Introduction. Page I iii Abstract. Explanation of nicap and its policies
August 5, 1952; Haneda AFB, Japan
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- 1951-1952 Period; East Coast Air Force Base
- Summer 1953; Yaak, Montana
- July 3, 1954; Albuquerque, N.M.
- March 23, 1957; Los Angeles, Calif.
- November 5, 1957; Gulf of Mexico
- January 1961; Missile Base
August 5, 1952; Haneda AFB, Japan Just before midnight, two Air Force control tower operators noticed a brilliant light in the sky, and joined others watching it through binoculars. The UFO approached the base slowly and hovered, plainly visible from the control tower. Behind the brilliant light, the observers could see a dark circular shape 84 four times the light's diameter. A smaller body light was visible on the underside. The object was tracked by ground radar, and an F-94 interceptor obtained a radar lock-on while chasing it. At one point, the UFO suddenly raced away at a clocked speed of 300 knots (about 345 mph.), dividing into three separate radar targets at spaced intervals. Contact with the UFO either by radar or visually, was maintained for over 30 minutes. During this period, scattered witnesses saw the UFO exactly where radar showed it to be. Conclusion: Officially "unknown." 1951-1952 Period; East Coast Air Force Base Period of September 1951 to November 1952; prominent east coast Air Force Base Confidential report, certified by Rev. Albert H. Baller, German Congregational Church, Clinton, Mass. Extracts from letter by Air Force Control Tower Operator to Rev. Baller, dated March 10, 1954: "About 3 a.m., on a clear moonlit night, a buddy of mine who was radar operator on the same night shift called me rather excitedly on the intercom, and asked me if I could see any object in the sky about 15 miles southwest of the base. Using a pair of powerful binoculars I carefully scanned the sky in that direction and assured him that I could see nothing. It was then that he told me why he was so concerned. "For several minutes he had tracked an object on his radar scope, then all of a sudden it had stopped at a range of about 15 miles from the base and remained stationary. Being an experienced radar operator, he knew that whatever it was, it was of good size, at least as big as any of our larger transport planes. But what amazed him was the fact that it stopped and remained motionless on the scope. A full half hour passed and still this object remained in the same location on the radar screen. Remembering that I had an inbound C-124 Globemaster coming in from that direction, I thought that perhaps the pilot would see something out there that we couldn't. I gave the pilot a couple of calls and finally raised him just south of_______on his way in. I told him what we had on radar and asked him if he would mind swinging off his course slightly so that he could take a look for us. "I then turned him over to the radar operator who had picked up the inbound aircraft on radar and he guided the pilot to a new heading that would bring him directly into this blip that was still stationary on the screen. The pilot slowed his aircraft and he and his copilot and engineer started looking about them. I could hear the radar man giving the pilot directions on a monitoring speaker in the tower. "The aircraft got onto a line on the radar screen that would intersect the blip that was unidentified; then as the minutes went by the aircraft slowly approached the object on the scope. Both blips were equally bright and distinct. Then when it seemed that the two would collide, at about a half mile separation on the scope, the stationary object simply disappeared, vanished seconds before the big Globemaster reached its location. "None of the crew on the plane had seen anything at any time, although they were all observing closely at the time and were told how close they were getting all the way to the object. "How anything could vanish so suddenly from a radar screen without even leaving a trace of what direction it went is really amazing. When you bear in mind that a radar scanner usually has a sweep of better than 50 miles, that would mean that whatever the object was it went from a dead standstill at 15 miles and disappeared from the scope covering over 35 miles in a split second. Remember also that this object was there for over a half hour and did not disappear until seconds before the aircraft reached its position: certainly this couldn't be any electrical disturbance or other phenomena. Why then would it disappear precisely when it did?" Summer 1953; Yaak, Montana Unidentified objects were tracked at an Air Force radar site several times. S/Sgt. William Kelly described the incidents in a taped interview with Olean, N. Y., newsman Bob Barry. On one occasion Sgt. Kelly and other radarmen picked up six unidentified targets. In five sweeps of the antenna (about 1 minute), the UFOs changed direction 5 times, sometimes making 90 degree turns. When radar indicated the UFOs had approached within 10 miles of the station, the crew went outside to look for them. They saw six objects in trail formation, switching to in line abreast, then stack formation. Other radar stations were notified and they also tracked the UFOs. The radar crew calculated the objects' speed: 1400-1600 mph. (In 1953 the official world speed record for aircraft was 755.14 mph.; see table). At other times, the station tracked UFOs making similar maneuvers. Sgt. Kelly had also tracked UFOs climbing vertically out of the radar beam, with height finder equipment confirming the rise, until the objects went off the scope.
