“Unveiling the Shadowy Secrets Behind the Deadly Balloon Barrage: What Really Happened?”
And so it was that in the early months of 1945, the American people were starting to notice that something strange was happening. Balloons and explosions had been seen in many states and seven balloons were handed over to the military by bewildered citizens. U.S. fighter planes tried to intercept the balloons but they were only able to destroy about twenty, as the balloons typically flew at very high altitude and were amazingly fast and difficult to track down once a report of one came in.
However, in the end these clever devices didn’t exactly have the intended effect. Of the 10,000 or so launched, Japanese military officials estimated only about 10% of them would reach America. Approximately 342 of the balloons were found or seen in North America, and the result was minimal property damage and just six people killed (we’ll get to that tragic story and how it likely easily could have been prevented had the government not governmented).
That said, had the balloons been launched in the summer, rather than late autumn and winter, they may have started significant fires as had been originally planned. Further, one incident involving a fire balloon could have had major implications on the war. The balloon descended on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, landing on power lines and cutting power to the nuclear reactor cooling pumps. Fortunately, backup generators restored power before there was any damage or a nuclear meltdown.
As for how the Japanese had managed to get the balloons into North America, this was at first something of a mystery. Most military officials didn’t believe they had come all the way from Japan. Many thought Japanese soldiers were coming ashore on North American beaches and launching the balloons. The mystery was solved when scientists with the Military Geology Unit analyzed the sand from some of the recovered sandbags, examining its microscopic sea-life and mineral composition, and determined the exact beach it had come from, which indeed was not in North America, but in Japan.
