Project 119L was a

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

operation by the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

in which large

espionage balloon Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

s floated

cameras A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

over the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Operations

The spy balloons would photograph sensitive Soviet sites and either hang in the air or land in the Sea of Japan until either a crew flying the

C-119 Flying Boxcar The Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar (Navy and Marine Corps designation R4Q) was an American military transport aircraft developed from the World War II-era Fairchild C-82 Packet, designed to carry cargo, personnel, litter patients, and mechaniz ...

or a naval vessel retrieved them. The project caused a row between the U.S. and Soviet forces when the Soviets discovered the remnants of a U.S. spy camera in February 1956. Other reconnaissance balloon projects from the era included

Project Skyhook Skyhook balloons were high-altitude balloons developed by Otto C. Winzen and General Mills, Inc. They were used by the United States Navy Office of Naval Research (ONR) in the late 1940s and 1950s for atmospheric research, especially for con ...

Project Mogul Project Mogul (sometimes referred to as Operation Mogul) was a top secret project by the US Army Air Forces involving microphones flown on high-altitude balloons, whose primary purpose was long-distance detection of sound waves generated by Soviet ...

, Project Grandson, and

Project Genetrix Project Genetrix, also known as WS-119L, was a United States Air Force program designed to launch General Mills manufactured surveillance balloons over Communist China, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to take aerial photographs and collect ...

. The previously conducted "Project Moby Dick" used much smaller balloons launched from what was called a "Covered Wagon". Their payloads were then tracked across the continental United States to map and study high altitude wind trajectories.Peebles, Curtis, 1991. ''The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons over Russia.'' Smithsonian Books, Project Flying Cloud,

Weapons System 124A Weapon System 124A, given the codename Flying Cloud, was a project of the United States Air Force to use high-altitude balloons to deliver bombs and weapons of mass destruction on enemy targets. Tested in late 1954, the project was found to be unf ...

, was a derived concept to use balloons to deliver

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...

References

Fairchild C-119 "Boxcar"
Cold War espionage Soviet Union–United States relations Balloons (aeronautics) Aerial reconnaissance Military equipment introduced in the 1950s {{mil-aviation-stub

Operations

See also

References