Multiple pilots witness large object near Guernsey, United Kingdom
Date: April 23, 2007
Location: Gunsey (island), England
Pilot’s UFO shock
by Joel de Woolfson
UFO sightings are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.
Two experienced airline pilots on separate flights saw something up to a mile wide off the coast of Alderney on Monday afternoon.
Surprisingly, Jersey radar equipment did not pick up the object, although an air traffic controller said he had received simultaneous reports from the Aurigny and Blue Islands pilots.
Aurigny’s Captain Ray Bowyer, 50, said he saw the strange object during a flight from Southampton.
He spotted a bright-yellow light 10 miles west of Alderney while his plane was about 30 miles from the island and at 4,000ft.
‘It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area. It was 2,000ft up and stationary,’ he said.
‘I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a 737.’
A 737 is slightly smaller than a jumbo jet.
‘But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide.’
As he continued his approach to Alderney, Capt. Bowyer saw a second identical object further to the west.
‘It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey.’
The sightings come days after reports that scientists have discovered outside our solar system an Earth-like planet capable of supporting extraterrestrial life.
‘I can’t explain it. At first, I thought it might have been a reflection from a vinery in Guernsey, but that would have disappeared quickly. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes.’
The sightings happened at about 3pm. Capt. Bowyer, who has flown commercial planes for about 20 years, said he had described the objects to air traffic control and filled in an incident report.
‘As I got closer to it, it became clear to me that it was tangible. I was in two minds about going towards it to have a closer look but decided against it because of the size of it. I had to think of the safety of the passengers first.’
He added that the experience had been quite scary.
‘I’m certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I’m saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying.’
Paul Kelly, 31, the air traffic controller who was on duty, said the Blue Islands pilot had made a similar report, but nothing had appeared on his radar.
‘The pilot from Blue Islands was en route to Jersey at the same time and as he went past Sark he described an object behind him to his left,’ he said.
‘The description was very similar to Captain Bowyer’s and they described it as being in exactly the same place. But they were looking at it from opposite sides.’
The pilot told him the object had been 1,500ft beneath his plane.
‘The Blue Islands plane was at 3,500ft at the time so, again, both pilots placed it at the same altitude.
‘If the object was stationary, our equipment would not have picked it up because the radar would have screened it out.’
Multiple witnesses observe disc-shaped object over Chicago O'Hare Airport
Date: November 7, 2006
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
The National UFO Reporting Center has received the following information from a single source, who, for the time being, wishes to remain anonymous, and who prefers not to reveal for what entity he works. We have received documentation about the alleged sighting, which satisfies us as to the veracity of the report, and as to the credentials of the party reporting the incident.
We have delayed release of this case, principally because an investigation was begun almost immediately after our receipt of the initial report, and because we were hoping to obtain addition documentation about the sighting, before it could be concealed, or destroyed.
At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.
The object was first spotted by an employee, working on the ramp, who was engaged in "pushing back" Flight 446, departing Chicago for Charlotte, NC. The employee reported to his supervisors that the object appeared to be almost directly above his location at Gate C17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and that its size was approximately equal to a U. S. quarter, held at arm's length. The object had a metallic appearance, according to the first witness, and it appeared to him to be spinning.
The first witness apprised the flight crew of Flight 446 of the existence of the object above their aircraft, and we believe both the pilot and copilot were witness to the bizarre object, as well. The witness also contacted his supervisors, who also witnessed the object, which was visible for approximately 2 minutes.
At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up at a very rapid pace, and it "shot" through the solid overcast, which was at 1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a "hole" in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration were apprised of the event at the time it was occurring, and personnel in one, or more, of the towers at O'Hare may have witnessed the object, possibly with binoculars. The FAA apparently reported that the object was not visible on radar, although that fact has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.
We hope to be able to release more information about the incident at some time in the near future. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have been personal witness to the event to submit a report of their sighting, using our Online Report Form. We would be most grateful if you would indicate in your report where you were located, at the time of the sighting, and what the object looked like, from your vantage point.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican Air Force pilots filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in the skies over southern Campeche state, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
A videotape made widely available to the news media on Tuesday shows the bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in what appears to be a late-evening sky.
The lights were filmed on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), and allegedly surrounded the Air Force jet as it conducted routine anti-drug trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects showed up on the plane's radar.
``Was I afraid? Yes. A little afraid because we were facing something that had never happened before,'' said radar operator Lt. German Marin in a taped interview made public Tuesday.
``I couldn't say what it was ... but I think they're completely real,'' added Lt. Mario Adrian Vazquez, the infrared equipment operator. Vazquez insisted that there was no way to alter the recorded images.
The plane's captain, Maj. Magdaleno Castanon, said the military jets chased the lights ``and I believe they could feel we were pursuing them.''
When the jets stopped following the objects, they disappeared, he said.
A Defense Department spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the videotape was filmed by members of the Mexican Air Force. The spokesman declined to comment further and spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The video was first aired on national television Monday night then again at a news conference Tuesday by Jaime Maussan, a Mexican investigator who has dedicated the past 10 years to studying UFOs.
``This is historic news,'' Maussan told reporters. ``Hundreds of videos (of UFOs) exist, but none had the backing of the armed forces of any country. ... The armed forces don't perpetuate frauds.''
Maussan said Secretary of Defense Gen. Ricardo Vega Garcia gave him the video on April 22.
The Merlin C26A was equipped with a high tech advanced digital equipment to register and record all the activities during the operation. Powerful sensor detectors like a FLIR STAR ZAPPHIR II and a RADAR AN/PS 143 BRAVO VICTOR 3 were being used by qualified personal aboard the airplane and all the operation was being recorded both in normal and infrared mode. The airplane was under the command of Mayor Magdaleno Jasso Núñez.
The FLIR operator was Lt. Mario Adrián Vázquez and the RADAR operator Lt. German Ramirez, all of them members of the 501 Aerial Squadron. This airplane is programmed only for surveillance and detection procedures, not for interception or combat manouvres. Their duty is to detect and identify drug dealers flights and then immediately report them to the base where combat planes are scrambled to intercept those narcotics smugglers. At approximately 17:00 PM the Merlin C26A detected an unknown traffic at 10,500 feet over Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche airspace and according to the protocol and suspecting a drug dealer airplane Mayor Magdaleno Jasso made a maneuver to approach the unidentified traffic at certain range to get a close look and record the target with their equipment.
At the same time Mayor Jasso reported by radio to the base that a possible suspect was detected requesting the interceptor planes to be in alert condition. The RADAR AN/PS 143 BRAVO VICTOR 3 was detecting the unknown traffic and the FLIR STAR ZAPPHIR II was recording the object in infrared. As the Merlin C26A tried to approach the unknown traffic to make a visual identification it suddenly in a surprising maneuver escaped flying away at tremendous speed.
By this time Mayor Jasso tried to persecute the target but it was very fast. All this was being recorded by the FLAIR and also the radio conversations with the base describing the unexpected maneuver of the unknown. However the C26A still have not made visual contact with the unknown object. Just some moments passed when suddenly the unknown object returned and began following the Merlin C26A in a surprising situation.
This was detected by the RADAR and the FLIR while the personal aboard were trying to make visual contact of the unidentified traffic now following them. In seconds the equipment detected now not only one but two traffics following them. The images in both RADAR and the FLIR were clear and unmistakable. But both pilot and personal still couldn’t have visual contact with these two traffics following them adding a great suspense to this disconcerting situation. Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported to the base the incident that was taking place giving detail of all the information registered by the equipment while keep trying to make visual contact of the unknowns. The FLIR kept recording in infrared every movement made by the two unknown objects that seemed to be keeping their distance from the C26A but still following it. The personal aboard the Merlin C26A were confused and disconcerted seeing the images on the FLIR and the RADAR asking themselves what was going on with this situation.
THE INCIDENT TURNS MORE DRAMATIC
But the stressing moment that the C26A crew were passing through was just the beginning of something more dramatic that will turn their undesirable experience into a real nightmare. Some minutes passed while the Mexican Air Force Merlin C26A crew continued making maneuvers to have a visual contact of the unknowns because despite both RADAR and FLIR were showing perfectly clear both unidentified objects for unexplained reasons there was not a visual contact even that the objects by this time were at close range. It was during this round and round maneuvers to identify these two objects that something amazing happened. In a matter of seconds more unknown objects arrived to the scene and the disconcert of the C26A crew was total.
The RADAR and the FLIR detected immediately the presence of nine new objects of the same size and characteristics, unknown objects that arrived to the scene surprisingly like coming from nowhere.
Now the situation has entered into a high level of danger so Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported by radio to the base this new situation requesting instructions. But the most bizarre thing was that even though there were eleven unknown objects close to them, still the crew couldn’t see them, no visual contact with the unknowns was possible for some reason never experienced before by these high trained men. However the high tech sophisticated equipment and sensors were not lying, there were eleven targets outside them with unpredictable intentions.
At the middle of a complete confusion and disconcert among the C26A crew the unknown objects suddenly made a maneuver surrounding the Mexican Air Force airplane in a circle at close range. The RADAR and FLIR presented an image of an eleven objects near by in a circle formation around the Merlin C26A. The situation turned out of control. Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported to the base that the C26A situation was now in red alert, surrounded by eleven mysterious round shaped objects camouflaged with a certain unknown advanced technology that avoid any visual contact of them.
However Mayor Jasso kept the calm as well as the crew who were working fast measuring and recording every detail of this unique incident conscientious of their duty as military and trained men. Confronting this situation surrounded by unidentified objects in an unpredictable ending Mayor Magdaleno Jasso took the decision of turning out all the airplane lights and wait to see what happened. Moments of high suspense lived by the crew while the FLIR was recording the images of those bright objects even that visual contact was not possible, moments of silence and uncertainty.
The C26A crew kept calmed doing their duty, documenting every moment of the strange incident while Mayor Jasso continued in contact with the base. After some stressing minutes the eleven objects disappeared giving an end to the strange experience that these members of the 501 Aerial Squadron just lived. The Merlin C26A returned safe to the Air Force Base and Mayor Magdaleno Jasso prepared a complete report of the incident along with the C26A crew. The Secretary of the Defense took notice of Mayor Jasso's report and began a full investigation studying and evaluating every element of the case.
Statements of the crew, images, lectures, measurements of all the equipment as well as a complete evaluation of the meteorological data . The incident was taken very seriously by the Department of Defense Staff and after several weeks of investigation they decided under the command of General Clemente Vega Garcia to contact researcher and TV journalist Jaime Maussan for a special collaboration in this investigation as an experienced researcher in these matters. On April 22, 2004 General Clemente Vega, Secretary of Defense gave Jaime Maussan a copy of all the tapes and data collected by the Merlin C26A during the incident for study, evaluation and analysis by Maussan's research team as complement of this investigation and as an external collaborating source trying to establish a definition of the possible motives and consequences of the March 5, 2004 incident.
General Vega as well as his staff were very open to discuss the subject and showed their legitimate interest in conducting this investigation in order to establish the truth of what happened. General Vega authorized the Merlin C26A crew to give Jaime Maussan the interviews needed without any censorship, giving all the facilities to present this case to the Mexican people, an historic and unprecedented decision that will open a new era of mutual collaboration among the Mexican ufologists and the military forces, a collaboration based in respect and interest to find the truth of the intense UFO activity we have been experiencing here in Mexico since the beginning of the Amazing Mexican UFO Wave back in July 11, 1991.
This new era of relationship among the Mexican UFO witnesses, skywatchers, ufologists and our military forces will try to establish and give form to a new legislation in our law system focused to be prepared for any incident involving these unidentified flying objects, our people, our commercial and military airplanes etc. for learning and understanding what are we going to do and how are we going to confront this reality.
Date Posted: 3/16/2004 10:27:30 PM
Day/Night: Nighttime
Duration: 10 mins.
No. of Witnesses: 6
No. of Object(s): Multiple
Full Description & Details
WHILE FLYING ABEAM PISCO PERU, WE NOTICED 3 VERY BRIGHT LARGE OBJECTS. THEY WERE NOT MOVING MUCH. THEY PASSED BY US AT A DISTANCE OF 20-30 MILESAT APPROXIMATE 20000 FT. WE WERE AT 31000 FEET. THERE WERE 4 CREWMEMBERS ON OUR B767-300ER. ALL NOTICED IT. THERE ALSO WAS A MEXICANA AIRLINER OVERHEAD THAT NOTICED THE OBJECTS AS WELL.
THEY WERE TO LARGE TO BE SHIPS. THEY WERE OVER THE OCEAN. AND VERY BRIGHT. WE CALLED THE LOCAL AIRTRAFFIC CONTROLLERS IN LIMA AND THE DID NOT SEE THEM ON RADAR.
Witness Background: AIRLINE PILOT. RATED ON B737 B757 B767
Reported Sighting? Yes
Reported To: LIMA AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
Location: MIAMI, FL, USA
Age: 33
BUDAPEST, Hungary - A military pilot recorded a spectacular video of a silver disk object on September 29, 2001. The craft was flying to his left side and then moved very fast past him in the clouds as can be seen in the video.
"I was on a flight over Budapest, Hungary," said the pilot, who has requested that his name be withheld until the official inquiry by the Hungarian Ministry of Defence is complete.
"To my left I saw a bright metal aircraft that was the shape of a perfect disk. I was careful to film the object, not to try and chase it since it I could not match its speed. As I was flying a reconnaisance aircraft, I got the idea to film it and used our equipment."
Officials at the Ministry of Defence would not answer questions about the video when asked and warned that officially they have no comment. Despite the denial, when informed of the pilot's name, they did acknowledge that the he was a real air force pilot and that it was true that he flew photo reconnaisance airplanes.
The pilot considers the video he made to be his property and not the Hungarian governments as he was flying the plane while not on duty and was transporting it as a favor to save the government money. He has now hired an attorney and wants the video to be released to the public. He hopes the release of a few frames will make this happen.
[from Hungarian press news article, translated into English]
Chinese Air Force Pilot Chases UFO
SHANGHAI -- (Agence France Presse) The air force had a prolonged up-close encounter with a UFO last month that one fighter pilot described as "just like ones in foreign movies," a government-controlled newspaper reported Thursday.
A Hebei Daily report -- carried in the news digest Baokan Wenzhai -- gave a detailed pilot's account of an aerial cat-and-mouse game played between the object and a jet fighter ordered to intercept it.
At least 140 people on the ground also saw the object, it said.
An editor with the Hebei Daily said the events took place on Oct. 19 and were still being investigated by local government departments.
The newspaper's report and military sources quoted show an openness that contrast sharply with Washington's notorious secrecy on the topic of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
It said the encounter began when four different radar stations in northern Hebei province picked up an unknown moving target in airspace directly above a military flight training base near Changzhou city.
To observers at the base, the UFO first appeared like "a small star," and then grew larger and larger, perhaps as it descended to a lower altitude, the report said.
They described an object with a mushroom-shaped dome on top and a flat bottom covered with bright, continually rotating lights.
A base commander surnamed Li reported to his superiors, who ordered a Jianjiao-6 armed interceptor airborne to pursue the object once checks showed no other civilian or military aircraft in the area.
The two pilots aboard said the object closely resembled depictions they had seen in foreign science fiction films.
When they got within 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) of the UFO over Qing county, it abruptly shot upward, easily evading subsequent attempts to get closer.
It appeared to be toying with the fighter by repeatedly outdistancing it and then reappearing just above it, the pilots said.
The report said a request for permission to fire on the UFO with an onboard cannon was denied by ground command at one point.
The interceptor was eventually forced to return to base after it ran out of fuel at an altitude of 12,000 meters (39,600 feet). The UFO then disappeared before two newer-model planes could get airborne, the article said.
While China's racy tabloids often run stories of strange phenomena alongside celebrity-gossip and crime stories, UFO reports are seldom carried by more official papers like the Hebei Daily. (1998 Agence France Presse)
At 16.25 hours on July 11, 1995, a Dash-8 passenger plane from the Wideroe company was on route from Fornebu (Oslo) to Bronnoysund when something very strange happened over Steinkjer about 70 kilmetres north of Trondheim. The co-pilot caught sight of a flying object that moved to the right of the plane. From his left side of the cockpit the captain only saw a part of what happened:
- First we thought it was another plane but as I bent down to get a better view, I noticed it had neither wings nor tail-fins, says captain Erik P. Risan. It was fine weather and good visibility. His (anonymous) co-pilot, on the right side of the cockpit, got a better view of the object but does not want to elaborate on the incident:
- I have already told the facts to the radar station in Trondheim. If I had wanted this story in the media I would have said so, he said.
The Wideroe Dash-8 plane was flying on 15.000 feet. Soon the unknown object slowed down and disappeared. In about a minute it was all over. The crew informed the Vaernes tower that something was in the air. Sometimes a weather balloon goes astray, but the captain does not want to speculate if this might be the explanation in this case. The military radar at Grakallen near Trondheim had coverage of the area but caught no returns from an unknown object. There were no military planes in the area. The object was considered unidentified by the military forces.
11 year old Roy Arne Hallem apparently witnessed the incident from the porch of his home at Inndalen. The boy told his parents on Tuesday evening. The incident was published the next day.
- The object was very polished and almost as large as the airplane. I saw it for half-a-minute or a minute before it went straight up at disappeared at great speed, he said. Three hours later the same (or a similar) silvery polished object was spotted by 75 year old Bjarne Lein.
Sources: Verdens Gang (Oslo newspaper), July 13 and 14, 1995; Stig Aggestad (UFO-Sweden).
The first officer reports that his attention, initially focused on the glare shield in front of him, was diverted to something in his peripheral vision. He looked up in time to see a dark object pass down the right hand side of the ac at high speed; it was wedge-shaped with what could have been a black stripe down the side. he estimated the object's size as somewhere between that of a light ac and a Jetstream, though he emphasised that this was pure speculation. it made no attempt to deviate from its course and no sound was heard or wake felt. He felt certain that what he saw was a solid object - not a bird, balloon or kite.
MANCHESTER ATC reports that the B737 was being radar vectored from Dayne to the ILS for RW 24 when the pilot reported a lighted object passing close by above and in the opposite direction. There was no known traffic in the vicinity at the time and no radar contacts were seen.
Two police officers have helicopter dogfight with UFO during patrol
Date: February 27, 1993
Location: Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA
Two Jefferson County air unit police officers — described by their lieutenant as "solid guys" — swear they had a two-minute dogfight with a UFO during a routine helicopter patrol Friday night.
Two officers on the ground said they, too, spotted the object. The UFO — a glowing pear-shaped object about the size of a basketball — literally flew circles around the helicopter, even though the fliers say they were moving at speeds approaching 100 mph.
In one blinding moment when both craft were hurtling toward each other, the UFO shot three baseball-size fireballs out of its middle, all three officers said. The fireballs fizzled into nothing. Officers Kenny Graham and Kenny Downs haven't talked much about their Friday night flight over General Electric Appliance Park because they fear few will believe them. But they are convinced they weren't hallucinating.
"We both go to church every week," Downs said as a way of explaining how normal the two normally are. "In fact, I might start going to church twice a week." Officer Mike Smith, in his squad car below, said he saw the object for only about a minute. But he confirmed the UFO shot three fireballs into the air and then disappeared. Officer Joe Smolenski said he tried for more than a minute to catch up to the object in his squad car. "I've been looking for 'em for 14 years, and I guess this is the closest I've come to something I couldn't explain."
Lt. David Pope, who was roused out of bed at 12:30 Saturday morning by a call from the startled officers, attested to their sanity and sincerity.