Nine greenish spherical UFOs which invaded a restricted flying area were detected by Air Defense Command radar and sighted visually. The Albuquerque radar station's message on the sighting was accidentally intercepted at Chicago Midway Airport by an airline operations employee: 0105-C. . . NINE UNIDENTIFIED SPHERICAL OBJECTS GIVING OFF GREEN LIGHT REPORTED 20 MILES NORTH ABQ [Albuquerque] FIELD AT 24,000 FEET. OBJECTS HOVERED MOTIONLESS FOR 6 MINUTES THEN PROCEEDED 340 DEGREES AT APPROX 2600 MPH. ALTITUDE AND SPEED BY TRIANGULATION. . . ABQ ADIZ RADAR. (NICAP Note: "ADIZ" means Air Defense Identification Zone; only aircraft which have filed a flight plan are allowed to fly through an ADIZ area.)
Confidential report obtained from CAA (now FAA) radar operator confirming visual sightings at Oxnard AFB and vicinity. Report certified by NICAP Board Members: Rev. Albert Baller; Dr. Earl Douglass; Mr. Frank Edwards; Col. Robert B. Emerson, USAR; Prof. Charles A. Maney; Rear Admiral H. B. Knowles, USN (Ret.). At 9:55 p.m., Mr. K. E. Jefferson, Pasadena, saw a brilliant flashing object moving over Downey. Between that time and midnight, police switchboards throughout the Los Angeles area were flooded with hundreds of calls reporting a UFO. The reports poured into the Pasadena Filter Center. According to Capt. Joseph Fry, commanding officer of the Center, the first official report came in at 11:10 p.m., at which time Capt. Fry notified Air Defense radar. ''Between 2310 (11:10 p.m.) and 2350," Capt. Fry said in a statement to newsman Russ Leadabrand, "we had many reports. We had reports that indicated the UFO was orange-red, flashing a bright white light. Some of the callers claimed they heard the 'sound of reports' when the light flashed from the object." At the Filter Center itself, Air Force T/Sgt. Dewey Crow and newsman Les Wagner watched the UFO maneuver slowly around the area for over an hour. Just after midnight, Mrs. Robert Beaudoin, wife of an Oxnard AFB Captain, telephoned the base tower to report sighting the UFO. It was described as a large silent object, flashing a brilliant red light, and maneuvering above the Santa Rosa Valley An F-89 interceptor attempted to locate the object, but the Air Force denied it was able to make contact, although at the same time witnesses on the ground could see the UFO plainly near one of the Oxnard runways. Reports continued into early morning hours, with witnesses in various locations describing objects which sometimes hovered, and sometimes moved swiftly. The CAA radar report, obtained later, virtually proved that unexplained objects were operating over Los Angeles. The radar operator's report: "At 2350 (11:50 p.m.) I was watching the radar scope, when I noticed a target about 15 miles northwest and moving northwest. At first I thought it was a jet, then I noticed it was moving much faster than anything I had ever seen on the scope. About 40 miles northwest it came to an abrupt stop and
reversed course, all within a period of about three seconds. It then traveled back along its course for about 20 miles, reversed course again and disappeared off the scope at 50 miles (our radar reaches out only 50 miles). ''Approximately 5 minutes later 2 more targets appeared and disappeared off the scope in the same direction as the first; and these we had time to clock. They traveled 20 miles in 30 seconds which figures out to 3600 mph. A minute or so later a fourth target appeared in the same area as the other 3, 10 or 15 miles northwest, and went off the scope to the northwest at 3600 mph. 'Our radar does not give height of aircraft so I couldn't give you the height, however they had to be about 10,000 feet or lower because our radar's maximum height range is about 10,000 feet." November 5, 1957; Gulf of Mexico Just after 5:00 a.m. the U S. Coast Guard Cutter Sebago was about 200 miles south of the Mississippi delta. At 5:10 the bridge radar suddenly showed an unidentified target at 246 degrees true, moving N to S, range 12,000 yards (almost 7 miles). On duty were Ensign Wayne Schotley, deck officer, Lt. (j.g.) Donald Schaefer, first class quartermaster Kenneth Smith, and radioman Thomas Kirk. Interviewed in New Orleans, Ensign Schotley was asked how good the radar target was. Schotley: "The ship's combat information center confirmed the sighting. At that point it was reported falling astern rapidly. It was a good pip target.. It was a very strong contact, considered good." Cmdr. James N. Schrader, spokesman in New Orleans, said that at one point "in two minutes it went 33 miles straight away from the ship." (About 1020 mph.) At 5:14 contact was lost. At 5:16 contact was regained, object about 22 miles north. At 5:18 object faded off radar screen, range about 55 miles. At 5:20 contact regained, object appeared stationary, seven miles due north. About this time, A/1C William J. Mey, an Electronics technician at Keesler AFB, Mississippi (about 320 miles to the north on the Gulf Coast) spotted an elliptical UFO. In his signed report to NICAP, A/1C Mey gives the time as approximately 5:20 a.m. Looking south, he saw the UFO approach on a northerly course at about the speed of a propeller airliner, then accelerate rapidly and disappear into some clouds. This suggests that more than one UFO may have been operating in the area,,. and that the Sebago's radar may have tracked more than one of them. A/1C Mey's report is fairly consistent with