Now I've finally got my copy... first impressions.
"Phantom Flings".(pp8-9) The speculation about succubus/incubus attacks is all very reminiscent of a repeated story in the books by Guy Lyon Playfair about living in Brazil and dealing with local folklore, and things of Santeria and voudou. GLP recounted, for instance, the tale of a woman who interfered with a Santeria shrine on a beach near Rio, and who for some time afterwards reported a sense of oppression and the sensation that a visiting spirit was forcibly having sex with her. Her symptoms of exhaustion and being drained of vitality (as related to GLP) are pretty much identical to those related by Amanda Large and Paola Florez. GLP relates this woman needed to perform a ritual of atonement at the shrine she'd interfered with, and to make a peace offering, before her haunting lifted. (As I recall - and it's a long time since I read GLP - this was one of several such cases he dealt with).
"Major Discrepancies" (letters p66) deals with a chap, Mac Brazel, finding the remains of at least one balloon at his ranch near Roswell before the main event in 1947. He describes these earlier finds as not being high-tech and composed of "rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather rough paper and sticks" plus "considerable Scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it."
This is consistent with the Japanese "balloon bombs" which were built in large numbers using available low-tech methods, and which were released into the gulf stream winds in the hope they'd come back to earth again over the continental USA - a desperation weapon built from bamboo, paper and string. Stricky tape with flowers on sounds like the sort of incongruous touch you could expect from Japan (or maybe animé and manga have coloured my perception - it does sound quirky and Japanese, or maybe that was the only sellotape/parcel tape they had). It's not inconceivable some might have drifted as far south as Roswell NM? The USA's a big place, after all, and balloon bombs (or parts of) coming to earth in an arid semi-desert wouldn't be noticed except by chance, and had more chance of being preserved for a year or two.
