because japan sent so many of these things up in the jet stream in world war ii, it is thought that some of the thousands of them that made it to north america might still be out there in the wilderness. just last year, they found an exploded one that drifted all the way up to british columbia. two forest workers found it half-buried in the dirt, in the middle of the woods, 70 years after it had been launched. they called in the royal canadian mounted police to handle it. the mounties investigated, realized what it was, and promptly decided that he would blow it up with a big charge of c4. that was just last year. people still look for these things all up and down the west coast, from california all the way up into canada. but the one balloon bomb that killed anyone, the one instance of the axis powers killing american citizens, american civilians on the american mainland during world war ii, it happened 70 years ago this week. it happened two days before the german surrenders, two day
fires. they came down all over the place. one of them made it east to nebraska. blew up over omaha, nebraska, on april 18th, 1945. this one was found on the ground with the bomb still attached to it in bigalow, kansas. this one is one that was photographed after it got caught up in some wire fencing, somewhere. the exact location of this one has been lost to history, although we do still have this photograph. this is one that landed in an open field in oregon in a town called echo, oregon, up in the northeast corner of that state. that one they recovered in tact and they eventually put it on display. but the bomb that came down in southern oregon, in blye, oregon, and killed those five little kids and that pregnant woman who stumbled upon it in their sunday school outing in 1945, that is the only balloon bomb that is known to have killed anyone. and they marked it with a monument near the spot where it blew up in blye, oregon, in 1950.
directional mechanism at all. it just floats on air currents. it s made out of really light paper that was made out of tree bark. that s what the balloon itself is made out of. it s really big, about 33 feet across. it s filled with hydrogen which is how it floats on air. and this 33-foot in diameter paper balloon filled with hydrogen is carrying a military-grade explosive payload. it s an balloon bomb. somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 balloon bombs like this one were launched by japan during world war ii at the united states and canada. and they were intended to detonate on north american soil. the japanese did not have the ability to send squadrons of bombers over the u.s. mainland to bomb american cities the way american bombers had hit them but they invented these balloon bomb contraptions, basically to try to be the next best thing. so they would launch these balloons off the eastern coast, the pacific coast of japan, right, and their plan was to get them high enough up into the
it s filled with hydrogen which is how it floats on air. this 33-feet paper balloon filled with hydrogen is carrying an explosive payload. it s a balloon bomb. somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 balloon bombs like this one were launched by japan during world war ii at the united states and canada. japanese did not have the ability to send squadrons to bomb american cities, but they invented these balloon bomb contraptions to try to be the next best thing. so they would launch these balloons off the pacific coast of japan and their plan was to get them high enough into the air that the jet stream would pick them up and carry them all the way across the pacific ocean to north america. and these balloon bombs would