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- Dear Colleagues,
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- The cover story of the November 2000 issue of Popular
Mechanics (PM) is entitled 'Air Force's Nuclear Flying Saucer'. The article
appears on pages 66 - 71. According to the article, the proposed Lenticular
Reentry Vehicle (LRV) was 40 feet in diameter, 90 inches thick at the center,
and had an empty weight of 17,042 pounds. The craft was designed to operate
for six weeks at an altitude of 300 nautical miles. It was part of the
black budget, classified as secret on Dec. 12, 1962, and remained classified
until May 1999. Thereafter, the Department of Defense successfully sought
to have the documents distribution restricted to defense contractors. Nonetheless,
PM obtained its copy of the documents as a result of a Freedom of Information
Act Request.
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- PM article speculates the LRV may have been responsible
for some UFO sightings. An engineering study obtained by PM describes a
re-entry heating test that, at the time, could have allegedly been accomplished
only by a high-altitude drop of a flying prototype, probably from a high
altitude balloon. An unnamed retired contractor claims to have seen the
LRV at a Florida base in the late 1960s.
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- The PM article also speculates that a LRV crash may have
been responsible for honeycomb-like debris Jean Fraser found during 1975
on her family's ranch in Brisbane. According to a report by the University
of New South Wales, the debris contained minerals commonly found in aircraft-grade
fiberglass panels. Based on the report, MUFON rejected rumors that the
debris were of alien origin. A photo on page 68 compares a bit of the debris
to an LRV engineering drawing.
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