"These guys are totally solid guys," Pope said. "There's no doubt in my mind there was something out there."
The night started out like every other night. Graham and Downs got to work around 6 p.m. and were soon in the air flying a routine patrol. Graham, 39 and an 11-year veteran, was the pilot. Downs, 39 and a five-year veteran, was the spotter.
While in the air, they received a call about a possible break-in near Sanford Avenue and Buechel Bank Road. They flew off and quickly reached the area, which is near the northeast comer of Appliance Park, around 11:50 p.m.
As they circled, Graham saw something that looked like a small fire off to his left. Dozens of bonfires had been lit around the county that night by revelers delighting in the new snowfall.
But Graham soon decided i! wasn't a fire. Downs shined his 1.3-million-candlepower spotlight on the object, which began to drift back and forth like a balloon as the light washed over it. Then it gradually floated up to the helicopter's elevation about 500 feet above the ground, where it hovered for a few seconds.
"Then it took off at a speed I've never seen before," said Graham: an experienced pilot.
The object made two huge counter-clockwise loops and finally approached the helicopter's rear.
Graham, afraid-the object would ram his tail rotor, pushed his speec above 100 mph. The UFO shot past them and instantly climbed hundreds of feet in the air. It descended again and flew close to the helicopter. Graham tried to close the gap with the object, and it again flew away. As the UFO approached on a parallel course, the three fireballs burst out of its core.
Scared, Graham banked away from the object.
"When we came back around, it was gone," Graham said.
When the two returned to their base, Graham called the control tower at Standiford Field to ask if their radar had spotted anything unusual. It had not.
Downs called the county's radio dispatchers to ask if anyone else had reported sightings. No one had.
But the two did get confirmation from two officers on the ground, one of whom was Smith.
"I have no idea what it was," Smith said, but his confirmation cheered the two fliers.
"It makes me feel better," Downs said, "that there are... grown men out there who are sworn to protect this community and who saw the same thing."
As many as twenty UFOs were seen and tracked by ground radar and at least six airplanes during the night of May 19, 1986 over several states in southeastern Brazil. Unidentified radar returns were tracked by airports in São Paulo and the Integrated Air Defense & Air Traffic Control Center (CINDACTA) in Brasilia. Two F-5E and three Mirage jet fighters were scrambled from Santa Cruz AFB in Sao Paulo State, and Anápolis AFB in Goias State.
The case was discussed openly by high ranking government officials. It was first reported by Colonel (Ret.) Ozires Silva, president of the state-owned oil company Petrobrás, who was flying on an executive Xingu jet, when he and the pilot saw and pursued unidentified objects for about 25 minutes. The incident was covered widely in the Brazilian media, leading to a press conference at the Ministry of Aeronautics in Brasilia on May 23, with air traffic controllers and air force pilots involved in the scramble mission.
The Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Otávio Moreira Lima, was very outspoken:
"Between 20:00 hrs. (5/19) and 01:00 hrs. (5/20) at least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn't have optical illusions.
"We can only give technical explanations and we don't have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It's very remote and it's not the case here in Brazil. It's fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear."112
The Minister also announced that a commission would study the incident. Air Force Major Ney Cerqueira, in charge of the Air Defense Operations Center (CODA), was equally candid:
"We don't have technical operational conditions to explain it. The appearance and disappearance of these objects on the radar screens are unexplained. They are Unidentified Aerial Movements... The technical instruments used for the identification of the lights had problems in registering them. CODA activated two F-5E and three Mirages to identify the objects. One F-5E and one Mirage remained grounded on alert. A similar case occurred four years ago [the Commander Brito VASP airliner radar-visual incident in 1982]. The lights were moving at a speed ranging between 250 and 1,500 km./hr. [150 to 1,000 mph] The Air Force has not closed the case."113
Aeronautics Commission report was not released. However, the accounts of air force pilots and radar controllers were published widely in the press and later studied by Brazilian researchers. A comprehensive report was made by Basílio Baranoff, an airline captain, member of the Aerospace Technical Center, and consultant for the Brazilian UFO organization CBPDV. Baranoff provided a chronology of events for the night of May 19, 1986:
"6:30 p.m. local time - First visual sightings by control tower personnel at the São José dos Campos airport in São Paulo State. Controllers notice two intense lights aligned with the runway axis at 330 degrees azimuth and approximately 15 km. [10 m.] distance from the tower.
"7:00 p.m. - The control towers in São Paulo and Brazilia confirm to São José that they have three primary targets on their screens, and that there are no scheduled aircraft in those areas.
"8:00 p.m. - CINDACTA (Brasilia) detects up to eight targets (echoes) on its screens.
"8:30 p.m. - A new object is observed with binoculars at the São José tower; it shows defined edges and red-orange color; it approaches the tower and then retreats.
"9:00 p.m. - The oil company Xingu executive jet with Col. Silva requests landing conditions at São José. Both Silva and Commander Alcir Pereira, the Xingu pilot, confirm visually the luminous objects at 330 degrees azimuth. The Xingu jet attempts to follow the UFOs for 10 minutes.
"9:10 p.m. - The Xingu jet returns for landing when a new, large luminous object heads toward the aircraft. The São Paulo tower confirms two echoes: the Xingu and an unknown, which disappears from the screen 15 minutes later.
"9:20 p.m. - The Air Control Center in Brasilia (ACC-BR) informs the Air Defense Command about the situation.
"9:25 p.m. - The Xingu returns for a second landing attempt when the São Paulo tower reports yet another object at 180 degrees south, which is observed and followed by Commander Pereira.
"9:30 p.m. - The Xingu returns for a third landing attempt when ACC-BR reports the appearance of new objects. The Xingu, now at 3,000 meters [10,000 ft.] of altitude, makes visual contact with three luminous objects flying low over Petrobrás refineries and heading towards Serra do Mar. The Xingu finally lands in São José dos Campos.
"9:40 p.m. - More visual sightings of a round object at 320 degrees azimuth.
"9:50 p.m. - A luminous yellow object surrounded by smaller lights is observed at 110 degrees azimuth.
"10:23 p.m. - The first F-5E jet fighter, piloted by Air Force Lt. Kleber Caldas Marinho, is scrambled from Santa Cruz AFB in Rio State.
"10:45 p.m. - The second F-5E jet, piloted by Captain Brisola Jordão, is scrambled from Santa Cruz. The first Mirage F-103, armed with Sidewinder and Matra missiles, is scrambled from Anápolis AFB in Goias State.
"10:55 p.m. - Anápolis AFB detects the objects on radar. The Mirage piloted by Captain Viriato does not make visual contact with the UFO, but a target is detected on its onboard radar... Captain Viriato later explained at the press conference in Brasilia that he was chasing the UFO 'at 1,350 km./hr. [850 mph], approaching the object up to a distance of 6 miles [9.5 km.]. The object was heading up front and moving from one side to the other (zig-zagging) on my radar scope. Suddenly, the blip disappeared from my radar scope.'
"11:00 p.m - The second Mirage F-103 is scrambled from Anápolis.
"11:15 p.m. - Lt. Kleber's F-5E makes visual contact with a ball of light and chases the UFO at Mach 1.1 (1,320 km./hr. or 850 mph)... Kleber later declared at the press conference: 'I had one visual contact and one contact with my aircraft radar of something that looked like a luminous point, which was 12 miles [19 km.] in front of me, a distance confirmed by ground radar. The object was moving from left to right and then began to climb... [it] was at 10 km [6 mi.] of altitude and flying over 1,000 km./hr. [600 mph]. I followed it up to 200 miles [320 km.] over the Atlantic Ocean [limit of Brazil's territorial waters]. I wasn't afraid because I like the unknown.'
"11:17 p.m. - The third Mirage jet is scrambled from Anápolis AFB.
"11:20 p.m. - Captain Jordão's F-5E establishes radar contact... At the press conference a few days later, he stated: 'Near to São José dos Campos, radar detected several targets, 10 to 13 targets, at a distance of 20 miles [32 km.]. The sky was clear but I didn't see anything. Ground radar informed me that the objects were closing in: 20 miles, 15, 10, 5, suddenly there were 13 objects behind my aircraft, 6 on one side and 7 on the other, during several minutes. After I maneuvered the aircraft, the objects had disappeared.' [Captain Jordão flew for 1 hour 20 minutes.]
"11:36 p.m. - The third Mirage is scrambled from Anápolis AFB.
"1:00 a.m. (May 20) - By this time all jet fighters have returned to their bases."114
These are the basic known facts surrounding the multiple UFO jet scramble incidents over southeastern Brazil on the night of May 19-20, 1986. It is noteworthy that Captain Baranoff added that "two nights after, ten to eleven unidentified luminous objects returned for a new round over São José dos Campos; they were observed visually and detected by the São Paulo, ACC-BR and by CINDACTA 1 radars." This time there was no official confirmation from Air Force authorities.115
Lacking the final Ministry Commission report with all the pertinent data, it is difficult to make a final conclusion about this case. Many hypotheses were offered in the Brazilian media by skeptical astronomers and scientists, ranging from a meteor shower, a reflection of the full moon and ball lightning, to radar malfunction, space debris and spy planes. Most of these explanations seem quite insufficient to explain the events of May 19. One of the more plausible was offered by British space researcher Geoffrey Perry. According to Perry, the Soviet space station Salyut-7 ejected several boxes of debris on that night, which re-entered the earth's atmosphere around central-western Brazil. The re-entry of NASA's Solarwind satellite was also discussed in the Brazilian press.116
However, Brigadier José Cavalcanti from Brazil's Air Defense Command, was not impressed with the Salyut-7 and Solarwind explanations. He told the weekly magazine Veja:
"It could have been space debris, but it wasn't only that. A metallic box with space debris can be detected by radar, but it will always fall in the same direction and at constant velocity. That was not the case of what was seen in Brazil, where the objects detected by radar had speeds that varied from very slow to extremely high."117
Another interesting view is the final comment in a short message from the USDAO (U.S. Defense Attaché Office) in Rio to DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) on the subject, entitled "BAF [Brazilian Air Force] has a Close Encounter of the First Kind":
TWA airline pilot sees round metallic object with portholes
Date: July 4, 1981
Location: South central Lake Michigan, USA
July 4, 1981 1646L UC South central Lake Michigan
Captain Phil Schultz, 54, was flying TWA flight 842 from San Francisco to John F. Kennedy Airport, New York (on autopilot control) and was at cruise altitude (FL370) at 280 kts airspeed (540 kts. ground speed) in an L-1011 heavy jet. The sky was generally clear over Lake Michigan with a high, thin layer of cirrus over much of the southern part of the lake and some scattered mid-level clouds at about 10,000 feet. The sun was still high in the sky (41 deg. above the horizon) and behind the aircraft. Then the high altitude encounter (FL370) happened. In the captain’s own words, "A large, round, silver, metal object descended into the atmosphere from above and to the left of my airplane to about 40,000 feet overhead and passed off to my left." After an extensive reconstruction of this event in the cockpit of his aircraft, I was able to ascertain many more important facts about this event [cf. Haines, 1982(a); 1982(b)]: (1) The object traveled very smoothly during the five or six second-long encounter. (2) The UAP was about 2.5 times wider than thick with six jet black perfect circles ("portholes") aligned and equal-spaced around its circumference. Centered on the bottom surface of the circular disk was a single, jet-black circle. (3) The UAP traveled along an approximately parabolic course and performed a high speed turn (calculated to be approximately 20 g) relatively near the aircraft before departing in a gradual climb to the north and leaving a darkish wavy trail behind in the sky. (4) Its approach and departure speed was calculated to be about 1,000 mph, (5) No shock wave or turbulence was felt at any time. Capt. Schultz remembered seeing a fan-shaped region extending outward from behind the object which was "of a much darker blue than the rest of the sky." (6) The aircraft’s autopilot remained coupled throughout the encounter and no E-M effects were noticed. (7) The FO saw approximately the final two-thirds of the event but the FE did not see anything due to his position in the rear of the cabin. (8) When Captain Schultz called Chicago Center to ask about other possible traffic in the area he was told there was none. He did not report what they had just seen. (9) Before this sighting Capt. Schultz did not believe in UFO at all. His extensive jet combat experience during the Korean War and afterward had left him with the strongly held belief that such objects "simply do not exist." This encounter instantly changed his view and, when I asked him what he thought the object was he quickly replied." (10) Both pilots were very concerned about a mid-air collision and began to brace themselves for an impact. Other technical details must be omitted due to space limitations. (Pilot report form)
Pilot sighting of glowing orange sphere in Tranquillity, California
Date: July 28, 1978
Location: Tranquillity, California, USA
In the summer of 1978, I was flying for a crop dusting operation near Tranquillity, California. At that time I had been a duster pilot for over sixteen years, and flying nights since 1965. In central California during the summer months, certain fields are treated after dark, mainly to protect workers and honeybees from exposure to AG chemicals.
On the early morning of 28 July, just before three AM, I was sitting in the cockpit of my airplane, a Rockwell Thrush Commander. The aircraft was parked, with its engine shut down and all interior and exterior lights off, at the south end of a one-half mile dirt runway, located about five miles southwest of Mendota, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley about thirty miles west of Fresno. The Thrush was lined up with the runway, facing due north.
I had just finished spraying a quarter-section cotton field, and was getting ready to spray another. My two girl flaggers were already in place on the field I was about to treat, and my loader was busy mixing a batch of pesticide to be applied on it.
It was a calm, cloudless night, typical of midsummer in the San Joaquin Valley. The air temperature at ground level was around seventy degrees, and the visibility was good. Although I was somewhat tired, I was not at all sleepy. I had drunk several cups of coffee from my thermos during the previous six hours, and I have always been sensitive to caffeine as a stimulant.
As I sat in the cockpit, waiting for the first load to be pumped into the hopper tank, I glanced over to my right at the crescent moon rising in the east, and then turned back to again face north. At this time, I noticed a dim, diffused orange glow, low in the sky to the northwest, about forty-five degrees to the left of the aircraft nose.
My first thought was that a house, barn, or other nearby ranch building had caught fire, but I discarded that possibility almost immediately. I knew the area quite well (an absolute necessity for safe night AG flying) and the glow was in the direction of the field that I was about to spray. I had flown this same field several times before, and knew there were no buildings in the immediate vicinity. I decided that if it was a fire, it had to be much farther away.
This possibility was discarded a few seconds later, when the orange glow began to slowly rise. When it was about thirty degrees above the horizon, it started moving toward the east. At first this movement was quite slow, but within a few seconds, it speeded up. The glow then began to take on an elongated form, markedly longer in the vertical plane than in the horizontal. It reminded me of a segment of searchlight beam, except that the entire light column moved laterally, while oriented nearly straight up and down, rather than in a radius around a fixed light source. The length of the column seemed to be about ten to twenty degrees of vertical sky coverage.
As the light column passed through due north, straight ahead over the airplane nose, it continued accelerating and becoming brighter. I then realized that I was viewing something that was totally different from my many other nighttime sightings of missile launches, satellites, planets, and other aircraft.
I yelled for my loader to look, but the noise of the mix rig engine drowned out my voice, and because his attention was focused on opening cans of pesticide on the opposite side of the mix tank, he didn't see my frantic signals. I climbed out of the cockpit onto the left wing, planning to jump down and run around the trailer to alert him. Then I had the thought that if I did, I might miss a vital part of the display, so I remained standing on the wing.
After passing abeam of the runway end, the object continued accelerating for a short time, perhaps five to ten seconds. It then climbed slightly, and at the same time abruptly slowed. During this phase the glow was becoming brighter, while the vertical beam was shortening, forming itself into a more compact mass of light.
At about forty-five degrees off to my right, the object, now considerably brighter, and resembling a glowing ball, came to a stop for several seconds. It then reversed course, and once again began moving, this time back to the west.
Several seconds after starting its westward movement, and without slowing, the ball of light instantly assumed the shape of a well-defined, flattened sphere with pointed ends, which emitted a steady orange glow. At this time it began a shallow descent, gathering speed and leveling out around twenty degrees above the horizon. It flew with its pointed ends parallel to the ground. From my position, the size of the object looked to be about that of a large pea or small marble when held at arms length.
When the glowing, flattened sphere was directly over the Thrush's nose, it abruptly halted, going from a high rate of speed to a dead stop almost instantaneously. It remained stationary for no more than a few seconds - five at the most. Although this would have been the best opportunity to determine the object's true size, I was unable to make an estimate, since its distance from me was unknown. On the report which I later submitted, I placed it at one to three miles away, but that distance is highly speculative.
After its momentary halt, the object again accelerated. Within a few seconds it had resumed its previous high speed, but appeared to have turned ninety degrees, and was now climbing directly away from me at a very steep angle. Its heading was due north, and as it rose, it attained what looked to be the highest speed reached during the entire time it had been in view.
Because of the unknown size and distance of the object, and the fact that it was climbing at an angle directly away from me, this speed was impossible to estimate accurately. Judging from the rate at which it seemed to grow smaller though, it looked to be travelling about three to five times faster than a jet airliner at an altitude of around thirty thousand feet, as seen from the ground.
During this climb, the object also reached its maximum brightness, only very slightly less than that of the crescent moon. As it continued to rise, it began to dim. It finally vanished from my sight high above the horizon (about sixty to seventy degrees), over the glow of the lights of Firebaugh, another small town about 12 miles due north of my position.
The total time which the object remained in view, from my first sighting of the diffused mass of light until the final disappearance of the flattened sphere, seemed to be about 40-50 seconds, but an accurate estimate is quite difficult. It could have been somewhat shorter, but almost certainly wasn't longer.
Throughout the episode, I remained relatively calm, but was filled with awe when I realized that I had just witnessed a phenomenon about which I had previously only read, and, up to that time, was not at all certain actually existed.
As soon as the object disappeared, I jumped off the wing and asked my loader if he had seen anything. He had not, and when I told him what I had witnessed, he was disappointed, to say the least. He finished mixing the batch of pesticide, and I sprayed four loads on the field. I then sprayed another quarter-section located northeast of the strip without further incident.
After returning to Tranquillity, I sought out my two flaggers, and asked them if they had seen anything unusual the previous night. They were both very evasive and reluctant to answer my questions, and kept trying to change the subject. I finally got them to admit that they had also seen the object. Their view of it had been better than my own, since they described it as somewhat larger and brighter than it had appeared from my location. From this, I estimated that they were closer to it than I had been, although it had still remained to the north of them.
With further questioning, the fact emerged that they had also seen the same object on the previous two nights, while flagging for another pilot. The girls described it very aptly as "a little, flat, flying football." They had told no one else of these previous sightings, and remained very reluctant to discuss them with me. I later talked with the other pilot, who stated that he had seen nothing out of the ordinary on either night.
Veteran Pilot Encounters UFO With Portholes
Date: January 1, 1978
Location: Santa Monica, California, USA
A dome-shaped UFO with portholes was seen in broad daylight by veteran pilot Floyd P. Hallstrom of Oxnard, California. Hallstrom had been flying for 37 years, 17½ as a Navy combat air crewman and personal crew chief to admirals, including the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
Hallstrom had left Oxnard at about 12:35 p.m. in a Cessna 170A bound to San Diego via Los Angeles, following a friend, Jim Victor, who was delivering another plane to a customer at Brown Field, San Diego. The plan was for him to transport Victor back to Oxnard after the delivery. The two kept in touch by radio.
