I happened across one of these shows about early flying saucers... I'm curious what people think. The classic Roswell descriptions are a fun place to start - I suppose the military tries to confuse the story by giving both understated and overstated accounts of the properties of the debris, yet amid the accounts must be some people telling the truth!

My personal guess:

a) The Roswell flying saucer was indeed a weather balloon, surrounded by something superficially similar to Mylar, but likely with somewhat (or greatly?) improved puncture resistance and other mechanical properties (after all, it wasn't made for a birthday party). The struts were of some early plastic - maybe Bakelite??? - the brown "uncuttable balsa wood" stuff.

b) The purpose of this flying saucer was to drift over the Soviet Union, taking pictures (because there was no U-2 yet), then to land at Roswell somehow. The somehow is mysterious - the balloon shouldn't be able to steer much on its own. Maybe it had a radio beacon that came on after so long and a plane was supposed to hook it and tow it in? Of course, the pictures were doubtless from all over the place, not just Russia... that's just the sales spin.

3) The Chinese symbols (some people actually called them Chinese) were a dodge to make the Russians think the Chinese were the ones doing the spying. Likewise the alien claims were meant to deflect accusations of unlawful overflights. Problem is, they backfired when people stopped following security protocols to describe the "alien" technology.

4) The reason why it's a saucer (my favorite part): if you send up a black or white or otherwise colored balloon, people can see it from vast distances. If you send up a reflective balloon, it looks like the sky... except, it reflects a glint of sunlight from any direction. But if you send up a saucer with a wide "Saturn-like ring" surrounding a central core, the wide ring prevents sunlight above from glinting off the device as seen from below. Now yes, the device only reflects the sky at certain angles then - the ring and the center of the saucer reflect the ground - but since it's meant to be in the upper atmosphere the ground looks pretty sky-like from that distance anyway. Plus the parts that do reflect the sky ensure it's never really all that dark.

#5) the reason why it doesn't tumble like a balloon? It's weighted with all the spy gear at the bottom. Besides, the "stealth" design wouldn't work if it tumbled about, so the balance was designed this way on purpose.