I talked to a friend recently who saw a show on CNN or the History Channel which claimed that during WWII, Japanese scientists (who were knowledgable about the jet streams) launched thousands of baloons, each carrying 5-10 bombs, many of which reached the US. Many bombs were "launched" via this method, but only a handful actually detonated. Many unexploded bombs apparently still lie waiting to be discovered.

Until recently, all of this was covered up. What brought the truth to light was a boy discovering an unexploded bomb that went off, killing him.

My point is this: if the government successfully kept this knowledge from the public for over 50 years, might they not be successful in their attempt to keep the truth about Y2K from the public as well? The Y2K truth is much larger than this story--much more is at stake.

I apologize for the nature of the reporting of this info. A link to the facts would be helpful, but I am unable to find it. Any one else?

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), January 11, 1999

Answers

Oh yeah yeah yeah those balloon bombs did land on the Pacific Northwest coast and killed people. There's a monument to them. Can't remember the details, but it used to be in the newspaper quite frequently. Somebody else from Cascadia can fill in the details.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 11, 1999.

Steve,

50 years ago there was no internet. It's the "wildcard" and it's global. Back then information leaks trickled. Now they selectively gush, leak, trickle, spill, etc. No controlling which way the water falls.

What links have you tried already? What do you think the "key" words are?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 11, 1999.

Steve, saw the same PBS prog...

"might they not be successful in their attempt to keep the truth about Y2K from the public as well?'

Yes - this is the plan - work it out for yourself - MSNBC is not going to say dick* - *(about y2k)

deal with it - 11 months to go - silence so far from Klinton...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 11, 1999.

It's a start Steve.

Infoseek, quick search strategy: +Japan and +bomb and +balloon

Balloon Bomber I was in eighth grade during the last days of World War II ," said Ohsawa, now 67 years old. "In those days, all the school kids had to go to factories and build warplanes or balloon bombs, anything to help the ... 66% Date: 2 Feb 1998, Size 6.2K, http://www.af.mil/news/airman/ 0298/bomb2.htm Find similar pages | Grouped results from www.af.mil

Fugos Offically; in the waning days of the Pacific War Japan tried a last ditch ploy to hit the United States with a terror weapon. That weapon was the Balloon Bomb. It was supposted to set fire to the West Coast and drop anti-personel ... 47% Date: 31 Mar 1998, Size 5.8K, http:/ /www.seanet.com/~johnco/fugo.htm

Webb Research Group Publishers - Military Books This volume covers all Japanese attacks thus far discovered from Alaska to Mexico; shelling by Japanese Submarines on West Coast of the U.S. and Canada, Aleutian Islands, British Columbia, ...46% Date: 7 Sep 1998, Size 24.6K, http://sharplink.com/pnwbooks/docs/ military.html Find similar pages

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 11, 1999.

The ballon bombs were the only mainland US fatalities inflicted by Japan during WWII (Pearl Harbor being in Hawaii of course).

See:

http://www. wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/jbb.htm

There seems to be some disagreement as to whether or not the bombs were kept secret. The above article indicates that they were publicized after the Oregon fatalities but I do remember reading elsewhere that the attack was not publicize so as prevent the Japanese from knowing the results of their 'message in a bottle'.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 11, 1999.

The presence of thousands of unexploded, decaying bombs all over the Pacific coast of the US, would be useful for any NWO government that wanted to explain the blowing-up of another Randy Weaver-like person.

Or group, for that matter.

--Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), January 11, 1999.

leo!! LOL, LOL! Nice one. :)

-- humptydumpty (no.6@thevillage.com), January 11, 1999.

In terms of a cover up - what was actually done was to ask the wire services not to pick up these stories. The fear was that the Japanese would start sending them over filled with biological agents such as anthrax or smallpox. Only a small number ever was supposed to have actually reached here and exploded - three or four wasn't it? Or was that from an earlier report? Anyway, it was no secret on the West Coast as to what had happened - it just didn't make the national news.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 11, 1999.

Rather than a 50-year cover-up, is it not more likely that since (a) nothing could be done about them, and (b) the risk was small, that it simply wasn't newsworthy, especially once the war was over?

London (where I live) has thousands, maybe more, of unexploded German WWII bombs lying around. Every so often someone digs one up at a construction site and a sizeable area gets evacuated while the army deal with it. Sooner or later one will blow up and some people will die. Since there's no effective way to locate them, it's just something we live with. I'm far more likely to die in a traffic accident in any case and I regard that risk as more or less acceptable.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), January 11, 1999.

Very few (perhaps less than a dozen, certainly less than fifty) were thought to have gotten over here, and of those only 3-4 exploded.

To put it in perspective, hundreds of thousands of unexploded shells remain in each battelfield in France from WWi, more in WWII (Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy, Berlin, London (as mentioned), etc.

Don't worry about the physical remains of the bomb(s), but the "keep it hidden not to alarm public" syndrom remains. Also, the WWII practice of "lock of enemies of the state" (the US citizens from Japan) remains as an unfortunate reality.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 11, 1999.

"The Oregon Tragedy" occurred near Bly, Oregon, which is about 60 miles east of Medford and at least 120 miles from the Oregon coast. Killed a pastor and his family.

Re London bombs: I seem to recall that there was actually a British TV series in the 70's called "Danger UXB" (UXB is the acronym for "UneXploded Bomb".) As Nigel notes, it was obviously not that big a deal to Londoners. We occasionally have similar problems in the San Diego area with kids messing around some of the old artillery sites and getting hurt or killed by unexploded ordinance.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), January 11, 1999.

If the government can cover up y2k for, say, two years, it should make us all very happy.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), January 11, 1999.