As Hallstrom approached Santa Monica at 7,500 feet altitude, the sky was clear except for a smog layer in the vicinity of Los Angeles International Airport. "At this time I was looking for Jim straight ahead," Hallstrom reported, "when I spotted [the UFO] just on the edge of the haze area above LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] slightly to the east side....I thought it was Jim so I watched it for about a minute because he had just given me his position report, but it seemed to get larger and coming toward me so I naturally realized that it wasn't Jim....
"I started looking to see what it was but I could see no wings on this aircraft although at this time I could see windows which appeared to be passenger windows in the aircraft. As it drew nearer though, I was able to determine that there were no wings or horizontal empennage assembly to the aircraft as a conventional aircraft...."
Hallstrom began wondering if it was some kind of helicopter, but it was approaching at high speed. As the UFO passed about 6,000 feet to his left, he was looking down on it an angle of about 30-45 degrees. Then the true form suddenly became clear to him. There were no rotors, no tail assembly.
"All of a sudden I was able to make out the complete form of a saucer shape or round object...I could see the dome, also very vividly clear, including all the windows....[I] observed it to be of a very bright metal...it was more of a nickel or highly polished chrome or stainless steel type of metal than aluminum because it had more of a mellow glow than [if] it was of the type finish on a high finish aluminum."
About 16 to 20 evenly spaced windows were visible around the circumference of the dome, located just above the base. The dome appeared to be a perfect hemisphere about 20 feet in diameter resting on the base which was about 30 feet in diameter. The UFO continued on a course of about 310 degrees (opposite to Hallstrom's course) with no sign of rotation, oscillation, pitch, roll, or yaw. Neither was there any sign of a propulsion system. The sun reflected off the dome as a bright spot as the UFO passed. After about a minute the object disappeared from view behind the Cessna. Hallstrom estimated its speed at about 650 m.p.h. He quickly took notes and made a sketch of the UFO.
Reaching for his radio microphone, he first called Jim Victor to report what he had seen. Then he notified various FAA authorities.
Hallstrom, who was shaken by the sighting, later had troubling dreams, mostly about UFOs and aliens. He had not taken the subject seriously up to this time, but the implications of what he had seen struck home to him. He later reported that the experience had altered his entire life.
(MUFON UFO Journal, January 1978, pp. 3-5. Investigators: Robert K. Bowker and Idabel Epperson.)
Retired Chilean General in air encounter with large 'banana-shaped' UFO
Date: 1978
Location: Antofagasta, Chile
SOURCE: Ovnivisión (Chile)
DATE: December 26, 2002
RETIRED CHILEAN GENERAL DISCUSSES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH A GIANT UFO
SANTIAGO DE CHILE.- In an interview with Terra.cl., retired general Hernan Gabrielli Rojas mentioned that he had squared off against a gigantic UFO while engaging in a training flight in the skies of northern Chile.
According to the military man, the object was the size of 10 or 15 aircraft carriers, and its presence was picked up by the radars aboard two F-5 jet fighters as well as the Cerro Moreno airport in Antofagasta.
- What do you remember about your contact with the UFO?
Over 20 years have gone by (this was in 1978). I was a captain and was flying a mission with two F-5 fighters. It was noon and I was flying with captain Danilo Catalán - we were both flight instructors. Accompanying us was Fernando Gomez, an avionics tech, and another trainee. The F-5 is radar-equipped, and a line appeared from side to side - in other words, a trace throughout the bottom side of the screen. A trace for a surface ship, a cruiser, is approximately one centimeter long, but this line went from one side [of the screen] to another. I assumed the radar scope had failed, and told Danilo Catalán, but his radar also "failed". I then advised the ground radar at Antofagasta and they also picked up the line. We were engaged with these details when we looked toward the east: we were flying from north to south in the vicinity of Mejillones, and saw a deformed cigar-shaped object. Deformed, like a plaintain banana. It was swathed in smoke.
- What was the object's size?
It was large and must have been some 15 to 20 miles away. It moved in the same direction as us. We had no missiles, guns or anything. As you can imagine, the fright was more or less considerable. We could see a large thing surrounded in smoke, and from which a vapor issued. All of this situation must have lasted some five minues. We approached the UFO but it was motionless. It neither approached nor retreated - it merely sailed parallel to us. It was quite impressive, because it was truly something strange, and something could be seen in concealment behind the smoke.
- What happened later?
The object then disappeared toward Easter Island at an impressive rate of speed. The sky cleared and the lines on the radar vanished. However, there had been an object physically flying there. It's not a yarn, let me tell you. It's my only experience with UFOs.
F-4 Jet Chases UFO over Iran 1976
Between 10:30 and 11:15 p.m. on September 18, several calls were received by the Control Tower at Mehrabad Airport, reporting an unknown object hovering 1,000 feet (300 m.) above the ground in the northern section of Tehran. The night shift supervisor, Hossain Perouzi, initially didn't pay too much attention. The radar system was turned off since it was under repair. After he received the fourth telephone call at 11:15 p.m., Perouzi went to the terrace next to the tower and observed the UFO with binoculars:
"Suddenly I saw it. It was rectangular in shape, probably seven to eight meters [24 to 27 ft.] long and about two meters [7 ft.] wide. From later observations I made, I would say it was probably cylindrical. The two ends were pulsating with a whitish blue color. Around the mid-section of the cylinder there was this small red light that kept going around in a circle... I was amazed. I didn't know what to think. There definitely was a very strange object there in the sky right over Tehran."
At 12:30 a.m. on September 19, Perouzi called the Air Force Command post to report the UFO. The Base Commander, in turn, called General Yousefi, who authorized the scramble of an F-4 Phantom jet from Shahrokhi AFB to investigate. The first scramble is summarized in a "Memorandum for Record" from the U.S. Defense Attaché Office (DAO) in Tehran:
"The F-4 took off at 01:30 a.m. and proceeded to a point about 40 nm [45 statute miles or 75 km.] North of Tehran. Due to its brilliance the object was easily visible from 70 miles [110 km.] away. As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nm [29 statute miles or 46 km.], he lost all instrumentation and communications (UHF and Intercom). He broke off the intercept and headed back to Shahrokhi. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications."
At 01:40 a.m., Gen. Yousefi authorized a second F-4 scramble piloted by Lt. Jafari, who quickly established radar contact with the UFO. The DAO Memorandum describes the events of the second scramble:
"The size of the radar return was comparable to that of a [Boeing] 707 tanker. The visual size of the object was difficult to discern because of its intense brilliance. The light that it gave off was that of flashing strobe lights arranged in a rectangular pattern of alternating blue, green, red and orange, in color. The sequence of the lights was so fast that all the colors could be seen at once."
"The object and the pursuing F-4 continued a course to the south of Tehran when another brightly lighted object, estimated to be .5 to .33 the apparent size of the moon, came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F-4 at a very fast rate. The pilot attempted to fire an AIM-9 missile at the object, but at that instant his weapons control panel went off and he lost all communications (UHF and Interphone). At this point, the pilot initiated a turn and negative G dive to get away."
The aircraft electric system went back to normal once the F-4 reached a certain distance from the UFO. The small object returned to the primary object, but a second one emerged and flew toward the ground. Gen. Yousefi observed the landing from the balcony of his Tehran residence:
"He went down and landed on the ground and now it is a communication between the mothership and that small flying object, and it shows the lights between those two is connected."
More strange events were still reported that night. A UFO seemed to follow the F-4 as it approached the runway, and a civil airliner experienced communications failure but did not see anything. The DAO Memorandum describes the investigation early that morning:
On October 18, 1973, at approximately 10:30 PM a UH-1H helicopter of the United States Army Reserve left Port Columbus, Ohio, for its home base of Cleveland Hopkins airport, ninety-six nautical miles to the north-northeast. In command, in the right-front seat, was Captain Lawrence J. Coyne, thirty-six, with nineteen years of flying experience. At the controls, in the left-front seat, sat First Lieutenant Arrigo Jezzi, twenty-six, a chemical engineer. Behind Jezzi sat Sergeant John Healey, thirty-five, a Cleveland policeman who was the flight medic, and Coyne was the Crew Chief, Sergeant Robert Yanacsek, twenty-three, a computer technician. The helicopter was cruising at 2,500 feet above sea level at an indicated airspeed of ninety knots, above mixed hills, woods, and rolling farmland, averaging 1,200 elevation. The night was totally clear, calm, and starry. The last quarter moon was just rising.
About ten miles south of Mansfield, Healey noticed a single red light off to the west, flying south. It seemed brighter than a standard aircraft port-wing light, but it was not considered relevant traffic, and he does not recall mentioning it. An estimated two minutes later, at approximately 11:02 PM, Yanacsek noted a single red light on the south-east horizon. He assumed it was either a radio-tower beacon or an aircraft port-wing light - most likely an aircraft, since it was not flashing - and he watched it "for a long time, a minute to ninety seconds" before calling it to Coyne's attention. Coyne, smoking, relaxing, glanced over, noted the light, assumed it was distant traffic, and told told Yanacsek casually to "keep an eye on it."
After an estimated additional thirty seconds, Yanacsek announced that the light had turned toward the helicopter and appeared to be on a converging flight path. Coyne verified Yanacsek's assessment, grabbed the controls from Jezzi, and put the UH-1H into a powered descent of approximately 500 feet per minute. Almost simultaneously, Coyne established radio contact with Mansfield control tower, ten miles to the northwest. Coyne thought the flight was an Air National Guard F-100 from Mansfield. After an initial acknowledgment ("This is Mansfield Tower, go ahead Army 1-5-triple-4"), radio contact failed. Jezzi then attempted transmission on both UHF and VHF frequencies without success. Although the channel and keying tones were both heard, there was no response from Mansfield; and a subsequent check by Coyne revealed that Mansfield had no tape of even the initial transmission, the the last F-100 had landed at 10:47 P.M.
An airline DC-8 cargo flight was en route from St. Louis to Dallas on February 14, 1973, at about 2:30 a.m. At a point near McAlester, Oklahoma, the copilot noticed what he first thought was another aircraft just below the leading edge of the right wing about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) away. The object was on the same course and speed, keeping a constant position. Only its steady amber light seemed unconventional.
Suddenly the object rose straight up like an elevator, made a sharp turn and approached the plane, taking up a position about 300 yards (270 meters) away and slightly above them. It was disc-shaped with a transparent dome on top, its silvery, highly polished surface reflecting the moonlight. Besides some stubby protrusions no other features were visible.
The captain switched on the weather radar and it confirmed that something real and solid was there. When the radar beam hit its surface, the object reacted immediately, ascending straight up, then moving sideways over the DC-8 and briefly out of sight. The object reappeared quickly, descending straight down and taking up a new position just below the leading edge of their left wing. It then dropped below and behind the plane, abruptly reappearing only about 300 feet (90 meters) below them.
Looking down into the dimly lit dome, the pilots saw two or three shadowy entities moving around. The object then darted out in front, performed various oscillatory motions and another sharp (noninertial) turn before speeding out of sight. It disappeared off the radar scope at a distance of 50 miles (80 km).16
Report by Richard Hall, Volume II, The UFO Evidence, A Thirty-Year Report, Richard Hall, (2001), page 131
A Winter Haven, Florida, private pilot reported he fled from a giant cone-shaped UFO which kept his plane in shadow for about three minutes on the morning of September 20, 1966. James J. O'Connor, a former Army investigator, was flying at 9500 feet in a small private plane near Sebring, Florida about 10 a.m. (EST) when he noticed what appeared to be a delta-shaped object above him. Curious, he climbed toward the object, but leveled off about 10,000 feet because he had no oxygen equipment. Then the UFO began increasing in size, apparently descending toward his plane and pacing him.
O'Connor was somewhat unnerved, but "more curious than frightened." He timed the descent of the UFO at 37 seconds. The object made a "singing" noise like automobile tires on a wet pavement. When his plane was completely in the shadow of the object for several minutes and it continued to follow him, O'Connor became apprehensive. He pulled his plane up, reduced power and stalled out, diving as fast as he could without putting undue strain on his small plane. He dropped to 3500 feet before looking up again. "That's when I was frightened," he later reported. "That thing had not changed in size at all, but was still with me and pacing me. It was still as big as a football field."
Briefly O'Connor thought of shooting at the UFO with a .38 special he kept in the cockpit, but about that time the object appeared to change shape to a wedge, then a thin line, and then vanished. "I realized it was climbing," O'Connor said, "doing a reverse peel-off in a 360 degree turn. We don't have an aircraft that could do this I think. It was more like the thing was falling ‘up’.”
O'Connor estimated that the UFO followed him for 17 minutes. The sighting was in bright daylight with a clear sky and only a few alto-cirrus clouds high above. When he noticed the object overhead,- O'Connor opened his canopy and looked straight up at it. He was flying VFR from Winter Haven to Miami at the time. When the UFO broke off the pursuit and climbed away, O'Connor got a view of the underside of a cone, point upwards.
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon),
An 18,000-hour pilot and his passenger made a clear daylight sighting of a disc-shaped UFO with a dome on top on the afternoon of May 21, 1966 near Willow Grove, Pa. "It was as clear as seeing a Cadillac drifting by at 100 yards," said William C. Powell. Currently active in executive-transport flying, Powell was a pilot for the Dutch KLM airlines, and before that for the U.S. Air Force and RCAF.
During a panel discussion on UFOs before an annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C. (April 22, 1967), Powell described the experience. (Additional details are taken from the first hand report in NICAP's files). Powell was flying a Luscombe at about 4500 feet near Willow Grove, Pa., with a 15-mile visibility. At about 3:15 p.m., after seeing a flight of Navy jets climbing up from Willow Grove Naval Air Station, Powell spotted an object closing in behind the jets. Noting that the object had no protrusions like an aircraft, he watched more closely and saw it make an abrupt 150-160 degree turn and head for his aircraft. As the UFO passed under his starboard wing, Powell saw that it was a structured object. It seemed to be about 100 yards distant, and 30-40 feet in diameter. The overall configuration was discoidal; the base was bright red, and the dome was glistening white.
The following account is extracted from the Tokyo Japan Times of March 21, and is a UPI Agency release originating from Hiroshima.
"Three Japanese airline pilots reported Friday night that they were 'chased by a flying saucer' while they were on their scheduled flights between this city and Osaka. The first to report seeing the so-called flying saucer was Yoshiaka Inaba, pilot of the domestic TOA Airlines, as he was flying his Convair-240 with 40 passengers aboard over Himeji, near Osaka, on his way to Hiroshima, shortly after 7 p.m.
" 'A mysterious elliptical luminous object appeared just after I had passed Himeji. I was flying at the time at an altitude of about 2,000 metres. The object followed for a while, and then stopped for about three minutes, and then followed along my left wing across the Inland Sea for a distance of about 90 kilometres (55 miles) until we reached Matsuyama on Shikoku Island. It then disappeared'.
"He said the object emitted a greenish coloured light and violently affected his automatic direction finder and his radio. He said he tried to contact the Osaka communications tower but was unsuccessful.
"His co-pilot Tetsu Umashima tried to contact the Matsuyama tower to report on their observation of the strange object. While he was trying to do so, he heard the frantic calls from the pilot of a Tokyo Airlines 'Apache', who said he was being chased by a 'mysterious luminous object' while he was flying along the northern edge of Matsuyama city.
"The events which I now describe took place in the first or
second week of May 1963.
"I was at the time working for NATO as an English language
secretary, and based in Paris. On the day in question I was one
of a party of 50 NATO personnel who were en route to Canada for
the NATO Ministerial Meetings in Ottawa. Our plane, an Air
Canada DC-8, carried what seemed to be the usual crew, and two
stewardesses, though I had the impression that the flight was
"We took off from Orly Airport, Paris, some time after 10.00
A.m., and we were told that the flight to Ottawa would take
about seven hours. As there were only 50 of us, the plane was
relatively empty. I took a window seat on the port side (left)
near the wing. The other two seats in my row remained empty
throughout the flight. As NATO personnel we were all of course
well known to each other, and very much a 'family group'.
"The weather was beautiful, and the Captain announced that we
would fly at 36,000 (or maybe 38,000 - I do not recall clearly)
feet. After lunch had been served, I sat enjoying the view of
the vast expanse of sky above the clouds. The windows of the
DC-8 were very large, the largest I seem to recall having seen
on an aircraft, and came down quite low beside the passenger.
"I was just reaching down to take a book from my hold-all, and
was astonished to glimpse below the 'plane something dark and
absolutely tremendous that stood out in vivid contrast to the
brightness all around. I could not believe my eyes. I pressed
close to the window in unbelief and there, almost beneath the
DC-8, was a gigantic dark grey 'torpedo'. It seemed menacing
and frightening, and I had the impression that it was
stationary. It was utterly unlike anything that I had ever seen
in my whole life. It looked as though made of steel. No
portholes or windows were visible. No wings or projections.
Nothing but the long perfect torpedo form, with its bullet-
shaped head, and the rear end which was cut off sharply and
squarely. (1) The monster - and I emphasise that it was this
terrifying size that impressed me - was well below us. I
thought maybe 2,000 metres or so below us, but of course I had
no way of being able to gauge this or to estimate the size of
the thing.
"I looked down again quickly at the monster, and saw that a
swathe of tiny clouds were beginning to pass over it, though it
remained visible through them for a few seconds before being
lost to my sight.
"I sat there in utter amazement that such a craft could exist.
Why, I thought, had I never heard, in all my life, of the
existence of anything like this! I felt stunned, and dazed,
contemplating my utter ignorance that such things could be, and
A grayish disc-shaped object which hovered, wobbling on its axis, then evaded pursuit, was sighted October 2, 1961 at Salt Lake City, Utah airport.
Private pilot Waldo J. Harris, a real estate broker, investigated the object in his light aircraft as 8-10 ground personnel at the airport watched. Mr. Harris signed a NICAP report form on October 10, and later answered additional questions by a NICAP Subcommittee member. His report: "I was preparing to take off in a Mooney Mark 20A from the North- South runway at Utah Central Airport when I noticed a bright spot in the sky over the southern end of the Salt Lake Valley. I began my take-off run without paying much attention to the bright spot as I assumed that it was some aircraft reflecting the sun as it turned. After I was airborne and trimmed for my climb-out, I noticed that the bright spot was still about in the same position as before. I still thought it must be the sun reflecting from an airplane, so I made my turn onto my cross-wind leg of the traffic pattern, and was about to turn downwind when I noticed that the spot was in the same spot still.
"I turned out of the pattern and proceeded toward the spot to get a better look. As I drew nearer I could see that the object had no wings nor tail nor any other exterior control surfaces protruding from what appeared to be the fuselage. It seemed to be hovering with a little rocking motion. As it rocked up away from me, I could see that it was a disc shaped object. I would guess the diameter at about 50 to 55 feet, the thickness in the middle at about 8 to 10 feet. It had the appearance of sand- blasted aluminum. I could see no windows or doors or any other openings, nor could I see any landing gear doors, etc., protruding, nor showing.
"I believe at the closest point I was about 2 miles from the object, at the same altitude or a little above the object. It rose abruptly about 1000 feet above me as I closed in, giving me an excellent view of the underneath side, which was exactly like the upper side as far as I could tell. Then it went off on a course of about 170 degrees for about 10 miles where it again hovered with that little rocking motion.
"I again approached the object, but not so closely this time, when it departed on a course of about 245 degrees climbing at about 18 to 20 degrees above the horizon. It went completely out of sight in 2 or 3 seconds. As you know I can keep our fastest jets in sight for several minutes, so you can see that this object was moving rather rapidly.
