SUBJECT: NATIONAL WEATHER BALLOON MISTAKEN FOR UFO ?         FILE: UFO679

   SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The telephone at the air trafficcontrol tower at Joe Foss Field was ringing off the wall earlySaturday with callers reporting a bright silver light in thepredawn sky.   There were so many calls that after a while, tower personnelwere answering their telephone with this greeting: "UFO WatchCenter."   But it wasn't a UFO. It was a 340-foot-tall high-altitudeballoon on a scientific experiment.   The balloon, launched Friday evening from Ainsworth, Neb., waspart of an experiment by the University of New Mexico and NASA togather anti-matter particles and investigate how stars evolved andhow they are changing, according to Bob Golden, an electricalengineering professor at the Albuquerque, N.M., school   There hasn't been much research into anti-matter, so not much isknown about the tiny particles, he said in an interview.   The unmanned balloon was 340 feet in diameter when inflated and550 feet long when stretched out on the ground uninflated,according to a worker at Raven Industries in Sioux Falls. Theballoon was made in Sioux Falls, the unidentified worker said.   The gondola was 15 feet high, 5 feet wide and had a 4,300-poundpayload, including a computer, according to Golden. A 12-memberNASA crew launched the craft. The ground team included researchersfrom the Goddard Space Center in Maryland.   The balloon was expected to land Saturday, but scientistsweren't sure where it would come to rest.   People in Sheldon and Sioux City, Iowa, reported seeing theballoon, as did people in parts of Nebraska, authorities said.   Golden said it will take from three months to 12 months toanalyze the data gathered during the balloon flight and that theresults will be published in international scientific journals.   The balloon was so bright in the early morning sky because itwas high enough to reflect sunlight before the sun rose, he said.   The balloon, which also was visible in southwestern Minnesota,was designed to rise to 120,000 feet, according to a statement fromthe National Weather Service's Sioux Falls office. The ballooncarried sensitive instruments to measure cosmic ray particles, theNWS said.

        
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