the 5:18 radar report of the UFO headed north at over 1000 mph. If Mey actually saw the UFO at 5:28, it would have averaged about 1590 mph., from the time it faded from the Sebago's radar screen. If he saw it precisely at 5:20 a.m., it would have had to accelerate to nearly 8000 mph. to cover the distance in that time). At 5:21 the Sebago regained radar contact, and also saw the UFO visually for 3-5 seconds as a brilliant white object with no distinguishable shape. It was at a bearing of 270 degrees true (west), elevation about 31 degrees, moving horizontally from south to north. (A navigator obtained the elevation by noting a star at the same angle and taking a sextant reading of it). The UFO finally entered a cloudbank and disappeared. At 5:37 the cutter reported its last radar contact with the object, about 175 miles to the north, traveling about 660 mph. [See Section XII, November 1957 chronology, for other reports during the same period.] January 1961; Missile Base Confidential report certified by NICAP Director Donald E. Keyhoe and Assistant Director Richard Hall. During the test of a solid fuel missile, radar which was supposed to track the first stage instead tracked a UFO target. Test evaluation report in NICAP possession states "object unidentifiable." The UFO "appeared to be alternately hovering, then moving rapidly to a new location." PHOTOGRAPHS
NICAP Adviser Ralph Rankow, a professional photographer in New York City, gave the following estimate of photographic evidence for UFOs: "Everyone knows that photographs can be faked, but the real question is, to what extent can they be faked? We have seen Hollywood movies of realistic dinosaurs fighting one another. We have seen dams break and towns washed away by the flood waters. We have seen naval battles and ships blown up right before our eyes. In one movie I even saw Moses hold back the waters of the Red Sea. These were all very realistic scenes, and we had to keep reminding ourselves that what we were seeing was a Hollywood movie and not a real event. If these complicated scenes can be photographed so realistically why can't a simple thing like a UFO be faked? The answer, of course, is that it can, and what's more it has--time and time again. A UFO can be any shape, not just saucer or cigar shaped. This makes it very easy to fake by anyone, and furthermore any unintentional mark on a film can be, and some times is claimed to be a UFO. If model airplanes can be photographed to look real, then so can model UFO's. This does not mean that there are no airplanes, just because we are easily able to fake a picture to represent one. In the same way, the ability to fake a UFO photograph in no way implies that these things do not exist. This is just to point up the extreme difficulty of determining whether or not a photograph is authentic on just the unsupported word of one or two witnesses who may or may not be reliable. In truth, no photograph, no matter how clear it may be, can be considered evidence of UFO reality without a reliable witness. Now, this brings us to the question of what makes a reliable witness? One need not be a famous person whose name we all know, in order to be termed "reliable". A man's credentials give him reliability, not his vocation. Is he a mature individual or one given to playing tricks? What is the opinion of him held by those who know him best? Questions of this nature will help to determine how responsible and trustworthy an individual we are dealing with. It is only when a photograph is vouched for by such a veracious individual that it becomes important as evidence." In addition to the question of witness reliability, analysis of photographic evidence for UFOs is complicated by other factors. Many of the potentially most significant pictures were taken before NICAP was formed in 1956. Belated attempts to obtain all the necessary data for full analysis have proved extremely difficult. Since then, quite a few of the seemingly better movie films and photographs were submitted to the Air Force, rather than to NICAP, by citizens unaware of NICAP's existence. Secrecy and red tape thereupon obscured the facts. In some cases, because of the confusion surrounding the UFO subject and reports of tampering with or confiscation of films [Section IX], witnesses have refused to give up their films for analysis. Because of these problems, we consider it appropriate merely to list photographic evidence known to exist. This will supply references to data which would need to be analyzed thoroughly in any complete scientific investigation of UFOs. We have also attempted to rate each case according to its probable significance as evidence. The codes below indicate rating, film data, and status of analysis by NICAP. Other description and comments follow with cases numbered to match the entries on next page. 86 Codes: FILM DATA M = movie film c = color S = still photograph b = black & white RATING
(*) = potentially strong evidence, worth priority analysis (#) = worth analysis; or possible value in conjunction with other data (X) = dubious, or negative evaluation (Inc) incomplete; no rating possible because of lack of information. STATUS OF NICAP ANALYSIS VN = print viewed, complete analysis not possible because of lack of data or lack of reference points and detail in photograph AN = analyzed by NICAP NN = NICAP unable to obtain for analysis
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