"All the time I was observing the object, after getting visual confirmation from the ground, I was describing what I saw on radio unicom frequency. I was answering questions from the ground both from Utah Central, and Provo. The voice at Provo said that they could not see the object, but at least 8 or 10 people did see it from the ground at Utah Central Airport.
"As to seeing it again, I was returning to the field after it had departed when I was asked over radio if I still could see the object , and I reported that I could not. They said they had it in sight again. I turned back and saw it at much greater distance only for about a second or two when it completely vanished. The guys on the ground said it went straight up as it finally left, but I didn't see that departure."
On the NICAP report form, Mr. Harris pointed out that the UFO at one time "passed below the horizon in front of mountains to the south." This fact rules out any astronomical explanation.
Int: Was that a regular flight of American Airlines?
Ryan: Yes, it was.
Int: From Buffalo to New York?
Ryan: This flight comes out of New York and lands at Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and terminates in Buffalo.
Int: What was your first idea that anything was happening-- that you were seeing something?
Neff: This very brilliant white light, like an approaching aircraft with its landing lights on. Naturally we moved away from it thinking that's what it was. Then we noticed it was standing still at the time and we got sort of curious.
Int: Just about what location was this?
Ryan: This was just about over Schenectady. We were coming out of Albany. We took off north and we made a left turn and we noticed this light over Schenectady. It seemed to be standing still.
Int: A light? Now, when you say a light do you mean a light like a light bulb- about that color?
Ryan: Oh yes, very fluorescent--a very bright light.
Int: A big what?
Ryan: A large light. It looked more like a light coming into Albany airport.
MIT: And both of you saw it? At the same time?
Int: How close were you to it, do you think?
Ryan: We turned a little bit to pass to the south of it, and we were probably 2 or 3 miles from it.
Int: And the thing was just standing there?
Ryan: Just about standing; it was off our wingtip.
Int: Was there anyone else on the flight with you?
Ryan: Oh, we had Miss Reynolds, our stewardess was with us.
Int: Did she happen to notice it too?
Ryan: She came up. We called her and she came up and looked at it later on after this had taken off at this terrific speed from where we first noticed it.
Int: How long was it stationary there?
Neff: We couldn't say that it was actually stationary.....(several talking at once) < br />
Ryan: · . . from the time we were off the ground at Albany, until we--it's about 15 miles by air to Schenectady and it was off our wingtip, and we watched it go through a ninety degree arc, go right straight to the west, and it was-- how many seconds does it take to go through a ninety degree arc?
Int: Bruce?
Foster: How fast would you say it appeared to be going? Did it change speed very radically during the time that you saw it?
Ryan: The initial speed l would say probably was 800 to 1000 miles an hour. How fast can it--it's hard to say, just to compute that speed.
Neff: Certainly much faster than another airplane would.
Ryan: Oh much faster, much faster than a jet.
lnt: Faster than a jet?
Ryan: Yes ma 'am.
Neff: Couldn't be a jet, not at that altitude because their fuel is so critical.
Foster: Did it appear to change color at all?
Ryan: Yes it did. It changed color after it got to the west of us, probably 8 to 10 miles. It appeared--the light went out, that's what had Bill and I concerned. It went out momentarily, and we knew there was something up there, and now here we were with a load of passengers with something on our course up ahead, and what are we going to do, so we watched this where the light went out and this orange object came on--this orange light.
Ryan: We looked at one another a little bit amazed, so we decided we'd call Griffiss Air Force Base, and I thought they had the radar on. . . And they didn't have it on- It would taken them 30 minutes to energize the set.
Neff: They asked us to keep it sighted and we did, and we kept calling out our location and as we told them where we were we turned all our lights on. They asked us to turn them off and they could see us, and they asked if this object you see is orange in color. We said it was---
lnt: This is after it turned on I understand
Ryan: Yes. They said "we have a definite silhouette in sight south of the field." Now those fellas are observers who are in the tower. They said that they could see a silhouette.
Neff: Watertown could see it and they're quite a ways north of Griffiss, and Albany saw it--two men in the tower at Albany--one an Air Force man and one a CAA man. And they saw it after we first called them, and noticed--and they looked over to the west and saw it right away.
Int: And when they saw it was it moving?
Neff: Well, we didn't get to talk with them---
Int: But to you it was moving?
Neff: Oh yes.
Int: Real fast?
Ryan: It stayed just that far ahead of us, and they asked us what our point of next intended landing was, and 1 told them Syracuse, and they wanted to be identified--our aircraft, number and serial number, and they said "well abandon that next landing temporarily and maintain the course and your altitude," so we did. They were calling scramble.
41
Int: When you said ****(garbled), was it low, or was it low for a jet?
Neff: Well, it was low and it was also low for a jet. There happened to be an overcast that evening which eliminated the possibility of a star right off the bat, and ****(gar bled) the way I understand it a jet burns up three or four times the amount of fuel at low altitude than it does at high altitude. 1 don't think a jet could stay down that long with out using up a considerable amount of gas.
Int: How fast were you going?
Ryan: About 250 miles per hour.
Int: ****(garbled) then did they slow down or why didn't **** (garbled)
Ryan: They must have slowed down. "They" or 'it" must have slowed down.
Neff: We trailed out as far as Oswego which is right on the south shore of Lake Ontario and we passed up our point of landing at Syracuse and we weren't sure we should hold the passengers up any longer, and of course we didn't advise them.
Ryan: We called them (Griffiss AFB) and they said they were "about off, "and that was about 8 minutes and we couldn't work them any longer, and we turned over with Syracuse tower, and they were giving--relaying the messages back and forth, and it was then about 10 to 12 minutes and they're still not off yet. And we can't - -I don 'I know, we'd probably still be flying. I just don't know where the jets were. Why didn't they get the jets up?
Int: Well what happened to the object?
Ryan: It went off, it just went to the northwest and it went out of sight.
Foster: Was it more rapid? All of a sudden did it accelerate its speed?
Ryan: It did appear to - -after it got over the water it appeared really get out of sight very fast.
Neff: It did, in the direction of Toronto--in that direction.
Int: Was this object saucer-shaped or not?
Ryan: Oh I don't know; I couldn't say.
Neff: There was no definite shape to it, it was just a brilliant light.
Source: Daily Telegraph December 16th 1954
Navy pilot has reported seeing two "flying saucers" flash past him while he was flying over Goulburn, N.S.W.
Radar officers at Nowra Fleet Air station picked up the objects on their screen. The pilot said he had the "saucers" go past his Sea Fury plane at supersonic speed.
Navy authorities last night would not comment on the reports which they said was "top secret" but they said the incident occurred three months ago. Pressmen heard of the report while visiting the Nowra Fleet Air Arm station yesterday with the minister of the Navy (Mr Francis). The pilot report said he was flying over Goulburn at 15,000 feet when he saw two lighted objects flash past. He said they easily passed his sea Fury fighter which was capable of flying 450 to 500 miles per hour.
CHECK
The pilot reported the incident to Nowra radar officers about 9.30 p.m. The screen showed three objects at his position-his Sea Fury and two other flying objects. radar officers were unable to identify the two mother objects. A later check showed no other planes were in the vicinity. The pilot said he saw the objects for only a few seconds before they disappeared. He told the interviewing senior officers that the objects, which were brightly lit, appeared to be spinning at fantastic" speed.
SECURITY
According to O'Farrell, the apparent crossing speeds of the lights were the fastest he had ever encountered. He had been flying at 220 knots. O'Farrell contacted Nowra who in turn confirmed that they had two radar "paints" in company with him. The radar operator, Petty Officer Keith Jessop, confirmed the presence of 2 objects near the Sea Fury on the G.C.I. remote display. The two lights reformed at nine o'clock and then disappeared on a north easterly heading. O'Farrell could only make out "a vague shape with the white light situated centrally on top."
The Directorate of Naval Intelligence at the time wrote that O'Farrell was "an entirely credible witness" and that he "was visibly 'shaken' by his experience, but remains adamant that he saw these objects"
"I said, "Nowra, this is 921. Do you have me on radar." "And a few seconds later they came back and said, "Affirmative 921. We have you coming in from the west. We have another two contacts as well. Which one are you." "I said, "I think I'm the central one." And so they said, "Do a 180...for identification." So I did a quick 180 and then continued on around and made it a 360 back to where I was going.
On the evening of 23 November 1953, an Air Defense Command Ground Intercept radar controller at Truax AFB became alerted to an "unidentified target" over Soo Locks. He sounded the alert, and an F-89C Scorpion jet was scrambled from nearby Kinross Field. The jet was piloted by 1st Lieutenant Felix Moncla, Jr., with 2nd Lieutenant Robert Wilson in the rear seat as radar operator.
Ground Control vectored the jet toward the target, noting that the target changed course as the F-89 approached it at over 500 mph. Lt. Wilson had problems tracking the target on his onboard radar, so ground control continued to direct the jet to the target. For thirty minutes, the jet pursued the radar blip and began to close the gap as the UFO accelerated out over Lake Superior.
As Ground Control watched, the gap between the two blips on the radar screen grew smaller and smaller until the two blips became one blip. Ground Control thought that Moncla had flown over the target and that the two blips would separate again as he moved past it.
That didn't happen. Suddenly, the single blip flashed off the screen and the radar screen was clear of any return at all.
Frantically, Ground Control tried to contact the F-89 by radio. There was no response. Marking the last radar position, Ground Control dispatched an emergency message to Search and Rescue. That last sighting was about seventy miles off Keweenaw Point in upper Michigan, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, approximately 160 miles northwest of Soo Locks.
After an all night air/sea rescue search, not a trace of the plane or the men was ever found. No debris, no oil slick, nothing was ever found.
Officials at Norton Air Force Base Flying Safety Division issued a statement that "the pilot probably suffered from vertigo and crashed into the lake." However, this was merely speculation and was based on hearsay reports that Moncla was prone to vertigo.
The Air Force explained the unknown radar target at first as a Canadian DC-3, then later as a RCAF jet. Canadian officials responded that there were no Canadian aircraft in the airspace over the lake at any time during the chase. The Air Force finally stated that the F-89 had exploded at high altitude, ignoring the fact that this would have left a lot of debris on the lake surface.
NICAP investigators found that mentions of Moncla's mission - chasing an unidentified target - had been obliterated from official records. Project Bluebook files simply listed the case as an "accident."
"About 300 miles outside of Argentia, Newfoundland, I saw a glow on the water. As we approached this glow, it turned into hundreds of circles of white lights on the water. We watched it for a while; when the lights went out, there was nothing on the water. The next thing that we saw was a yellow halo that was very small, about 15 miles away. It came up to 10,000 feet in a fraction of a second. I disengaged the autopilot and pushed the nose over, because I was going to go under it at the angle that it was coming toward me. The minute that I did that, it was up at our altitude and I could see nothing outside of the cockpit but this craft."
"I didn't know which way to go. Then all of a sudden I heard a racket. I didn't know what it was. And I said: 'What the hell was that?' One of the crewmen looked around and said: 'Everyone [in the plane] was ducking [down] and they collided [with each other]. They were all lying on the [floor of the plane]."
"Then [the UFO] appeared over to the right, moved out slowly and flew with us. It was not at our altitude, but we could see the shape of it. It was a dome and I could see the coronal discharge. I went back aft, let the other pilot, Al Jones, take my seat, and went to see if the passengers were OK. They had some bumps and bruises. One passenger was a doctor so I went to him first. I said: 'Doc, did you see what we saw?' He looked me straight in the eye and said: 'Yeah, it was a flying saucer.' He said: 'I didn't look at it because I don't believe in such things.' It took me a couple of seconds to realize what he was saying. Being a psychiatrist, he couldn't believe in that kind of thing."
"So I went back to the cockpit and said, 'Al, whatever you do, don't tell anybody we saw anything. They will lock us up as soon as we get on the ground.' He says: 'It's too late. I just called Gander control [in Newfoundland] to see if they could track this by radar.' So that's how the story got out."
"It was obvious from the questions and demeanor of the US Navy men who debriefed us that they'd seen things out there before. When the crew returned to the Patuxant River Naval Air Test Center in Maryland, they required that each of us writes a report."
On March 20, 1950, a Reserve Air Force Captain and an airlines Captain were flying a commercial airlines flight. At 21:26, the airline Captain directed the attention of the Reserve Air Force Captain to an object which apparently was flying at high speed, approaching the airliner from the south on a north heading. The Reserve Air Force Captain focused his attention on the object. Both crew members watched it as it passed in front of them and went out of sight to the right. The observation, which lasted about 25 to 35 seconds, occurred about 15 miles north of a medium-sized city. When the object passed in front of the airliner, it was not more than 1/2 mile distant and at an altitude of about 1000 feet higher than the airliner.
The object appeared to be circular, with a diameter of approximately 100 feet and with a vertical height considerably less than the diameter, giving the object a disk-like shape. In the top center was a light which was blinking at an estimated 3 flashes per second. This light was so brilliant that it would have been impossible to look at it continuously had it not been blinking. This light could be seen only when the object was approaching and after it had passed the airliner. When the object passed in front of the observers, the bottom side was visible. The bottom side appeared to have 9 to 12 symmetrical oval or circular portholes located in a circle approximately 3/4 of the distance from the center to the outer edge. Through these portholes came a soft purple light about the shade of aircraft line without spinning. Considering the visibility, the length of time the object was in sight, and the distance from the object, the Reserve Air Force Captain estimates the speed to be in excess of 1000 mph.
The incident the young lieutenant was referring to has since become known as the Gorman Dogfight, one of the early “classics” in UFO history.
On the evening of October 1st, 1948, Lieutenant Gorman was returning from a cross-country flight with his squadron of North Dakota Air National Guard. When the pilots got to Hector airport in Fargo, Gorman decided to log some night-flying time, so he stayed up and circled his F-51 around the city. As he was preparing to land, the control tower advised him that a Piper Cub was in the air. Gorman saw the Piper 500 feet below, but then what appeared to be the taillight of another plane flashed by on the right. The tower insisted there weren’t any other planes in the sky, so Gorman told them he wanted to investigate and took off after the moving light.
He closed to within about l,000 yards to take a good look, later saying, “It was about six to eight inches in diameter, clear white, and completely round without fuzz at the edges.
It was blinking on and off. As I approached, however, the light suddenly became steady and pulled into a sharp left bank. I thought it was making a pass at the tower. I dived after it and brought my manifold pressure up to sixty inches, but I couldn't catch up with the thing. It started gaining altitude and again made a left bank,” he said. “I put my F-51 into a sharp turn and tried to cut the light off in its turn. By then we were at about 7,000 feet. Suddenly it made a sharp right turn and we headed straight at each other. Just when we were about to collide, I guess I got scared. I went into a dive, and the light passed over my canopy at about 500 feet.”
Gorman said he cut sharply toward the light, which was once more coming at him. When it again appeared they’d collide, the object shot straight up in a steep climb-out, disappearing overhead. Gorman again went after it, but his plane went into a power stall, and the object disappeared. The dogfight had lasted 27 minutes. Gorman was so shook up, he had a hard time landing his plane, even though he was a veteran pilot and flight instructor.
The official explanation the Air Force gave was that the light was merely a lit weather balloon. But Gorman’s story wouldn’t die. In April, 1952, LIFE Magazine did a story on UFOs, stating, The Air Force is now ready to concede that many saucer and fireball sightings still defy explanation; here LIFE offers some scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary saucers.
The article went on to describe the Gorman Dogfight: For 27 hair-raising minutes, Gorman pursued the light through a series of intricate maneuvers. He said it was...going faster than his F-51 (300-400 mph). It made no sound and left no exhaust trail. After Gorman landed, the light having suddenly flashed away in the upper air, he found support for his story - the chief of the control tower had followed the fantastic “combat” with binoculars.
That’s right. Both men in the control tower saw the whole thing, and so did the two men in the Piper Cub. The Gorman Dogfight has now become one of the most noted UFO encounters in PROJECT BLUE BOOK, the Air Force’s official record – and denial – of such things.
The 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting
Date: June 24, 1947
Location: Near Mt. Rainier, Washington, United States
On June 24, 1947, he was returning home from a business trip when he made a detour into the Yakima, Washington area to help in an aerial search for a missing C-46 marine transport plane that was believed to have gone down in the area.
At around 3:00 in the afternoon, he was flying at about 9,000 feet, near Mount Rainier, when a flash of light caught his eye. He turned and saw a procession of nine very strange objects flying from north to south in front of his plane. They were flat and rather heel-shaped, very shiny, and they moved erratically, like a "saucer would if you skipped it across water." You can see Arnold's drawing of what he saw here. Arnold estimated their size at about two-thirds that of a DC-4, and he calculated their speed at over 1500 mph by timing their travel between two mountain peaks of known distance.
When he arrived at Yakima, Washington, Arnold told several other pilots about his sighting. The consensus among them was that it was some type of military "secret weapon". However, Arnold would later find that the U.S. military was as mystified by the objects as he himself was.
We have delayed release of this case, principally because an investigation was begun almost immediately after our receipt of the initial report, and because we were hoping to obtain addition documentation about the sighting, before it could be concealed, or destroyed.
At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.
The object was first spotted by an employee, working on the ramp, who was engaged in "pushing back" Flight 446, departing Chicago for Charlotte, NC. The employee reported to his supervisors that the object appeared to be almost directly above his location at Gate C17, it appeared to be perfectly round, and that its size was approximately equal to a U. S. quarter, held at arm's length. The object had a metallic appearance, according to the first witness, and it appeared to him to be spinning.
The first witness apprised the flight crew of Flight 446 of the existence of the object above their aircraft, and we believe both the pilot and copilot were witness to the bizarre object, as well. The witness also contacted his supervisors, who also witnessed the object, which was visible for approximately 2 minutes.
At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up at a very rapid pace, and it "shot" through the solid overcast, which was at 1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a "hole" in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration were apprised of the event at the time it was occurring, and personnel in one, or more, of the towers at O'Hare may have witnessed the object, possibly with binoculars. The FAA apparently reported that the object was not visible on radar, although that fact has not been confirmed at the time of this writing.
We hope to be able to release more information about the incident at some time in the near future. In the meantime, we would like to invite anyone who may have been personal witness to the event to submit a report of their sighting, using our Online Report Form. We would be most grateful if you would indicate in your report where you were located, at the time of the sighting, and what the object looked like, from your vantage point.
Mexican Air Force Pilots Film 11 UFOs
Date: March 2004
Location: Over Campeche State, Mexico
"Mexican Air Force Pilots Film 11 UFOs"
Associated Press 5/11/04A videotape made widely available to the news media on Tuesday shows the bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in what appears to be a late-evening sky.
The lights were filmed on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), and allegedly surrounded the Air Force jet as it conducted routine anti-drug trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects showed up on the plane's radar.
``Was I afraid? Yes. A little afraid because we were facing something that had never happened before,'' said radar operator Lt. German Marin in a taped interview made public Tuesday.
``I couldn't say what it was ... but I think they're completely real,'' added Lt. Mario Adrian Vazquez, the infrared equipment operator. Vazquez insisted that there was no way to alter the recorded images.
The plane's captain, Maj. Magdaleno Castanon, said the military jets chased the lights ``and I believe they could feel we were pursuing them.''
When the jets stopped following the objects, they disappeared, he said.
A Defense Department spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the videotape was filmed by members of the Mexican Air Force. The spokesman declined to comment further and spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The video was first aired on national television Monday night then again at a news conference Tuesday by Jaime Maussan, a Mexican investigator who has dedicated the past 10 years to studying UFOs.
