This is damn interesting.

Headphones recommend it.

On the 10th of January, 1956, about a decade into the Cold War and about a year into the space race,

the United States Air Force launched the first vehicle in its top secret genetics program.

The vehicle was a balloon, an enormous 200-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide helium balloon,

the first of hundreds that the U.S. would ultimately launch from sites in Scotland, Norway, Germany, and Turkey.

Upon release, Germany and Turkey.

Upon release, each balloon ascended into the stratosphere, where the winter jet stream was perfectly situated to carry it over and across the interior of the USSR.

A coffin-sized gondola dangled from the bottom of each balloon, housing a set of downward-facing high-resolution cameras.

Whenever the onboard photo cell detected that the surface below was illuminated by daylight,

these cameras snapped periodic photographs.

These genetics balloons were among the first high-altitude spy cameras, precursors to spy planes and satellites.

Whenever a balloon cleared Soviet airspace, the US Air Force sent an encoded radio signal that would detonate a small explosive charge on the gondolas attachment line.

If all went according to plan, a specially equipped C-119

airplane would be loitering in the nearby airspace, ready to snag the parachuting payload of

photographic film in mid-air. Once retrieved, the film was sent back to the states to be developed and analyzed.

The genetics balloons were designed to be practically invisible to radar, using very thin balloon

film and a gondola much smaller than a typical aircraft.

And this might have worked, if it weren't for the fact that one of the steel rods in the

balloon rigging was exactly 91 centimeters long.

US Air Force engineers didn't realize it at the time, but 91 centimeters happened to correspond

to one of the frequencies used by Soviet early warning radar.

...