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The 1942 Methane Balloon Trials

The 1942 methane balloon trials survive as a decaying nitrate reel the Museum has never projected, catalogued with its shot log and its condition.

From the series: The Declassified Files
A vented film canister on a cream museum mount, its lid ajar to show a reel of aged film, a single ruled shot-log sheet beside it, lit from the side.

Accession no. NMDP 1942.044

Object: motion-picture film, one reel, nitrate stock, 300 ft, in a vented storage canister. Credit line: Collection of the National Museum of the Digestive Past.

Provenance

The reel records the 1942 methane balloon trials, in which the buoyancy of collected household gas was measured over open ground. It was declassified in 1981 and transferred to the collection with its original shot log, a single ruled sheet listing eleven ascents and one entry marked only "recovered." The reel has not been projected by the Museum, and the catalog makes no claim as to what a projection would show.

An opened metal film canister on a cradle holding a reel of yellowed film, a small card tucked beside it.
Fig. 1 —The reel in its vented canister. Conservators inspect it on schedule for the odor that precedes loss.

Condition report

The stock is early nitrate and is decaying; conservators keep it cold in a vented canister and inspect it on a fixed schedule for the characteristic odor that precedes total loss. It cannot be projected without hazard and, in the Museum's judgment, will not survive to be projected at all. The image is passing out of the object as the object is held.

Curatorial note

The trials are therefore preserved chiefly as their shot log — eleven ascents, one recovery, in a clerk's steady hand. The Museum keeps the reel for as long as the reel keeps itself, and has made its peace with the arithmetic.