``This is historic news,'' Maussan told reporters. ``Hundreds of videos (of UFOs) exist, but none had the backing of the armed forces of any country. ... The armed forces don't perpetuate frauds.''
Maussan said Secretary of Defense Gen. Ricardo Vega Garcia gave him the video on April 22.
THE FACTS: On April 20, 2004 Jaime Maussan was contacted by a high officer of the Department of Defense to have a private meeting and discuss a subject of a high relevant matter. The next day Maussan met General Clemente Vega Garcia, Secretary of Defense and his major staff and was informed about an incident that took place on March 5, 2004 on the aerial space of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche where an Air Force Merlín C26A Bimotor airplane was doing a routine flight to detect a smuggling drug airplane during an ant-narcotics operation.
The Merlin C26A was equipped with a high tech advanced digital equipment to register and record all the activities during the operation. Powerful sensor detectors like a FLIR STAR ZAPPHIR II and a RADAR AN/PS 143 BRAVO VICTOR 3 were being used by qualified personal aboard the airplane and all the operation was being recorded both in normal and infrared mode. The airplane was under the command of Mayor Magdaleno Jasso Núñez.
The FLIR operator was Lt. Mario Adrián Vázquez and the RADAR operator Lt. German Ramirez, all of them members of the 501 Aerial Squadron. This airplane is programmed only for surveillance and detection procedures, not for interception or combat manouvres. Their duty is to detect and identify drug dealers flights and then immediately report them to the base where combat planes are scrambled to intercept those narcotics smugglers. At approximately 17:00 PM the Merlin C26A detected an unknown traffic at 10,500 feet over Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche airspace and according to the protocol and suspecting a drug dealer airplane Mayor Magdaleno Jasso made a maneuver to approach the unidentified traffic at certain range to get a close look and record the target with their equipment.
At the same time Mayor Jasso reported by radio to the base that a possible suspect was detected requesting the interceptor planes to be in alert condition. The RADAR AN/PS 143 BRAVO VICTOR 3 was detecting the unknown traffic and the FLIR STAR ZAPPHIR II was recording the object in infrared. As the Merlin C26A tried to approach the unknown traffic to make a visual identification it suddenly in a surprising maneuver escaped flying away at tremendous speed.
By this time Mayor Jasso tried to persecute the target but it was very fast. All this was being recorded by the FLAIR and also the radio conversations with the base describing the unexpected maneuver of the unknown. However the C26A still have not made visual contact with the unknown object. Just some moments passed when suddenly the unknown object returned and began following the Merlin C26A in a surprising situation.
This was detected by the RADAR and the FLIR while the personal aboard were trying to make visual contact of the unidentified traffic now following them. In seconds the equipment detected now not only one but two traffics following them. The images in both RADAR and the FLIR were clear and unmistakable. But both pilot and personal still couldn’t have visual contact with these two traffics following them adding a great suspense to this disconcerting situation. Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported to the base the incident that was taking place giving detail of all the information registered by the equipment while keep trying to make visual contact of the unknowns. The FLIR kept recording in infrared every movement made by the two unknown objects that seemed to be keeping their distance from the C26A but still following it. The personal aboard the Merlin C26A were confused and disconcerted seeing the images on the FLIR and the RADAR asking themselves what was going on with this situation.
THE INCIDENT TURNS MORE DRAMATIC
But the stressing moment that the C26A crew were passing through was just the beginning of something more dramatic that will turn their undesirable experience into a real nightmare. Some minutes passed while the Mexican Air Force Merlin C26A crew continued making maneuvers to have a visual contact of the unknowns because despite both RADAR and FLIR were showing perfectly clear both unidentified objects for unexplained reasons there was not a visual contact even that the objects by this time were at close range. It was during this round and round maneuvers to identify these two objects that something amazing happened. In a matter of seconds more unknown objects arrived to the scene and the disconcert of the C26A crew was total.
The RADAR and the FLIR detected immediately the presence of nine new objects of the same size and characteristics, unknown objects that arrived to the scene surprisingly like coming from nowhere.
Now the situation has entered into a high level of danger so Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported by radio to the base this new situation requesting instructions. But the most bizarre thing was that even though there were eleven unknown objects close to them, still the crew couldn’t see them, no visual contact with the unknowns was possible for some reason never experienced before by these high trained men. However the high tech sophisticated equipment and sensors were not lying, there were eleven targets outside them with unpredictable intentions.
At the middle of a complete confusion and disconcert among the C26A crew the unknown objects suddenly made a maneuver surrounding the Mexican Air Force airplane in a circle at close range. The RADAR and FLIR presented an image of an eleven objects near by in a circle formation around the Merlin C26A. The situation turned out of control. Mayor Magdaleno Jasso reported to the base that the C26A situation was now in red alert, surrounded by eleven mysterious round shaped objects camouflaged with a certain unknown advanced technology that avoid any visual contact of them.
However Mayor Jasso kept the calm as well as the crew who were working fast measuring and recording every detail of this unique incident conscientious of their duty as military and trained men. Confronting this situation surrounded by unidentified objects in an unpredictable ending Mayor Magdaleno Jasso took the decision of turning out all the airplane lights and wait to see what happened. Moments of high suspense lived by the crew while the FLIR was recording the images of those bright objects even that visual contact was not possible, moments of silence and uncertainty.
The C26A crew kept calmed doing their duty, documenting every moment of the strange incident while Mayor Jasso continued in contact with the base. After some stressing minutes the eleven objects disappeared giving an end to the strange experience that these members of the 501 Aerial Squadron just lived. The Merlin C26A returned safe to the Air Force Base and Mayor Magdaleno Jasso prepared a complete report of the incident along with the C26A crew. The Secretary of the Defense took notice of Mayor Jasso's report and began a full investigation studying and evaluating every element of the case.
Statements of the crew, images, lectures, measurements of all the equipment as well as a complete evaluation of the meteorological data . The incident was taken very seriously by the Department of Defense Staff and after several weeks of investigation they decided under the command of General Clemente Vega Garcia to contact researcher and TV journalist Jaime Maussan for a special collaboration in this investigation as an experienced researcher in these matters. On April 22, 2004 General Clemente Vega, Secretary of Defense gave Jaime Maussan a copy of all the tapes and data collected by the Merlin C26A during the incident for study, evaluation and analysis by Maussan's research team as complement of this investigation and as an external collaborating source trying to establish a definition of the possible motives and consequences of the March 5, 2004 incident.
General Vega as well as his staff were very open to discuss the subject and showed their legitimate interest in conducting this investigation in order to establish the truth of what happened. General Vega authorized the Merlin C26A crew to give Jaime Maussan the interviews needed without any censorship, giving all the facilities to present this case to the Mexican people, an historic and unprecedented decision that will open a new era of mutual collaboration among the Mexican ufologists and the military forces, a collaboration based in respect and interest to find the truth of the intense UFO activity we have been experiencing here in Mexico since the beginning of the Amazing Mexican UFO Wave back in July 11, 1991.
This new era of relationship among the Mexican UFO witnesses, skywatchers, ufologists and our military forces will try to establish and give form to a new legislation in our law system focused to be prepared for any incident involving these unidentified flying objects, our people, our commercial and military airplanes etc. for learning and understanding what are we going to do and how are we going to confront this reality.
Airline Pilot Photographs Three Bright Large UFOs
Date: February 26, 2004
Location: Pisco, Peru
Summary: 3 VERY BRIGHT OBJECTS IN THE SKY
Date Posted: 3/16/2004 10:27:30 PM
Day/Night: Nighttime
Duration: 10 mins.
No. of Witnesses: 6
No. of Object(s): Multiple
Full Description & Details
WHILE FLYING ABEAM PISCO PERU, WE NOTICED 3 VERY BRIGHT LARGE OBJECTS. THEY WERE NOT MOVING MUCH. THEY PASSED BY US AT A DISTANCE OF 20-30 MILESAT APPROXIMATE 20000 FT. WE WERE AT 31000 FEET. THERE WERE 4 CREWMEMBERS ON OUR B767-300ER. ALL NOTICED IT. THERE ALSO WAS A MEXICANA AIRLINER OVERHEAD THAT NOTICED THE OBJECTS AS WELL.
THEY WERE TO LARGE TO BE SHIPS. THEY WERE OVER THE OCEAN. AND VERY BRIGHT. WE CALLED THE LOCAL AIRTRAFFIC CONTROLLERS IN LIMA AND THE DID NOT SEE THEM ON RADAR.
Witness Background: AIRLINE PILOT. RATED ON B737 B757 B767
Reported Sighting? Yes
Reported To: LIMA AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
Location: MIAMI, FL, USA
Age: 33
Disk-Shaped Object Photographed by Military Pilot in Hungary
Date: September 29, 2001
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Source: Kal Korff / Rense.com
BUDAPEST, Hungary - A military pilot recorded a spectacular video of a silver disk object on September 29, 2001. The craft was flying to his left side and then moved very fast past him in the clouds as can be seen in the video.
"I was on a flight over Budapest, Hungary," said the pilot, who has requested that his name be withheld until the official inquiry by the Hungarian Ministry of Defence is complete.
"To my left I saw a bright metal aircraft that was the shape of a perfect disk. I was careful to film the object, not to try and chase it since it I could not match its speed. As I was flying a reconnaisance aircraft, I got the idea to film it and used our equipment."
Officials at the Ministry of Defence would not answer questions about the video when asked and warned that officially they have no comment. Despite the denial, when informed of the pilot's name, they did acknowledge that the he was a real air force pilot and that it was true that he flew photo reconnaisance airplanes.
The pilot considers the video he made to be his property and not the Hungarian governments as he was flying the plane while not on duty and was transporting it as a favor to save the government money. He has now hired an attorney and wants the video to be released to the public. He hopes the release of a few frames will make this happen.
[from Hungarian press news article, translated into English]
Chinese Air Force pilot chases 'mushroom-shaped' UFO
Date: October 19, 1998
Location: Changzhou, China
AFP (Agence-France Presse) news article (Nov. 5, 1998):
Chinese Air Force Pilot Chases UFO
SHANGHAI -- (Agence France Presse) The air force had a prolonged up-close encounter with a UFO last month that one fighter pilot described as "just like ones in foreign movies," a government-controlled newspaper reported Thursday.
A Hebei Daily report -- carried in the news digest Baokan Wenzhai -- gave a detailed pilot's account of an aerial cat-and-mouse game played between the object and a jet fighter ordered to intercept it.
At least 140 people on the ground also saw the object, it said.
An editor with the Hebei Daily said the events took place on Oct. 19 and were still being investigated by local government departments.
The newspaper's report and military sources quoted show an openness that contrast sharply with Washington's notorious secrecy on the topic of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
It said the encounter began when four different radar stations in northern Hebei province picked up an unknown moving target in airspace directly above a military flight training base near Changzhou city.
To observers at the base, the UFO first appeared like "a small star," and then grew larger and larger, perhaps as it descended to a lower altitude, the report said.
They described an object with a mushroom-shaped dome on top and a flat bottom covered with bright, continually rotating lights.
A base commander surnamed Li reported to his superiors, who ordered a Jianjiao-6 armed interceptor airborne to pursue the object once checks showed no other civilian or military aircraft in the area.
The two pilots aboard said the object closely resembled depictions they had seen in foreign science fiction films.
When they got within 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) of the UFO over Qing county, it abruptly shot upward, easily evading subsequent attempts to get closer.
It appeared to be toying with the fighter by repeatedly outdistancing it and then reappearing just above it, the pilots said.
The report said a request for permission to fire on the UFO with an onboard cannon was denied by ground command at one point.
The interceptor was eventually forced to return to base after it ran out of fuel at an altitude of 12,000 meters (39,600 feet). The UFO then disappeared before two newer-model planes could get airborne, the article said.
While China's racy tabloids often run stories of strange phenomena alongside celebrity-gossip and crime stories, UFO reports are seldom carried by more official papers like the Hebei Daily. (1998 Agence France Presse)
Pilot encounters giant pyramid-shaped UFO over Pelotas, Brazil
Date: October 5, 1996
Location: Pelotas, Brazil
Source: CNI News, Dec. 20, 1997
[Excerpt from the article]
Perhaps the most impressive UFO story told during the recent Brazilian World UFO Forum was that of Haraldo Westendorf, who made news headlines a year ago when he allegedly flew his private plane within a few dozen meters of an enormous unidentified flying object.
Westendorf is 40 years old, a father of three children and a successful businessman. He is also an avid private pilot rated for acrobatic flying. The following account is based directly on his one-hour presentation at the Brazilian UFO conference, which included several detailed illustrations.
Westendorf says he took off in his single-engine Piper Apache [correction: the plane was actually an Embraer EMB-712, the Brazilian version of the Piper Cherokee Archer II] from the city of Pelotas near the southernmost tip of Brazil on the morning of November 5, 1996. It was to be a routine recreational flight of the kind he takes for fun whenever time allows.
On this occasion, he had been in the air only about 12 minutes and was flying at an altitude of 5,000 feet over a large lake some five miles southeast of Pelotas when he saw ahead of him an enormous aerial object. The time was about 10:30 a.m.
He radioed the Pelotas tower to learn if they could see the object from the ground. They confirmed that the object was visible to them and asked him for a close-range report. Westendorf then decided to fly as close as he could.
Westendorf emphasizes that he did not believe in UFOs and says this accounts for his initial willingness to fly close to the object. He didn't know he might be in danger.
When he got close to the object, he realized that in his twenty years of piloting experience he had never seen or heard of anything like it. Since he had done stunt training in the United States and had also flown in France, he had become acquainted with some very advanced and exotic aircraft. But he knew that this was not an airplane.
Westendorf showed several detailed color drawings of the object, with his own plane drawn to scale alongside it. He describes the object as a faceted cone, flat on the bottom with a rounded point on top. On each of the eight or ten sloping side panels were three large bulges, like triangle-shaped bay windows on the side of a house -- but they did not look like windows. The entire surface was brown in color. The structure was about 70 meters (225 feet) high and about 100 meters (325 feet) in diameter, big enough to fill nearly an entire soccer field if landed. His own plane, less than 6 meters wide, was tiny by comparison.
Westendorf says he spent about 12 to 14 minutes in close proximity to the object, trying to see as much as he could. Although the Pelotas air tower does not have radar, he believes the airport radar at Curitiba (nearly 450 nautical miles northeast of his position) tracked the whole encounter. However, officials at Curitiba deny this (see below).
The object was spinning around slowly and moving southeast toward the nearby seacoast at a speed of about 60 nautical miles per hour. Westendorf managed to fly entirely around the base of the object three times. At one point, he says, his wingtip came within about 40 meters of the object.
After his third lap around the object, Westendorf noticed that the rounded top seemed to disappear, leaving what looked like an open hole at the top. Then he saw, emerging from inside the object, a classic flying saucer. It rose sideways, its long axis vertical until it cleared the top of the larger object, then tipped down to assume its normal orientation and departed at tremendous speed. Westendorf said that this saucer was about 10 meters in diameter, or nearly twice as wide as his own plane, and he thinks it flew away at more than Mach 10. The saucer showed no indication of noticing Westendorf's presence nearby.
As soon as the saucer disappeared, Westendorf decided to try to fly over the top of the object. Brazilian media later reported that he wanted to fly his plane into the interior of the object, but he says he never even considered that. He only hoped for a peek through the opening.
To get more altitude, he flew his plane several hundred meters away from the object, turned around and began a steep climb. He noticed that the object was now rotating much faster. Then he saw brilliant beams of red light shoot from the top of the object toward the sky. He quickly abandoned his plan to fly over the top.
Then, to his amazement, the object rose straight up at tremendous speed. For the first time, Westendorf was scared, because he believed the object's rapid acceleration might produce a shock wave of turbulence that could overwhelm his own plane. As a trained pilot, he knew that air traffic controllers recommend staying at least three minutes behind a large aircraft to avoid such turbulence. He estimated that the unidentified object probably weighed at least three times as much as a 747 jumbo jet, so its shock wave should be huge -- and he was only a few hundred meters away.
He quickly began emergency procedures in case his plane went into a spin or a stall. But to his surprise, he did not encounter any turbulence.
[Excerpt from the article]
Perhaps the most impressive UFO story told during the recent Brazilian World UFO Forum was that of Haraldo Westendorf, who made news headlines a year ago when he allegedly flew his private plane within a few dozen meters of an enormous unidentified flying object.
Westendorf is 40 years old, a father of three children and a successful businessman. He is also an avid private pilot rated for acrobatic flying. The following account is based directly on his one-hour presentation at the Brazilian UFO conference, which included several detailed illustrations.
Westendorf says he took off in his single-engine Piper Apache [correction: the plane was actually an Embraer EMB-712, the Brazilian version of the Piper Cherokee Archer II] from the city of Pelotas near the southernmost tip of Brazil on the morning of November 5, 1996. It was to be a routine recreational flight of the kind he takes for fun whenever time allows.
On this occasion, he had been in the air only about 12 minutes and was flying at an altitude of 5,000 feet over a large lake some five miles southeast of Pelotas when he saw ahead of him an enormous aerial object. The time was about 10:30 a.m.
He radioed the Pelotas tower to learn if they could see the object from the ground. They confirmed that the object was visible to them and asked him for a close-range report. Westendorf then decided to fly as close as he could.
Westendorf emphasizes that he did not believe in UFOs and says this accounts for his initial willingness to fly close to the object. He didn't know he might be in danger.
When he got close to the object, he realized that in his twenty years of piloting experience he had never seen or heard of anything like it. Since he had done stunt training in the United States and had also flown in France, he had become acquainted with some very advanced and exotic aircraft. But he knew that this was not an airplane.
Westendorf showed several detailed color drawings of the object, with his own plane drawn to scale alongside it. He describes the object as a faceted cone, flat on the bottom with a rounded point on top. On each of the eight or ten sloping side panels were three large bulges, like triangle-shaped bay windows on the side of a house -- but they did not look like windows. The entire surface was brown in color. The structure was about 70 meters (225 feet) high and about 100 meters (325 feet) in diameter, big enough to fill nearly an entire soccer field if landed. His own plane, less than 6 meters wide, was tiny by comparison.
Westendorf says he spent about 12 to 14 minutes in close proximity to the object, trying to see as much as he could. Although the Pelotas air tower does not have radar, he believes the airport radar at Curitiba (nearly 450 nautical miles northeast of his position) tracked the whole encounter. However, officials at Curitiba deny this (see below).
The object was spinning around slowly and moving southeast toward the nearby seacoast at a speed of about 60 nautical miles per hour. Westendorf managed to fly entirely around the base of the object three times. At one point, he says, his wingtip came within about 40 meters of the object.
After his third lap around the object, Westendorf noticed that the rounded top seemed to disappear, leaving what looked like an open hole at the top. Then he saw, emerging from inside the object, a classic flying saucer. It rose sideways, its long axis vertical until it cleared the top of the larger object, then tipped down to assume its normal orientation and departed at tremendous speed. Westendorf said that this saucer was about 10 meters in diameter, or nearly twice as wide as his own plane, and he thinks it flew away at more than Mach 10. The saucer showed no indication of noticing Westendorf's presence nearby.
As soon as the saucer disappeared, Westendorf decided to try to fly over the top of the object. Brazilian media later reported that he wanted to fly his plane into the interior of the object, but he says he never even considered that. He only hoped for a peek through the opening.
To get more altitude, he flew his plane several hundred meters away from the object, turned around and began a steep climb. He noticed that the object was now rotating much faster. Then he saw brilliant beams of red light shoot from the top of the object toward the sky. He quickly abandoned his plan to fly over the top.
