember that nobody can determine the distance of an unfamiliar object if it is farther away than 18 feet, unless it overlaps an object of known distance.
9. Since they seem farther away, they also seem faster, apparently going at fantastic speeds, and maneuvering tightly enough to kill human pilots.
10. Since they have candles aboard, the lights pulsate as the candles gutter when the wicks get too long. The lights can dim in quick sequence if a gust of wind hits the mouth of the bag.
11. They don't make any sound, unless the prankster installs whistling fireworks, or a firecracker to terminate the sighting with an explosion. These have been reported.
12. They can appear to drop bombs, send scout ships, or fire missiles at the ground. This happens in two ways: One is when dripping wax burns as it falls. The other is when a candle burns itself free of its support and falls.
13. They can appear to approach and recede from the witnesses, as the candles burn brighter and dimmer.
14. They can appear to move against or cross to the wind, if the upper air wind is blowing in a different direction than the surface wind.
15. They can land and take off. If the wind gusts and the bag tilts enough to lose hot air, the balloon will land until the hot air builds up again. This can also set a fire if the balloon lands in the wrong place. This can produce burned landing marks and other "physical evidence."
16. They can suddenly appear in the sky. Two methods are known to delay the appearance of the light until the balloon is far from the launch site. One is to put a black paper cone around the candles. It burns away when the flame reaches the paper. The other is to use a fuse to start a much brighter flare.
17. They can appear to rush away from the witness at high speed as the last candle goes out. If the candle burns out, it will appear to rush directly away from the witness. If the last candle falls, it will appear to rush either down, or toward the distant horizon. They can also suddenly ascend rapidly once they have shed enough weight in candle wax.
18. Some pranksters hang strips of aluminum foil from the balloons. These appear as appendages, sparkle, and make the balloon appear on RADAR.
19. They can give off bursts of brilliant colors, balls of light, or showers of sparks if the prankster puts in small lightweight fireworks. One particularly striking effect occurs when the "signal flare" firework, which gives out extremely bright flashes of light, is used
20. They can disappear in a ball of flame if the envelope catches fire.
21. They can explode noiselessly or with a delayed bang in a shower of sparks if the prankster puts in a small firecracker.
22. Fire balloons are low power devices, and generally fly low. Many times they follow wind patterns as trees deflect the air currents. In some cases, they follow power lines because there is a swath cut in the trees for the power lines to run through.

These are NOT examples of fire balloons:

1. Anything that goes behind a normally high cloud and reappears.
2. Anything bright seen during the day. (Note that type 1 can be seen in daylight as a dark object, but fire balloons usually are not flown during the day.)
3. Anything moving against known low and medium altitude winds.
4. Anything crossing the open sky in less than two seconds.
5. Anything crossing the open sky back and forth several times.
6. Anything tracked on RADAR at high speeds (but a visual sighting of a fire balloon may be erroneously linked with a high speed RADAR anomaly).
7. Anything higher than 20000 ft.
8. Anything seen over the ocean out of sight from land is probably not a fire balloon due to the lack of a launching site.

These are examples of witness statements describing fire balloons:

1. "It was 80 to 90 feet across." (It was actually about 1.5 ft across.)
2. "Blimps with fire at one end." (Good description)
3. "It was like looking into the middle of hell."
4. "There was an area of stronger density above it."
5. "A slow moving ball of fire."
6. "An inverted bowl."
7. "Lights whirling around the rim."
8. "Reddish white, the apparent size of a car."
9. "Blue lights, the color of a welding torch, in a band around the center."
10. "It vanished in the distance."
11. "A snake-like thing fell from the bottom." (Candle fell)
12. "It moved haphazardly."
13. "One quarter to one half the size of the full moon."
14. "Firing rockets at the ground." (flares burned free and fell)
15. "It swung like a pendulum."
16. "It shot away when I turned the spotlight on it."
17. "It zipped along at fantastic speed."
18. "It moved like a falling leaf."
19. "The lights appeared to be on the rim of a rapidly rotating disk."
20. "Several observers reported the smell of perfume in the air." (scented candles?)
21. "It looked like a two story house, with flying golden rooms and partitions."
22. "It moved like a leaf fluttering from a tree."
23. "It was rocking back and forth on its axis, still absolutely silent."
24. "Several silverish things were hanging down from it."
25. "Square windows around the bottom."
26. "When I shined my light at it, it swung like a pendulum, apparently in recognition."
27. "Where does it go in the daytime?"
28. "At times the light seemed to change. Pulsate."
29. "It wasn't real bright, but it was fuzzy."
30. "The center of it looked like a hippie peace sign."
31. "Now I describe it as being beautiful."
32. "Suddenly it shot straight up, disappearing in a couple of seconds."
33. "It rippled like looking through water."
34. "There were lights on the bottom going around it like pinwheels. Red ones."
35. "They looked like merry-go-rounds, all lit up and turning."
36. "Then I had an idea. I cast my fishline, caught it, and reeled it in. Here it is."

The number of cases proven to be caused by fire balloons is amazingly large. Every time a major flap happens, at least one fire balloon is found by police.

As you can see, many of the antics of UFOs seen from the ground can be explained by candle balloons. By no means can they explain all sightings, but a large number of moving lights at night, or rings of lights, have been shown to be these devices.

A similar, but brighter device consists of one to four highway flares attached to a helium filled government surplus weather balloon. These generally fly higher and are seen over a wider area.