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The search for the "Stealth blimp" volume one. A hand written chronicle of quixotic proportions.
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This is a journal chronicling the search for this legendary beast. I am posting this here on an ongoing basis so others can join in on the search using using this information as a jumping off point. Yes, “stealth blimp” is just an awful moniker, but until we get its real name, this one will have to do.

first sighting

The earliest sighting was New years eve 1982 in Kent New York. Kent is located in the Hudson Valley, which has calm to no winds year round. That makes it an excellent testing environment for LTA craft. During this same time frame the CIA was interested in Aeroflot and other communist bloc nation overflights of the Hudson Valley area. They had the FAA log and track flight diversions through the area. According to CIA there were several “sensitive” installations in the Hudson Valley area in 1981. I have not identified what installations they were referring to at this time, this info may or may not be correlated.

follow the money

I have not located an authoritative source for the classified budget of 1981, so it looks like I will have to determine that on my own. (sucks hard)

1981 DoD budget figures from the association of the US Army Numbers in billions.

  • ARMY 39.8
  • NAVY 50.3
  • AIR FORCE 46.3
  • Defense agencies/OSD 6.1
  • Defense wide 16.2

total: 158.7 billion

source: comptroller for secdef USA

Who got paid in 1981-1982?

List of Aerospace firms operating in 1981. Need to develop who got paid by whom and who had facilities within a radius of Hudson Valley. The Navy had a formidable array of contractors to the Southeast.

Abex/Aerojet-general/Aeronca/Avco/Bendix/Boeing/CCI/Criton/E-system/FMC/Garrett/Gates-Learjet/General Dynamics/General Electric/BF Goodrich/Goodyear Aerospace/Gould/Grumman/Hercules/Honeywell/Howmet Turbine/Hughes Aircraft/Lear Siegler/Lockheed/Martin Marietta/McDonnell Douglas/Northrop/Parker Hannifin/Pneumo/Raytheon/RCA/Rockwell/Rohr/Singer/Sperry/Sundstrand/Teledyne/Textron/Thiokol/TRW/United technologies/Vought/Western Gear/Westinghouse/Wyman-Gordon/

closing notes :

  • Abundance of Navy contractors nearby
  • The platform was often seen above lakes and waterways inserting various probes in the water
  • Might be an ASW platform
  • The Air Force has dedicated ranges for testing out west
  • The Air force doesn't have any missions that would be filled by this platform at low altitude

Early Hypothesis:

The “stealth blimp” might belong to the Navy.

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3 years ago