Then, to his amazement, the object rose straight up at tremendous speed. For the first time, Westendorf was scared, because he believed the object's rapid acceleration might produce a shock wave of turbulence that could overwhelm his own plane. As a trained pilot, he knew that air traffic controllers recommend staying at least three minutes behind a large aircraft to avoid such turbulence. He estimated that the unidentified object probably weighed at least three times as much as a 747 jumbo jet, so its shock wave should be huge -- and he was only a few hundred meters away.
He quickly began emergency procedures in case his plane went into a spin or a stall. But to his surprise, he did not encounter any turbulence.
Wingless object near Norwegian airplane
Date: July 11, 1995
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
- First we thought it was another plane but as I bent down to get a better view, I noticed it had neither wings nor tail-fins, says captain Erik P. Risan. It was fine weather and good visibility. His (anonymous) co-pilot, on the right side of the cockpit, got a better view of the object but does not want to elaborate on the incident:
- I have already told the facts to the radar station in Trondheim. If I had wanted this story in the media I would have said so, he said.
The Wideroe Dash-8 plane was flying on 15.000 feet. Soon the unknown object slowed down and disappeared. In about a minute it was all over. The crew informed the Vaernes tower that something was in the air. Sometimes a weather balloon goes astray, but the captain does not want to speculate if this might be the explanation in this case. The military radar at Grakallen near Trondheim had coverage of the area but caught no returns from an unknown object. There were no military planes in the area. The object was considered unidentified by the military forces.
11 year old Roy Arne Hallem apparently witnessed the incident from the porch of his home at Inndalen. The boy told his parents on Tuesday evening. The incident was published the next day.
- The object was very polished and almost as large as the airplane. I saw it for half-a-minute or a minute before it went straight up at disappeared at great speed, he said. Three hours later the same (or a similar) silvery polished object was spotted by 75 year old Bjarne Lein.
Sources: Verdens Gang (Oslo newspaper), July 13 and 14, 1995; Stig Aggestad (UFO-Sweden).
America West Airlines Flight 564 UFO Case
Date: May 25, 1995
Location: Bovina, Texas, USA
"Cactus 564" was a routine America West flight that began in Tampa, Florida. The final leg of the flight was from Dallas/Forth Worth into Las Vegas, the ultimate destination.
On the night of May 25, 1995, Flight 564, a Boeing 757 piloted by Captain Eugene Tollefson and First Officer John J. Waller, was passing near Bovina, Texas, just across the state line from Clovis, New Mexico at about 9:25 MST. There were thunderstorms to the northeast, and the lead flight attendant was watching the lightning flashes in the night sky.
This flight attendant was the first to notice a line of regularly flashing lights in the sky to the north and below the airliner. The First Officer then saw them as well, and they observed a horizontal row of eight strobe-like lights, flashing on and off in sequence from left to right.
The lights, which were as bright as aircraft landing lights, were at an altitude of between 30,000 and 35,000 feet, and were bright white with a tinge of blue.
Captain Tollefson left his seat to look, and he saw the left to right sequencing lights also. As the lightning flashed behind the lights, it silhouetted something that to the observers appeared to be a large, dark, cigar shaped object between 300 and 500 feet in length, depending on how far away it was.
After about five minutes of observing the object, Flight 564 called Albuquerque Air Traffic Control to report the object. Albuquerque ATC noted that the position of the object was over a restricted military area called "Tieband." The controller also noted that the description sounded similar to that of a tethered aerostat except for the large number of strobes. However, the controller contacted sites that would know if an aerostat or any other military aircraft were in the air that night, and was given negative responses all around. The controller contacted other aircraft in the area, but no one else was able to see what Flight 564 saw.
The controller then contacted NORAD, who at first reported nothing on their radar at that location, then called back and said they had an unidentified return in that area, then called back again and said that the radar return had been a common small airplane with a malfunctioning transponder. An air traffic controller later said that there was yet another call from NORAD reporting that they later did have an unknown at that precise location, but this has never been corroborated. There is a transcript of the controller's radio conversations at UFO Plaza and there is a Real Audio excerpt of the conversations from the "Sightings" TV program at Cosmic Videos
No satisfactory explanation has ever been found for the Flight 564 sighting
On the night of May 25, 1995, Flight 564, a Boeing 757 piloted by Captain Eugene Tollefson and First Officer John J. Waller, was passing near Bovina, Texas, just across the state line from Clovis, New Mexico at about 9:25 MST. There were thunderstorms to the northeast, and the lead flight attendant was watching the lightning flashes in the night sky.
This flight attendant was the first to notice a line of regularly flashing lights in the sky to the north and below the airliner. The First Officer then saw them as well, and they observed a horizontal row of eight strobe-like lights, flashing on and off in sequence from left to right.
The lights, which were as bright as aircraft landing lights, were at an altitude of between 30,000 and 35,000 feet, and were bright white with a tinge of blue.
Captain Tollefson left his seat to look, and he saw the left to right sequencing lights also. As the lightning flashed behind the lights, it silhouetted something that to the observers appeared to be a large, dark, cigar shaped object between 300 and 500 feet in length, depending on how far away it was.
After about five minutes of observing the object, Flight 564 called Albuquerque Air Traffic Control to report the object. Albuquerque ATC noted that the position of the object was over a restricted military area called "Tieband." The controller also noted that the description sounded similar to that of a tethered aerostat except for the large number of strobes. However, the controller contacted sites that would know if an aerostat or any other military aircraft were in the air that night, and was given negative responses all around. The controller contacted other aircraft in the area, but no one else was able to see what Flight 564 saw.
The controller then contacted NORAD, who at first reported nothing on their radar at that location, then called back and said they had an unidentified return in that area, then called back again and said that the radar return had been a common small airplane with a malfunctioning transponder. An air traffic controller later said that there was yet another call from NORAD reporting that they later did have an unknown at that precise location, but this has never been corroborated. There is a transcript of the controller's radio conversations at UFO Plaza and there is a Real Audio excerpt of the conversations from the "Sightings" TV program at Cosmic Videos
No satisfactory explanation has ever been found for the Flight 564 sighting
Civil Aviation Authority Report on Near Miss With UFO
Date: January, 6, 1995
Location: Pennines, over Manchester, England
THE B737 PILOT reports that he was over the Pennines, about 8 or 9 NM SE of Manchester Airport, at 4000ft, while being radar vectored by Manchester radar on 119.4. He was flying at 180-210 kt on a N heading and squaking 5734 with Mode C selected. Although it was dark, visibility was over 10 km with a fairly strong NW wind (340/30). While flying just above the tops of some rugged Cu both he and the first officer saw a lighted (see JAS notes) object fly down the RH side of the ac at a high speed from the opposite direction. He was able to track the object through the RH windscreen and side window, having it is sight for a total of about 2 seconds. There was no apparent sound or wake. The first officer instinctively 'ducked' as it went by.
The first officer reports that his attention, initially focused on the glare shield in front of him, was diverted to something in his peripheral vision. He looked up in time to see a dark object pass down the right hand side of the ac at high speed; it was wedge-shaped with what could have been a black stripe down the side. he estimated the object's size as somewhere between that of a light ac and a Jetstream, though he emphasised that this was pure speculation. it made no attempt to deviate from its course and no sound was heard or wake felt. He felt certain that what he saw was a solid object - not a bird, balloon or kite.
MANCHESTER ATC reports that the B737 was being radar vectored from Dayne to the ILS for RW 24 when the pilot reported a lighted object passing close by above and in the opposite direction. There was no known traffic in the vicinity at the time and no radar contacts were seen.
Air France Flight 3532 UFO sighting of brown-red craft
Date: January 28, 1994
Location: Paris, France
Interview with Commander Duboc:
You were a flight commanding officer at AIR France and on January 28, 1994, you have encountered an unusual phenomenon as you were doing the Nice to London flight 3532. Could you tell what you witnessed?
I was indeed commander of flight AF-3532 of January 28, 1994, with copilot Valerie Chauffour, and 24 passengers on board.
I have kept a copy of the "OCTAVE", which is the data-processing follow-up of the flight and I can specify that above the Paris area at the altitude of 11700 meters (FL 390), the outside temperature was of minus 59 Celsius degrees, and with a wind from the North-West had a speed of1 80 km/h (311°/101 kts). The visibility was of more than 300 km (150 Nm) and the cloud cover consisted of altocumulus. The flight encountered no airshakes. The navigation was under excellent weather conditions, in spite of the facing wind of almost 130 km/h (70 kts). That gave us a ground speed of 650 km/h (350 kts). The takeoff hour in Nice was 00h56pm UT and the arrival hour in London 02:13pm UT.
It was a particularly calm flight, without particular problem. We arrived above Coulommiers when a steward who was in the cockpit noticed an object which he thought could be a weather balloon. This object was then seen by the copilot and myself a few moment afterwards.
According to their description it seemed to have a variable form and to come very quickly across our road. I first identified it like an aircraft facing us, at approximately 45 km (25 Nm), at an altitude of approximately 10500 meters (25 Nm) and at an angle close to 45°. I found this slope absolutely abnormal because aircraft are not inclined at this altitude beyond 30 degrees without risking to fall down. This object seemed to us then absolutely abnormal by its size which seemed immense, its dark red color and of the fuzzy edges. I had the impression to observe a gigantic lens in evolution. It did not resemble anything we had seen in our flying careers.
This object, this phenomenon, remained motionless while we left it on our left side, still at an aproximate distance of 45 km. We observed it during a good minute, conscious that we were seing something utterly anomalous. We continued to observe it when it gradually merged with the environment. We saw it becoming translucid, transparent, diluted in space. That was absolutely amazing.
You were a flight commanding officer at AIR France and on January 28, 1994, you have encountered an unusual phenomenon as you were doing the Nice to London flight 3532. Could you tell what you witnessed?
I was indeed commander of flight AF-3532 of January 28, 1994, with copilot Valerie Chauffour, and 24 passengers on board.
I have kept a copy of the "OCTAVE", which is the data-processing follow-up of the flight and I can specify that above the Paris area at the altitude of 11700 meters (FL 390), the outside temperature was of minus 59 Celsius degrees, and with a wind from the North-West had a speed of1 80 km/h (311°/101 kts). The visibility was of more than 300 km (150 Nm) and the cloud cover consisted of altocumulus. The flight encountered no airshakes. The navigation was under excellent weather conditions, in spite of the facing wind of almost 130 km/h (70 kts). That gave us a ground speed of 650 km/h (350 kts). The takeoff hour in Nice was 00h56pm UT and the arrival hour in London 02:13pm UT.
It was a particularly calm flight, without particular problem. We arrived above Coulommiers when a steward who was in the cockpit noticed an object which he thought could be a weather balloon. This object was then seen by the copilot and myself a few moment afterwards.
According to their description it seemed to have a variable form and to come very quickly across our road. I first identified it like an aircraft facing us, at approximately 45 km (25 Nm), at an altitude of approximately 10500 meters (25 Nm) and at an angle close to 45°. I found this slope absolutely abnormal because aircraft are not inclined at this altitude beyond 30 degrees without risking to fall down. This object seemed to us then absolutely abnormal by its size which seemed immense, its dark red color and of the fuzzy edges. I had the impression to observe a gigantic lens in evolution. It did not resemble anything we had seen in our flying careers.
This object, this phenomenon, remained motionless while we left it on our left side, still at an aproximate distance of 45 km. We observed it during a good minute, conscious that we were seing something utterly anomalous. We continued to observe it when it gradually merged with the environment. We saw it becoming translucid, transparent, diluted in space. That was absolutely amazing.
Two police officers have helicopter dogfight with UFO during patrol
Date: February 27, 1993
Location: Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA
Two Jefferson County air unit police officers — described by their lieutenant as "solid guys" — swear they had a two-minute dogfight with a UFO during a routine helicopter patrol Friday night.
Two officers on the ground said they, too, spotted the object. The UFO — a glowing pear-shaped object about the size of a basketball — literally flew circles around the helicopter, even though the fliers say they were moving at speeds approaching 100 mph.
In one blinding moment when both craft were hurtling toward each other, the UFO shot three baseball-size fireballs out of its middle, all three officers said. The fireballs fizzled into nothing. Officers Kenny Graham and Kenny Downs haven't talked much about their Friday night flight over General Electric Appliance Park because they fear few will believe them. But they are convinced they weren't hallucinating.
"We both go to church every week," Downs said as a way of explaining how normal the two normally are. "In fact, I might start going to church twice a week." Officer Mike Smith, in his squad car below, said he saw the object for only about a minute. But he confirmed the UFO shot three fireballs into the air and then disappeared. Officer Joe Smolenski said he tried for more than a minute to catch up to the object in his squad car. "I've been looking for 'em for 14 years, and I guess this is the closest I've come to something I couldn't explain."
Lt. David Pope, who was roused out of bed at 12:30 Saturday morning by a call from the startled officers, attested to their sanity and sincerity.
"These guys are totally solid guys," Pope said. "There's no doubt in my mind there was something out there."
The night started out like every other night. Graham and Downs got to work around 6 p.m. and were soon in the air flying a routine patrol. Graham, 39 and an 11-year veteran, was the pilot. Downs, 39 and a five-year veteran, was the spotter.
While in the air, they received a call about a possible break-in near Sanford Avenue and Buechel Bank Road. They flew off and quickly reached the area, which is near the northeast comer of Appliance Park, around 11:50 p.m.
As they circled, Graham saw something that looked like a small fire off to his left. Dozens of bonfires had been lit around the county that night by revelers delighting in the new snowfall.
But Graham soon decided i! wasn't a fire. Downs shined his 1.3-million-candlepower spotlight on the object, which began to drift back and forth like a balloon as the light washed over it. Then it gradually floated up to the helicopter's elevation about 500 feet above the ground, where it hovered for a few seconds.
"Then it took off at a speed I've never seen before," said Graham: an experienced pilot.
The object made two huge counter-clockwise loops and finally approached the helicopter's rear.
Graham, afraid-the object would ram his tail rotor, pushed his speec above 100 mph. The UFO shot past them and instantly climbed hundreds of feet in the air. It descended again and flew close to the helicopter. Graham tried to close the gap with the object, and it again flew away. As the UFO approached on a parallel course, the three fireballs burst out of its core.
Scared, Graham banked away from the object.
"When we came back around, it was gone," Graham said.
When the two returned to their base, Graham called the control tower at Standiford Field to ask if their radar had spotted anything unusual. It had not.
Downs called the county's radio dispatchers to ask if anyone else had reported sightings. No one had.
But the two did get confirmation from two officers on the ground, one of whom was Smith.
"I have no idea what it was," Smith said, but his confirmation cheered the two fliers.
"It makes me feel better," Downs said, "that there are... grown men out there who are sworn to protect this community and who saw the same thing."
Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 Spots UFO Over Alaska
Date: November 17, 1986
Location: Alaska, USA
"Japan Air Lines Flight 1628"
Loy Lawhon
It was just a routine flight. Well, not exactly routine.... It was a special Japan Air Lines 747 cargo flight to carry a load of French wine from Paris to Tokyo. The flight plan would carry flight 1628 from Paris to Reykjavik, Iceland, across the North Atlantic and Greenland, then across Canada to Anchorage, Alaska, and finally across the Pacific to Tokyo. The crew consisted of veteran Captain Kenju Terauchi, co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji, and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba.
On November 16, 1986, laden with wine, JAL1628 took off from Paris and flew the first leg of the trip, to Reykjavik. The next day, they continued, flying over Greenland and then across northern Canada without event.
Just after they crossed into Alaska, at 5:09 PM local time, Anchorage Air Traffic Control contacted them on the radio to report initial radar contact. The Anchorage flight controller asked them to turn 15 degrees to the left and head for a point known as Talkeetna on a heading of 215 degrees. They were at 35,000 feet and traveling at a ground speed of about 600 mph.
At about 5:11 PM local time, Captain Terauchi noticed the lights of some sort of aircraft about 2000 feet below and 30 degrees to the left front of them. He decided that the aircraft was probably an American jet fighter from nearby Eielson or Elmendorf Air Force Bases patrolling Alaskan airspace, so he ignored them at first. However, after a few minutes, he noticed that the lights were keeping pace with his own aircraft, which would be an unusual thing for patrolling jets to do.
It was about seven or so minutes since we began paying attention to the lights (when), most unexpectedly, two spaceships stopped in front of our face, shooting off lights. The inside cockpit shined brightly and I felt warm in the face.
Terauchi said that it was his impression that the two objects he had seen below them minutes before had suddenly jumped in from of him. The craft, one above the other, kept pace with the 747 for several minutes, moving in unison with an odd rocking motion. After about seven minutes, they changed to a side-by-side arrangement. Terauchi said that the "amber and whitish" lights were like flames coming out of multiple rocket exhaust ports arranged in two rectangular rows on the craft. He felt that they fired in a particular sequence to stabilize the craft, much like the small maneuvering thrusters on the Space Shuttle. He also reported seeing sparks like a fire when using gasoline or carbon fuel.
Co-pilot Tamefuji described the lights as "Christmas assorted" lights with a "salmon" color. He said: I remember red or orange, and white landing light, just like a landing light. And weak green, ah, blinking. He also described the lights as pulsating slowly. They became stronger, became weaker., became stronger, became weaker, different from strobe lights. The lights were "swinging" in unison as if there were "very good formation flight...close" of two aircraft side by side. He described the appearance of the lights as similar to seeing "night flight head-on traffic", where it is only possible to see the lights on an approaching aircraft and "we can not see the total shape." He said, I'm sure I saw something. It was clear enough to make me believe that there was an oncoming aircraft.
Flight engineer Tsukuba, who sat behind the copilot, did not have as good a view of the lights. He first saw them "through the L1 window at the 11 o'clock position" and he saw "clusters of lights undulating". These clusters were "made of two parts...shaped like windows of an airplane". He emphasized that "the lights in front of us were different from town lights." He described the colors as white or amber.
Tamefuji decided to call Anchorage Air Traffic Control, and for the next thirty minutes the 747 and AARTCC were in constant contact regarding the UFO.
During this time, Captain Terauchi asked Tskububa to hand him a camera so that he could attempt to take a photograph of the lights. However, Terauchi was unfamiliar with the camera and could not get it to operate. Tsukuba also could not get his camera to operate due to problems with the auto-focus and finally gave up trying to take a photo.
At this point they began experiencing some radio interference and were asked by Anchorage to change frequencies. Terauchi later said that Anchorage kept asking him about clouds in the immediate area: They asked us several times if there were clouds near our altitude. We saw thin and spotty clouds near the mountain below us, no clouds in mid-to-upper air, and the air current was steady.
Soon after the exchanges about clouds, the objects flew off to the left. Terauchi said later: There was a pale white flat light in the direction where the ships flew away, moving in a line along with us, in the same direction and same speed and at the same altitude as we were.
Terauchi decided to see whether they could see anything on the 747's own radar:
I thought it would be impossible to find anything on an aircraft radar if a large ground radar did not show anything, but I judged the distance of the object visually and it was not very far. I set the digital weather radar distance to 20 (nautical) miles, radar angle to horizon (i.e., no depression angle). There it was on the screen. A large green and round object had appeared at 7 or 8 miles (13 km to 15 km) away, where the direction of the object was. We reported to Anchorage center that our radar caught the object within 7 or 8 miles in the 10 o'clock position. We asked them if they could catch it on ground radar but it did not seem they could catch it at all
At 5:25:45, after spending two minutes looking, the military radar at Elmendorf Regional Operational Control Center also picked up something. The ROCC radar controller reported back to the AARTCC that he was getting some "surge primary return." By this he meant an occasional radar echo unaccompanied by a transponder signal.
