In the ‘50s, the U.S. Military and CIA had a number of top-secret balloon projects they used to gather intelligence about the Soviet Union. The result: a mythology that’s outlasted the codewords. For one:
Flying Sandwich Bags – SKYHOOK: SKYHOOK balloons, funded by the Office of Naval Research, were designed to stay at a fixed altitude (~100,000 feet) and carry a payload of thousands of pounds. They were huge, 400 feet high, made possible because the then new material called polyethylene. These “flying sandwich bags” were built by a company that had experience using this material in packaging — General Mills (the same company that makes Cheerios.)
Intelligence in the shape of classified balloons — thousands at a time. (Still not sure what “ready to eat” meant.)
