A weather balloon was a device used on 20th century Earth by the US Army Air Corps and other agencies to assess wind speed and other meteorological conditions.

During this period, many UFO sightings were officially dismissed by government agencies as weather balloons. In 1947, after recovering and subsequently losing the time-displaced Ferengi shuttle Quark's Treasure, the US Army Air Corps released a statement that, as opposed to having recovered an extraterrestrial spacecraft, they had only found a weather balloon. (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", DS9: "Little Green Men")

On the planet Malcor III, the hospital administrator Berel told Riker (surgically altered to appear Malcorian) that the new era of Malcorian space flight had inflamed the imaginations of the Malcorians, causing many of them to see unidentified vessels in the sky which later turned out to be "weather balloons". (TNG: "First Contact")

External linkEdit

• Weather balloon at Wikipedia