Loy Lawhon
It was just a routine flight. Well, not exactly routine.... It was a special Japan Air Lines 747 cargo flight to carry a load of French wine from Paris to Tokyo. The flight plan would carry flight 1628 from Paris to Reykjavik, Iceland, across the North Atlantic and Greenland, then across Canada to Anchorage, Alaska, and finally across the Pacific to Tokyo. The crew consisted of veteran Captain Kenju Terauchi, co-pilot Takanori Tamefuji, and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba.
On November 16, 1986, laden with wine, JAL1628 took off from Paris and flew the first leg of the trip, to Reykjavik. The next day, they continued, flying over Greenland and then across northern Canada without event.
Just after they crossed into Alaska, at 5:09 PM local time, Anchorage Air Traffic Control contacted them on the radio to report initial radar contact. The Anchorage flight controller asked them to turn 15 degrees to the left and head for a point known as Talkeetna on a heading of 215 degrees. They were at 35,000 feet and traveling at a ground speed of about 600 mph.
At about 5:11 PM local time, Captain Terauchi noticed the lights of some sort of aircraft about 2000 feet below and 30 degrees to the left front of them. He decided that the aircraft was probably an American jet fighter from nearby Eielson or Elmendorf Air Force Bases patrolling Alaskan airspace, so he ignored them at first. However, after a few minutes, he noticed that the lights were keeping pace with his own aircraft, which would be an unusual thing for patrolling jets to do.
It was about seven or so minutes since we began paying attention to the lights (when), most unexpectedly, two spaceships stopped in front of our face, shooting off lights. The inside cockpit shined brightly and I felt warm in the face.
Terauchi said that it was his impression that the two objects he had seen below them minutes before had suddenly jumped in from of him. The craft, one above the other, kept pace with the 747 for several minutes, moving in unison with an odd rocking motion. After about seven minutes, they changed to a side-by-side arrangement. Terauchi said that the "amber and whitish" lights were like flames coming out of multiple rocket exhaust ports arranged in two rectangular rows on the craft. He felt that they fired in a particular sequence to stabilize the craft, much like the small maneuvering thrusters on the Space Shuttle. He also reported seeing sparks like a fire when using gasoline or carbon fuel.
Co-pilot Tamefuji described the lights as "Christmas assorted" lights with a "salmon" color. He said: I remember red or orange, and white landing light, just like a landing light. And weak green, ah, blinking. He also described the lights as pulsating slowly. They became stronger, became weaker., became stronger, became weaker, different from strobe lights. The lights were "swinging" in unison as if there were "very good formation flight...close" of two aircraft side by side. He described the appearance of the lights as similar to seeing "night flight head-on traffic", where it is only possible to see the lights on an approaching aircraft and "we can not see the total shape." He said, I'm sure I saw something. It was clear enough to make me believe that there was an oncoming aircraft.
Flight engineer Tsukuba, who sat behind the copilot, did not have as good a view of the lights. He first saw them "through the L1 window at the 11 o'clock position" and he saw "clusters of lights undulating". These clusters were "made of two parts...shaped like windows of an airplane". He emphasized that "the lights in front of us were different from town lights." He described the colors as white or amber.
Tamefuji decided to call Anchorage Air Traffic Control, and for the next thirty minutes the 747 and AARTCC were in constant contact regarding the UFO.
During this time, Captain Terauchi asked Tskububa to hand him a camera so that he could attempt to take a photograph of the lights. However, Terauchi was unfamiliar with the camera and could not get it to operate. Tsukuba also could not get his camera to operate due to problems with the auto-focus and finally gave up trying to take a photo.
At this point they began experiencing some radio interference and were asked by Anchorage to change frequencies. Terauchi later said that Anchorage kept asking him about clouds in the immediate area: They asked us several times if there were clouds near our altitude. We saw thin and spotty clouds near the mountain below us, no clouds in mid-to-upper air, and the air current was steady.
Soon after the exchanges about clouds, the objects flew off to the left. Terauchi said later: There was a pale white flat light in the direction where the ships flew away, moving in a line along with us, in the same direction and same speed and at the same altitude as we were.
Terauchi decided to see whether they could see anything on the 747's own radar:
I thought it would be impossible to find anything on an aircraft radar if a large ground radar did not show anything, but I judged the distance of the object visually and it was not very far. I set the digital weather radar distance to 20 (nautical) miles, radar angle to horizon (i.e., no depression angle). There it was on the screen. A large green and round object had appeared at 7 or 8 miles (13 km to 15 km) away, where the direction of the object was. We reported to Anchorage center that our radar caught the object within 7 or 8 miles in the 10 o'clock position. We asked them if they could catch it on ground radar but it did not seem they could catch it at all
At 5:25:45, after spending two minutes looking, the military radar at Elmendorf Regional Operational Control Center also picked up something. The ROCC radar controller reported back to the AARTCC that he was getting some "surge primary return." By this he meant an occasional radar echo unaccompanied by a transponder signal.
Jets Chase 20 UFOs Over Brazil
Date: May 19, 1986
Location: Brazil
The case was discussed openly by high ranking government officials. It was first reported by Colonel (Ret.) Ozires Silva, president of the state-owned oil company Petrobrás, who was flying on an executive Xingu jet, when he and the pilot saw and pursued unidentified objects for about 25 minutes. The incident was covered widely in the Brazilian media, leading to a press conference at the Ministry of Aeronautics in Brasilia on May 23, with air traffic controllers and air force pilots involved in the scramble mission.
The Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Otávio Moreira Lima, was very outspoken:
"Between 20:00 hrs. (5/19) and 01:00 hrs. (5/20) at least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn't have optical illusions.
"We can only give technical explanations and we don't have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It's very remote and it's not the case here in Brazil. It's fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear."112
The Minister also announced that a commission would study the incident. Air Force Major Ney Cerqueira, in charge of the Air Defense Operations Center (CODA), was equally candid:
"We don't have technical operational conditions to explain it. The appearance and disappearance of these objects on the radar screens are unexplained. They are Unidentified Aerial Movements... The technical instruments used for the identification of the lights had problems in registering them. CODA activated two F-5E and three Mirages to identify the objects. One F-5E and one Mirage remained grounded on alert. A similar case occurred four years ago [the Commander Brito VASP airliner radar-visual incident in 1982]. The lights were moving at a speed ranging between 250 and 1,500 km./hr. [150 to 1,000 mph] The Air Force has not closed the case."113
Aeronautics Commission report was not released. However, the accounts of air force pilots and radar controllers were published widely in the press and later studied by Brazilian researchers. A comprehensive report was made by Basílio Baranoff, an airline captain, member of the Aerospace Technical Center, and consultant for the Brazilian UFO organization CBPDV. Baranoff provided a chronology of events for the night of May 19, 1986:
"6:30 p.m. local time - First visual sightings by control tower personnel at the São José dos Campos airport in São Paulo State. Controllers notice two intense lights aligned with the runway axis at 330 degrees azimuth and approximately 15 km. [10 m.] distance from the tower.
"7:00 p.m. - The control towers in São Paulo and Brazilia confirm to São José that they have three primary targets on their screens, and that there are no scheduled aircraft in those areas.
"8:00 p.m. - CINDACTA (Brasilia) detects up to eight targets (echoes) on its screens.
"8:30 p.m. - A new object is observed with binoculars at the São José tower; it shows defined edges and red-orange color; it approaches the tower and then retreats.
"9:00 p.m. - The oil company Xingu executive jet with Col. Silva requests landing conditions at São José. Both Silva and Commander Alcir Pereira, the Xingu pilot, confirm visually the luminous objects at 330 degrees azimuth. The Xingu jet attempts to follow the UFOs for 10 minutes.
"9:10 p.m. - The Xingu jet returns for landing when a new, large luminous object heads toward the aircraft. The São Paulo tower confirms two echoes: the Xingu and an unknown, which disappears from the screen 15 minutes later.
"9:20 p.m. - The Air Control Center in Brasilia (ACC-BR) informs the Air Defense Command about the situation.
"9:25 p.m. - The Xingu returns for a second landing attempt when the São Paulo tower reports yet another object at 180 degrees south, which is observed and followed by Commander Pereira.
"9:30 p.m. - The Xingu returns for a third landing attempt when ACC-BR reports the appearance of new objects. The Xingu, now at 3,000 meters [10,000 ft.] of altitude, makes visual contact with three luminous objects flying low over Petrobrás refineries and heading towards Serra do Mar. The Xingu finally lands in São José dos Campos.
"9:40 p.m. - More visual sightings of a round object at 320 degrees azimuth.
"9:50 p.m. - A luminous yellow object surrounded by smaller lights is observed at 110 degrees azimuth.
"10:23 p.m. - The first F-5E jet fighter, piloted by Air Force Lt. Kleber Caldas Marinho, is scrambled from Santa Cruz AFB in Rio State.
"10:45 p.m. - The second F-5E jet, piloted by Captain Brisola Jordão, is scrambled from Santa Cruz. The first Mirage F-103, armed with Sidewinder and Matra missiles, is scrambled from Anápolis AFB in Goias State.
"10:55 p.m. - Anápolis AFB detects the objects on radar. The Mirage piloted by Captain Viriato does not make visual contact with the UFO, but a target is detected on its onboard radar... Captain Viriato later explained at the press conference in Brasilia that he was chasing the UFO 'at 1,350 km./hr. [850 mph], approaching the object up to a distance of 6 miles [9.5 km.]. The object was heading up front and moving from one side to the other (zig-zagging) on my radar scope. Suddenly, the blip disappeared from my radar scope.'
"11:00 p.m - The second Mirage F-103 is scrambled from Anápolis.
"11:15 p.m. - Lt. Kleber's F-5E makes visual contact with a ball of light and chases the UFO at Mach 1.1 (1,320 km./hr. or 850 mph)... Kleber later declared at the press conference: 'I had one visual contact and one contact with my aircraft radar of something that looked like a luminous point, which was 12 miles [19 km.] in front of me, a distance confirmed by ground radar. The object was moving from left to right and then began to climb... [it] was at 10 km [6 mi.] of altitude and flying over 1,000 km./hr. [600 mph]. I followed it up to 200 miles [320 km.] over the Atlantic Ocean [limit of Brazil's territorial waters]. I wasn't afraid because I like the unknown.'
"11:17 p.m. - The third Mirage jet is scrambled from Anápolis AFB.
"11:20 p.m. - Captain Jordão's F-5E establishes radar contact... At the press conference a few days later, he stated: 'Near to São José dos Campos, radar detected several targets, 10 to 13 targets, at a distance of 20 miles [32 km.]. The sky was clear but I didn't see anything. Ground radar informed me that the objects were closing in: 20 miles, 15, 10, 5, suddenly there were 13 objects behind my aircraft, 6 on one side and 7 on the other, during several minutes. After I maneuvered the aircraft, the objects had disappeared.' [Captain Jordão flew for 1 hour 20 minutes.]
"11:36 p.m. - The third Mirage is scrambled from Anápolis AFB.
"1:00 a.m. (May 20) - By this time all jet fighters have returned to their bases."114
These are the basic known facts surrounding the multiple UFO jet scramble incidents over southeastern Brazil on the night of May 19-20, 1986. It is noteworthy that Captain Baranoff added that "two nights after, ten to eleven unidentified luminous objects returned for a new round over São José dos Campos; they were observed visually and detected by the São Paulo, ACC-BR and by CINDACTA 1 radars." This time there was no official confirmation from Air Force authorities.115
Lacking the final Ministry Commission report with all the pertinent data, it is difficult to make a final conclusion about this case. Many hypotheses were offered in the Brazilian media by skeptical astronomers and scientists, ranging from a meteor shower, a reflection of the full moon and ball lightning, to radar malfunction, space debris and spy planes. Most of these explanations seem quite insufficient to explain the events of May 19. One of the more plausible was offered by British space researcher Geoffrey Perry. According to Perry, the Soviet space station Salyut-7 ejected several boxes of debris on that night, which re-entered the earth's atmosphere around central-western Brazil. The re-entry of NASA's Solarwind satellite was also discussed in the Brazilian press.116
However, Brigadier José Cavalcanti from Brazil's Air Defense Command, was not impressed with the Salyut-7 and Solarwind explanations. He told the weekly magazine Veja:
"It could have been space debris, but it wasn't only that. A metallic box with space debris can be detected by radar, but it will always fall in the same direction and at constant velocity. That was not the case of what was seen in Brazil, where the objects detected by radar had speeds that varied from very slow to extremely high."117
Another interesting view is the final comment in a short message from the USDAO (U.S. Defense Attaché Office) in Rio to DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) on the subject, entitled "BAF [Brazilian Air Force] has a Close Encounter of the First Kind":
"COMMENT: [Censored] While RO [Reporting Officer] does not believe in UFO's or all the hoopla that surrounds previous reporting, there is too much here to be ignored. Three visual sightings and positive radar contact from three different types of radar systems, leads one to believe that something arrived over Brazil the night of 19 May."118
TWA airline pilot sees round metallic object with portholes
Date: July 4, 1981
Location: South central Lake Michigan, USA
July 4, 1981 1646L UC South central Lake Michigan
Captain Phil Schultz, 54, was flying TWA flight 842 from San Francisco to John F. Kennedy Airport, New York (on autopilot control) and was at cruise altitude (FL370) at 280 kts airspeed (540 kts. ground speed) in an L-1011 heavy jet. The sky was generally clear over Lake Michigan with a high, thin layer of cirrus over much of the southern part of the lake and some scattered mid-level clouds at about 10,000 feet. The sun was still high in the sky (41 deg. above the horizon) and behind the aircraft. Then the high altitude encounter (FL370) happened. In the captain’s own words, "A large, round, silver, metal object descended into the atmosphere from above and to the left of my airplane to about 40,000 feet overhead and passed off to my left." After an extensive reconstruction of this event in the cockpit of his aircraft, I was able to ascertain many more important facts about this event [cf. Haines, 1982(a); 1982(b)]: (1) The object traveled very smoothly during the five or six second-long encounter. (2) The UAP was about 2.5 times wider than thick with six jet black perfect circles ("portholes") aligned and equal-spaced around its circumference. Centered on the bottom surface of the circular disk was a single, jet-black circle. (3) The UAP traveled along an approximately parabolic course and performed a high speed turn (calculated to be approximately 20 g) relatively near the aircraft before departing in a gradual climb to the north and leaving a darkish wavy trail behind in the sky. (4) Its approach and departure speed was calculated to be about 1,000 mph, (5) No shock wave or turbulence was felt at any time. Capt. Schultz remembered seeing a fan-shaped region extending outward from behind the object which was "of a much darker blue than the rest of the sky." (6) The aircraft’s autopilot remained coupled throughout the encounter and no E-M effects were noticed. (7) The FO saw approximately the final two-thirds of the event but the FE did not see anything due to his position in the rear of the cabin. (8) When Captain Schultz called Chicago Center to ask about other possible traffic in the area he was told there was none. He did not report what they had just seen. (9) Before this sighting Capt. Schultz did not believe in UFO at all. His extensive jet combat experience during the Korean War and afterward had left him with the strongly held belief that such objects "simply do not exist." This encounter instantly changed his view and, when I asked him what he thought the object was he quickly replied." (10) Both pilots were very concerned about a mid-air collision and began to brace themselves for an impact. Other technical details must be omitted due to space limitations. (Pilot report form)
Pilot sighting of glowing orange sphere in Tranquillity, California
Date: July 28, 1978
Location: Tranquillity, California, USA
In the summer of 1978, I was flying for a crop dusting operation near Tranquillity, California. At that time I had been a duster pilot for over sixteen years, and flying nights since 1965. In central California during the summer months, certain fields are treated after dark, mainly to protect workers and honeybees from exposure to AG chemicals.
On the early morning of 28 July, just before three AM, I was sitting in the cockpit of my airplane, a Rockwell Thrush Commander. The aircraft was parked, with its engine shut down and all interior and exterior lights off, at the south end of a one-half mile dirt runway, located about five miles southwest of Mendota, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley about thirty miles west of Fresno. The Thrush was lined up with the runway, facing due north.
I had just finished spraying a quarter-section cotton field, and was getting ready to spray another. My two girl flaggers were already in place on the field I was about to treat, and my loader was busy mixing a batch of pesticide to be applied on it.
It was a calm, cloudless night, typical of midsummer in the San Joaquin Valley. The air temperature at ground level was around seventy degrees, and the visibility was good. Although I was somewhat tired, I was not at all sleepy. I had drunk several cups of coffee from my thermos during the previous six hours, and I have always been sensitive to caffeine as a stimulant.
As I sat in the cockpit, waiting for the first load to be pumped into the hopper tank, I glanced over to my right at the crescent moon rising in the east, and then turned back to again face north. At this time, I noticed a dim, diffused orange glow, low in the sky to the northwest, about forty-five degrees to the left of the aircraft nose.
My first thought was that a house, barn, or other nearby ranch building had caught fire, but I discarded that possibility almost immediately. I knew the area quite well (an absolute necessity for safe night AG flying) and the glow was in the direction of the field that I was about to spray. I had flown this same field several times before, and knew there were no buildings in the immediate vicinity. I decided that if it was a fire, it had to be much farther away.
This possibility was discarded a few seconds later, when the orange glow began to slowly rise. When it was about thirty degrees above the horizon, it started moving toward the east. At first this movement was quite slow, but within a few seconds, it speeded up. The glow then began to take on an elongated form, markedly longer in the vertical plane than in the horizontal. It reminded me of a segment of searchlight beam, except that the entire light column moved laterally, while oriented nearly straight up and down, rather than in a radius around a fixed light source. The length of the column seemed to be about ten to twenty degrees of vertical sky coverage.
As the light column passed through due north, straight ahead over the airplane nose, it continued accelerating and becoming brighter. I then realized that I was viewing something that was totally different from my many other nighttime sightings of missile launches, satellites, planets, and other aircraft.
I yelled for my loader to look, but the noise of the mix rig engine drowned out my voice, and because his attention was focused on opening cans of pesticide on the opposite side of the mix tank, he didn't see my frantic signals. I climbed out of the cockpit onto the left wing, planning to jump down and run around the trailer to alert him. Then I had the thought that if I did, I might miss a vital part of the display, so I remained standing on the wing.
After passing abeam of the runway end, the object continued accelerating for a short time, perhaps five to ten seconds. It then climbed slightly, and at the same time abruptly slowed. During this phase the glow was becoming brighter, while the vertical beam was shortening, forming itself into a more compact mass of light.
At about forty-five degrees off to my right, the object, now considerably brighter, and resembling a glowing ball, came to a stop for several seconds. It then reversed course, and once again began moving, this time back to the west.
Several seconds after starting its westward movement, and without slowing, the ball of light instantly assumed the shape of a well-defined, flattened sphere with pointed ends, which emitted a steady orange glow. At this time it began a shallow descent, gathering speed and leveling out around twenty degrees above the horizon. It flew with its pointed ends parallel to the ground. From my position, the size of the object looked to be about that of a large pea or small marble when held at arms length.
When the glowing, flattened sphere was directly over the Thrush's nose, it abruptly halted, going from a high rate of speed to a dead stop almost instantaneously. It remained stationary for no more than a few seconds - five at the most. Although this would have been the best opportunity to determine the object's true size, I was unable to make an estimate, since its distance from me was unknown. On the report which I later submitted, I placed it at one to three miles away, but that distance is highly speculative.
