The day a US frigate fired 300 shells at a spy balloon… which turned out to be Venus

These days the world is revolutionized with the spy balloons Chinese. But this method of espionage is almost a century old. It was used by both sides in the Second World War. There is a very funny story that has to do with a frigate who shot the planet Venus.

The United States and Canada have shot down several high-altitude balloons in recent weeks, which China itself has recognized as its own. Although he assures that they are scientists. Instead, Western countries claim that they are spy balloons.

This type of artifacts were already used in the Second World War. A little-known story is that the only 6 Americans killed on the soil of their country by the enemy in said war were due to a Japanese balloon loaded with explosives.

He japanese army used these balloons because they were silent, and surprised the enemy. So the American soldiers were always on the lookout for any strange object in the sky.

The frigate that shot Venus

According to the website of the National Museum of the Pacific Warhe December 9, 1941 the frigate USS Langleywhich you can see in the opening photo of the news, sighted a flying spherical object at about 1,500 meters high. They thought he was a japanese explosive balloonor a spy artifactSo they opened fire on him.

As Private Lanson B. Ditto, who was on board the frigate, explains, the first burst had no effect, so they thought they were aiming too low. They increased the height of the canyon to 2,286 meters, but the spherical object was still intact. A third gust went up to 3,000 meters. New bug. They stopped firing when they heard the navigator’s shouts: “You are shooting at Venus!”

Normal that they did not hit a target: their objective was about 50 million kilometers. They wasted 300 shells shooting to another planet.

Lanson B. Ditto himself took it with humor: “I have recently seen satellite images of the planet Venus and noticed pockmarks. So maybe we did hit the mark“.

A war is not to be taken as a joke. The Second World War it was a tragedy where they died 80 million peoplebetween civilians and military. But for fighters like Lanson B. Ditto, the horror is tried to be forgotten, while you are left with the funny anecdotes, like the one about the frigate that shot at Venusthinking it was a spy balloon. Such is human nature.