“Unveiling the Shadowy Secrets Behind the Deadly Balloon Barrage: What Really Happened?”
Despite the ineffectiveness of the balloons, authorities were still concerned. Their ability to start fires couldn’t be denied and there was also the potential psychological effect they could have on the American people. More importantly, they knew the Japanese had been working to develop biological weapons and a balloon carrying such payloads could potentially do major damage in that way.
To help get around the potential panic, people who found the balloons and reported it to the authorities were sworn to secrecy. In 1945 though, Newsweek ran an article on the weapons, and a similar story appeared in another periodical the next day. The U.S. Office of Censorship (yep, that existed for about four years) sent a notice to the media, asking them not to mention the balloons or balloon-bomb incidents.
Exercising their rights, the press of course continued to notify the U.S. public of the dangers of approaching such balloons if encountered… Or, actually, in reality they complied with the U.S. Office of Censorship and no further reporting was done on the balloons at this time.
This likely contributed to the single successful balloon attack of the war. A pregnant woman, Elsie Mitchell, her husband Pastor Archie of the Bly Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, and five Sunday school children were out for a picnic. While Archie was discussing good fishing spots with a couple construction workers who were working on the road where the group had stopped, Elsie and the kids went to search for a good spot for their picnic. In the process, they found one of the balloons.
