Mystery solved: 'Thing in the woods' revealed as CIA spy camera, 55 years later

The mystery that has plagued a New Brunswick family for more than five decades has been solved, with a satisfying Cold War espionage-flavoured denouement.

Declassifieddocuments from the Central Intelligence Agencyand the National Security Agency in the United States reveal the origins ofthe white181-kilogrambox found hanging from a rotting parachute in a tree near Monctonin 1962.

It turns out it wasahigh-altitudeballoon-mountedspy camera developed in part by the CIA to secretlyphotographSoviet Russia.

"It's hard to put into words," said David McPherson Jr., son of the woodsman whooriginallyfound the mysterious box.

• 'The thing in the woods' still puzzles Moncton-area family after 55 years

"It's so exciting and it turns out it was a CIA spy camera."

The family has hadits Cold Warsuspicions for more than half acentury, when David McPherson Sr.found the object in the forests of Lutes Mountain, near Moncton, while scouting for timber.

"There was just too much to it," said McPherson Jr.

"Thesecamera lenses were huge, the secrecy around it. And I guess looking back now, the army probably had no choice they couldn't tell us what it was."

Quickly taken by military

Twodozenblack-and-white photos of "the thing"carefully preserved in the McPherson family photoalbumwere all that remained after it was brought onto their property and then quickly whisked away by theCanadian military.

A handwrittenmemoirof the events by Lois McPherson, McPherson Sr.'s wife, detailed how the military first tried to steal the box before promising to get answers for the family if they simply relinquished control of it.

Those answers never came.

In the decades that followed, the family filed multiple access to information requests with the Department of National Defence, but those filings repeatedly went unanswered.

Public tips lead to CIA

But hours after the CBC story of "the thing in the woods" appeared on Monday, peoplestarted to submit their theories and ideas.

Among the tips were links to the Military Communications and Electronics Museum in Kingston, Ont.,and to declassified documents on the CIAwebsite.

Both contained photographs of a AN/DMQ-1 gondola, a portion of surveillance equipment which closely resembledthe McPherson find from 1962.

None of that surprised James Rogers, 74, who unknowingly helped McPherson Sr.lug a spy camera out of theforest when he was 19.

"I never thought it was a weather balloon," said Rogers, who was skeptical of the titlethe local newspapers had given the equipment he helped carry.

"Otherwise everyone wouldn't have been so secretive about it."

Rogers said everyone always knew there was something more to the mystery box than officials were telling them.

Project Genetrix

The declassified CIA documents indicatethe operation titled Project Genetrix was intended asa method of secretreconnaissance of Soviet Russiaand Communist China during the late 1950s.

Then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower approved the project, which was run alongside a similarballoon operation focused on weather in order togive operators a front to point to if, and whenballoonswent "rogue."

"If it is from that project I would not be shocked that the wind accidently took it into Canada," said Annette Gillis, a curator attheMilitaryCommunications and ElectronicsMuseum.

"Andit would answer why the family was never given any information about it."

More questions

Despite the recent answers, both Rogers and McPherson Jr. still have questions regardingthe spy camera.

"What I want to know is what was on that camera," said Rogers.

"I would suspect there was film in there,and it would be reallyinterestingto learnwhat it was taking pictures of."

But some familiar with the technology doubt the spy camera packagerecoverednear Moncton was taking photos during its ill-fated flight.

LuisPachecois anarchivistandcataloguerofstratospheric balloon flights and launches dating back to their creation.

"Ifthis was one of the 'rogue'and never-recovered camera packages that crossed Soviet andChineseairspace and survived the trip across the Pacific it must be orange in colour,"wrotePacheco in an email to CBC News.

"The 'live'packages containing the cameras were painted that way for an easierrecovery once landed."

Pacheco suggested the box recovered near Monctoncould be one of severallaunched for training purposes in 1955 from the Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado.

Mixed emotions

Regardlessof where the spy camera kitultimately originated, the McPherson family saidthe answers are bittersweet.

"This has been a roller-coaster I wish mom and dad were here, because they would have loved that, knowing what it was," said McPherson Jr, whose mother died in 2004 and father died 18 months ago.

"Dad would have been going around saying, 'I told you so!I told you so!' He would have been pretty excited."