SEPTEMBER 21ST. - BLACKPOOL, LANCASHIRE.

At 12 noon a message was received from the R.A.F. Observer Corps at Squires Gate that an R.A.F. pilot who was on patrol had reported a parachute down in the sea about three miles N.W. of Blackpool station, and at 12.15 the motor life-boat Sarah Ann Austin was launched. Mr. Edgar Law, the deputy chairman of the branch, went with her. A light east wind was blowing and the sea was smooth. The life-boat was piloted from the air by another R.A.F. machine, and it was not until she had travelled twenty miles N.W. of Blackpool station that she found not a parachute but a meteorological balloon, twelve feet in diameter.

She picked it up and returned to her station, arriving at 5.12 P.M. There the balloon was handed over to the R.A.F.- Rewards, £6 2s..