1951 Ad Mentions Roswell?
This 1951 wristwatch ad from the Hamilton Corporation mentions something about meteorological instruments and flying saucers. For some reason, part of the copy reads:
The Robertson Panel certainly encouraged this explanation as one of their go-to excuses for UFO sightings, but that was not until 1952. Until then, the only official explanation of UFOs as weather balloons that I am currently aware of was during the Roswell incident itself, when General Roger Ramey said as much to the Roswell Record on July 9th, 1947. There are certainly others, but when and where, and how did this filter into the popular culture to the point where it would be used in a (presumably) national advertisement by 1951?
Of course, there have been countless UFO sightings that actually were of weather balloons in the upper atmosphere. The reference is probably to assure consumers that any company that makes instruments that operate under “extreme temperature conditions” can’t be that bad at making durable wristwatches. For the record, the text does not actually mention “weather balloons,” but I would guess that is the implication.
The illustration would sure make a great graphic for something. It buys into the cultural stereotype of backward hicks as the only people who see UFOs.
Elan Levitan, one of the late Mac Tonnies’ friends, sent the link to me today. A copy of the ad is on auction at ebay until about 6PM PST on September 13th.
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Sep 12 2011 
September 13th, 2011 at 8:49 am
In which magazine was this ad printed?
This Hamilton company seems to have been involved with the US Armed Forces since 1914; one would assume a lot of retired Army officers were board members.
It’s webpage also states Hamilton released the world’s first digital watch in 1970 —no doubt a result of Roswell’s reverse engineering
PS: The Hamilton company was also involved in the movie Men in Black! Curiouser and curiouser…
September 14th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Not sure. I believe that there were many magazines of that size on the newsstands in 1951. It was probably Life or Look or something similar.
September 18th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
The Circleville Ohio case (around the same time as Roswell) also involved weather balloons and radar targets as an explanation for flying disks.
October 29th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
I remembered there was an US Navy newsreel defending balloons as the solution to “the flying saucer mystery”:
The video does not mention the year of the newsreel, a little digging and it probably was… February 1951!
The ad mentions October/November, so it all fits that the Navy explanation was the source for the ad’s claim that flying saucer were “stratopshere weather recording devices”.
November 4th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Nice find! You could be right about this. The Robertson panel was probably using an old explanation then.
November 4th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
What agency was doing the explaining?