After its momentary halt, the object again accelerated. Within a few seconds it had resumed its previous high speed, but appeared to have turned ninety degrees, and was now climbing directly away from me at a very steep angle. Its heading was due north, and as it rose, it attained what looked to be the highest speed reached during the entire time it had been in view.
Because of the unknown size and distance of the object, and the fact that it was climbing at an angle directly away from me, this speed was impossible to estimate accurately. Judging from the rate at which it seemed to grow smaller though, it looked to be travelling about three to five times faster than a jet airliner at an altitude of around thirty thousand feet, as seen from the ground.
During this climb, the object also reached its maximum brightness, only very slightly less than that of the crescent moon. As it continued to rise, it began to dim. It finally vanished from my sight high above the horizon (about sixty to seventy degrees), over the glow of the lights of Firebaugh, another small town about 12 miles due north of my position.
The total time which the object remained in view, from my first sighting of the diffused mass of light until the final disappearance of the flattened sphere, seemed to be about 40-50 seconds, but an accurate estimate is quite difficult. It could have been somewhat shorter, but almost certainly wasn't longer.
Throughout the episode, I remained relatively calm, but was filled with awe when I realized that I had just witnessed a phenomenon about which I had previously only read, and, up to that time, was not at all certain actually existed.
As soon as the object disappeared, I jumped off the wing and asked my loader if he had seen anything. He had not, and when I told him what I had witnessed, he was disappointed, to say the least. He finished mixing the batch of pesticide, and I sprayed four loads on the field. I then sprayed another quarter-section located northeast of the strip without further incident.
After returning to Tranquillity, I sought out my two flaggers, and asked them if they had seen anything unusual the previous night. They were both very evasive and reluctant to answer my questions, and kept trying to change the subject. I finally got them to admit that they had also seen the object. Their view of it had been better than my own, since they described it as somewhat larger and brighter than it had appeared from my location. From this, I estimated that they were closer to it than I had been, although it had still remained to the north of them.
With further questioning, the fact emerged that they had also seen the same object on the previous two nights, while flagging for another pilot. The girls described it very aptly as "a little, flat, flying football." They had told no one else of these previous sightings, and remained very reluctant to discuss them with me. I later talked with the other pilot, who stated that he had seen nothing out of the ordinary on either night.
Veteran Pilot Encounters UFO With Portholes
Date: January 1, 1978
Location: Santa Monica, California, USA
A dome-shaped UFO with portholes was seen in broad daylight by veteran pilot Floyd P. Hallstrom of Oxnard, California. Hallstrom had been flying for 37 years, 17½ as a Navy combat air crewman and personal crew chief to admirals, including the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
Hallstrom had left Oxnard at about 12:35 p.m. in a Cessna 170A bound to San Diego via Los Angeles, following a friend, Jim Victor, who was delivering another plane to a customer at Brown Field, San Diego. The plan was for him to transport Victor back to Oxnard after the delivery. The two kept in touch by radio.
As Hallstrom approached Santa Monica at 7,500 feet altitude, the sky was clear except for a smog layer in the vicinity of Los Angeles International Airport. "At this time I was looking for Jim straight ahead," Hallstrom reported, "when I spotted [the UFO] just on the edge of the haze area above LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] slightly to the east side....I thought it was Jim so I watched it for about a minute because he had just given me his position report, but it seemed to get larger and coming toward me so I naturally realized that it wasn't Jim....
"I started looking to see what it was but I could see no wings on this aircraft although at this time I could see windows which appeared to be passenger windows in the aircraft. As it drew nearer though, I was able to determine that there were no wings or horizontal empennage assembly to the aircraft as a conventional aircraft...."
Hallstrom began wondering if it was some kind of helicopter, but it was approaching at high speed. As the UFO passed about 6,000 feet to his left, he was looking down on it an angle of about 30-45 degrees. Then the true form suddenly became clear to him. There were no rotors, no tail assembly.
"All of a sudden I was able to make out the complete form of a saucer shape or round object...I could see the dome, also very vividly clear, including all the windows....[I] observed it to be of a very bright metal...it was more of a nickel or highly polished chrome or stainless steel type of metal than aluminum because it had more of a mellow glow than [if] it was of the type finish on a high finish aluminum."
About 16 to 20 evenly spaced windows were visible around the circumference of the dome, located just above the base. The dome appeared to be a perfect hemisphere about 20 feet in diameter resting on the base which was about 30 feet in diameter. The UFO continued on a course of about 310 degrees (opposite to Hallstrom's course) with no sign of rotation, oscillation, pitch, roll, or yaw. Neither was there any sign of a propulsion system. The sun reflected off the dome as a bright spot as the UFO passed. After about a minute the object disappeared from view behind the Cessna. Hallstrom estimated its speed at about 650 m.p.h. He quickly took notes and made a sketch of the UFO.
Reaching for his radio microphone, he first called Jim Victor to report what he had seen. Then he notified various FAA authorities.
Hallstrom, who was shaken by the sighting, later had troubling dreams, mostly about UFOs and aliens. He had not taken the subject seriously up to this time, but the implications of what he had seen struck home to him. He later reported that the experience had altered his entire life.
(MUFON UFO Journal, January 1978, pp. 3-5. Investigators: Robert K. Bowker and Idabel Epperson.)
Retired Chilean General in air encounter with large 'banana-shaped' UFO
Date: 1978
Location: Antofagasta, Chile
SOURCE: Ovnivisión (Chile)
DATE: December 26, 2002
RETIRED CHILEAN GENERAL DISCUSSES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH A GIANT UFO
SANTIAGO DE CHILE.- In an interview with Terra.cl., retired general Hernan Gabrielli Rojas mentioned that he had squared off against a gigantic UFO while engaging in a training flight in the skies of northern Chile.
According to the military man, the object was the size of 10 or 15 aircraft carriers, and its presence was picked up by the radars aboard two F-5 jet fighters as well as the Cerro Moreno airport in Antofagasta.
- What do you remember about your contact with the UFO?
Over 20 years have gone by (this was in 1978). I was a captain and was flying a mission with two F-5 fighters. It was noon and I was flying with captain Danilo Catalán - we were both flight instructors. Accompanying us was Fernando Gomez, an avionics tech, and another trainee. The F-5 is radar-equipped, and a line appeared from side to side - in other words, a trace throughout the bottom side of the screen. A trace for a surface ship, a cruiser, is approximately one centimeter long, but this line went from one side [of the screen] to another. I assumed the radar scope had failed, and told Danilo Catalán, but his radar also "failed". I then advised the ground radar at Antofagasta and they also picked up the line. We were engaged with these details when we looked toward the east: we were flying from north to south in the vicinity of Mejillones, and saw a deformed cigar-shaped object. Deformed, like a plaintain banana. It was swathed in smoke.
- What was the object's size?
It was large and must have been some 15 to 20 miles away. It moved in the same direction as us. We had no missiles, guns or anything. As you can imagine, the fright was more or less considerable. We could see a large thing surrounded in smoke, and from which a vapor issued. All of this situation must have lasted some five minues. We approached the UFO but it was motionless. It neither approached nor retreated - it merely sailed parallel to us. It was quite impressive, because it was truly something strange, and something could be seen in concealment behind the smoke.
- What happened later?
The object then disappeared toward Easter Island at an impressive rate of speed. The sky cleared and the lines on the radar vanished. However, there had been an object physically flying there. It's not a yarn, let me tell you. It's my only experience with UFOs.
F-4 Jet Chases UFO over Iran 1976
Date: September 18, 1976
Location: Tehran, Iran
The sequence of events can be reconstructed from both Iranian sources and declassified U.S. intelligence documents:
Between 10:30 and 11:15 p.m. on September 18, several calls were received by the Control Tower at Mehrabad Airport, reporting an unknown object hovering 1,000 feet (300 m.) above the ground in the northern section of Tehran. The night shift supervisor, Hossain Perouzi, initially didn't pay too much attention. The radar system was turned off since it was under repair. After he received the fourth telephone call at 11:15 p.m., Perouzi went to the terrace next to the tower and observed the UFO with binoculars:
"Suddenly I saw it. It was rectangular in shape, probably seven to eight meters [24 to 27 ft.] long and about two meters [7 ft.] wide. From later observations I made, I would say it was probably cylindrical. The two ends were pulsating with a whitish blue color. Around the mid-section of the cylinder there was this small red light that kept going around in a circle... I was amazed. I didn't know what to think. There definitely was a very strange object there in the sky right over Tehran."
"The F-4 took off at 01:30 a.m. and proceeded to a point about 40 nm [45 statute miles or 75 km.] North of Tehran. Due to its brilliance the object was easily visible from 70 miles [110 km.] away. As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nm [29 statute miles or 46 km.], he lost all instrumentation and communications (UHF and Intercom). He broke off the intercept and headed back to Shahrokhi. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications."
At 01:40 a.m., Gen. Yousefi authorized a second F-4 scramble piloted by Lt. Jafari, who quickly established radar contact with the UFO. The DAO Memorandum describes the events of the second scramble:
"The size of the radar return was comparable to that of a [Boeing] 707 tanker. The visual size of the object was difficult to discern because of its intense brilliance. The light that it gave off was that of flashing strobe lights arranged in a rectangular pattern of alternating blue, green, red and orange, in color. The sequence of the lights was so fast that all the colors could be seen at once."
"The object and the pursuing F-4 continued a course to the south of Tehran when another brightly lighted object, estimated to be .5 to .33 the apparent size of the moon, came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F-4 at a very fast rate. The pilot attempted to fire an AIM-9 missile at the object, but at that instant his weapons control panel went off and he lost all communications (UHF and Interphone). At this point, the pilot initiated a turn and negative G dive to get away."
The aircraft electric system went back to normal once the F-4 reached a certain distance from the UFO. The small object returned to the primary object, but a second one emerged and flew toward the ground. Gen. Yousefi observed the landing from the balcony of his Tehran residence:
"He went down and landed on the ground and now it is a communication between the mothership and that small flying object, and it shows the lights between those two is connected."
More strange events were still reported that night. A UFO seemed to follow the F-4 as it approached the runway, and a civil airliner experienced communications failure but did not see anything. The DAO Memorandum describes the investigation early that morning:
"During daylight, the F-4 crew was taken out to the area in a helicopter where the object apparently had landed. Nothing was noticed at the spot where they thought the object landed (a dry lake bed), but as they circled off to the West of the area they picked up a very noticeable beeper signal. At that point, where the return was the loudest was a small house with a garden. They landed and asked the people within if they had noticed anything strange last night. The people talked about a loud noise and a very bright light like lightning."
Three UFOs escorts Mexican aircraft
Date: May 2, 1974
Location: En route from Guerrero State to Mexico City, Mexico.
On May 2, 1974, Carlos Antonio de los Santos Montiel, 23, left Mexico City in his Piper Aztec 24, registered as XB-XAU, for Zihuatenajo, state of Guerrero. He arrived there in the afternoon and although he had originally planned to return that day, he decided to stay over and return on the 3rd. He had dinner at 8 p.m. and retired.
The morning of the third was cloudy with considerable smog, mist and very poor visibility. Carlos took off, nevertheless, at 10:30, without having his breakfast. He climbed his little plane to 13,500 feet but conditions were still bad so he climbed to 14,500 where he found a clear blue sky and continued on his return trip to Mexico City.
Arriving in the area of Tequesquitengo, Carlos decided to lose altitude in order to make visual contact with Lake Tequesquitengo and verify his position, instead of depending on his instruments. When he got down underneath the cloud cover, ground mist and fog blocked his view of the Lake. Then things began to happen.
When he looked from the left (he had been gazing through his left side window) to the front he became aware of something on his right and glanced in that direction and was shocked to see an object with the appearance of two plates joined together at the rim with a cupola which had what seemed to be a little window and an antenna on top. It was positioned 20 centimeters above the surface of the wing and about 1 1/2 meters from the Piper's cabin. (See drawing by Staff Artist Robert Gonzales.) A glance back to the left revealed another object of the same description in the same position above the left wing.
"I was petrified," Carlos told officials later, "after I saw a third object which seemed about to collide head-on with the windshield. But it went beneath the aircraft and I heard a strange noise from below as though it had collided with the underside of the plane."
Carlos then noted that his airspeed had decreased from 140 nautical miles per hour to 120. He tried to bank to the left, in an attempt to "bump" the object away from his plane but the controls were frozen and would not move. He then tried to let down the landing gear, hoping to get rid of the object under him, but with no results.
APRO's Field Investigator, Fernando J. Tellez Pareja, listened to the tape-recorded conversation between Santos and the Mexico City International Airport Control Tower, which Carlos initiated after he found his controls were frozen:
Carlos: Center Mexico from extra bravo extra alfa union. Mayday! Mayday! (Ed. Note: "Mayday!" is an international distress signal.)
Mexico City: Come in, extra bravo extra alfa union. (Here the pilot repeated his call twice — apparently he did not hear Mexico City answer.) Center Mexico here, come in extra alfa union.
Carlos: Extra alfa union to Center Mexico. My aircraft is out of control — I have no control over it — I have three unidentified objects flying around me. I have three unidentified objects flying around me, one came under my aircraft and hit it. The landing gear is locked in and the controls won't release them. My position — I am on the Radial 004 from the VOR Tequesquitengo — I am not controlling the plane — Center Mexico, can you hear me?
Center Mexico: Take note extra alfa union, give me your position and your situation. We are contacting competent authorities and (here interrupted by Carlos again)
Carlos: The aircraft is out of control.
At this point, Mexico City International Airport closed its runways to traffic and prepared for the expected emergency landing. The objects continued maintaining position on XB-XAU, exerting complete control over the aircraft.
The "Mayday" or emergency call was received at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 3. The control tower contacted Ignacio Silva la Mora (Carlo's uncle), an authority on aircraft, who was put in touch with Carlos via radio to analyze the problem and help with landing preparations.
When Carlos had reached the Ajusco navigational fix, the UFOs had elevated the aircraft from 15,000 feet (the altitude while over Tequesquitengo) to 15,800 and then, one by one, they left. First the object over his left wing elevated until it was over the cabin, then above the object on the right wing, and then these two flew off and were lost to view in the direction of the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatal volcanoes. The controls of the aircraft were immediately normal and Carlos regained control.
Carlos then attempted to lower the landing gear, circling Mexico City International Airport eight times, in radio contact to ascertain if he was successful. Finally, after 40 minutes of circling while he worked on the control column with a screw driver, he managed to lower the wheels and landed at 1:34 p.m. on the grassy area between runway 5 right and 5 left where emergency vehicles, including firemen and ambulance, were waiting.
After landing, Carlos was taken to the Airport Clinic where he was thoroughly examined and found to be normal and fit. Some individuals had hinted that he might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol but the medical examination laid that speculation to rest.
The morning of the third was cloudy with considerable smog, mist and very poor visibility. Carlos took off, nevertheless, at 10:30, without having his breakfast. He climbed his little plane to 13,500 feet but conditions were still bad so he climbed to 14,500 where he found a clear blue sky and continued on his return trip to Mexico City.
Arriving in the area of Tequesquitengo, Carlos decided to lose altitude in order to make visual contact with Lake Tequesquitengo and verify his position, instead of depending on his instruments. When he got down underneath the cloud cover, ground mist and fog blocked his view of the Lake. Then things began to happen.
When he looked from the left (he had been gazing through his left side window) to the front he became aware of something on his right and glanced in that direction and was shocked to see an object with the appearance of two plates joined together at the rim with a cupola which had what seemed to be a little window and an antenna on top. It was positioned 20 centimeters above the surface of the wing and about 1 1/2 meters from the Piper's cabin. (See drawing by Staff Artist Robert Gonzales.) A glance back to the left revealed another object of the same description in the same position above the left wing.
"I was petrified," Carlos told officials later, "after I saw a third object which seemed about to collide head-on with the windshield. But it went beneath the aircraft and I heard a strange noise from below as though it had collided with the underside of the plane."
Carlos then noted that his airspeed had decreased from 140 nautical miles per hour to 120. He tried to bank to the left, in an attempt to "bump" the object away from his plane but the controls were frozen and would not move. He then tried to let down the landing gear, hoping to get rid of the object under him, but with no results.
APRO's Field Investigator, Fernando J. Tellez Pareja, listened to the tape-recorded conversation between Santos and the Mexico City International Airport Control Tower, which Carlos initiated after he found his controls were frozen:
Carlos: Center Mexico from extra bravo extra alfa union. Mayday! Mayday! (Ed. Note: "Mayday!" is an international distress signal.)
Mexico City: Come in, extra bravo extra alfa union. (Here the pilot repeated his call twice — apparently he did not hear Mexico City answer.) Center Mexico here, come in extra alfa union.
Carlos: Extra alfa union to Center Mexico. My aircraft is out of control — I have no control over it — I have three unidentified objects flying around me. I have three unidentified objects flying around me, one came under my aircraft and hit it. The landing gear is locked in and the controls won't release them. My position — I am on the Radial 004 from the VOR Tequesquitengo — I am not controlling the plane — Center Mexico, can you hear me?
Center Mexico: Take note extra alfa union, give me your position and your situation. We are contacting competent authorities and (here interrupted by Carlos again)
Carlos: The aircraft is out of control.
At this point, Mexico City International Airport closed its runways to traffic and prepared for the expected emergency landing. The objects continued maintaining position on XB-XAU, exerting complete control over the aircraft.
The "Mayday" or emergency call was received at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 3. The control tower contacted Ignacio Silva la Mora (Carlo's uncle), an authority on aircraft, who was put in touch with Carlos via radio to analyze the problem and help with landing preparations.
When Carlos had reached the Ajusco navigational fix, the UFOs had elevated the aircraft from 15,000 feet (the altitude while over Tequesquitengo) to 15,800 and then, one by one, they left. First the object over his left wing elevated until it was over the cabin, then above the object on the right wing, and then these two flew off and were lost to view in the direction of the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatal volcanoes. The controls of the aircraft were immediately normal and Carlos regained control.
Carlos then attempted to lower the landing gear, circling Mexico City International Airport eight times, in radio contact to ascertain if he was successful. Finally, after 40 minutes of circling while he worked on the control column with a screw driver, he managed to lower the wheels and landed at 1:34 p.m. on the grassy area between runway 5 right and 5 left where emergency vehicles, including firemen and ambulance, were waiting.
After landing, Carlos was taken to the Airport Clinic where he was thoroughly examined and found to be normal and fit. Some individuals had hinted that he might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol but the medical examination laid that speculation to rest.
Coyne Helicopter UFO Incident
Date: October 18, 1973
Location: Mansfield, Ohio, USA
About ten miles south of Mansfield, Healey noticed a single red light off to the west, flying south. It seemed brighter than a standard aircraft port-wing light, but it was not considered relevant traffic, and he does not recall mentioning it. An estimated two minutes later, at approximately 11:02 PM, Yanacsek noted a single red light on the south-east horizon. He assumed it was either a radio-tower beacon or an aircraft port-wing light - most likely an aircraft, since it was not flashing - and he watched it "for a long time, a minute to ninety seconds" before calling it to Coyne's attention. Coyne, smoking, relaxing, glanced over, noted the light, assumed it was distant traffic, and told told Yanacsek casually to "keep an eye on it."
After an estimated additional thirty seconds, Yanacsek announced that the light had turned toward the helicopter and appeared to be on a converging flight path. Coyne verified Yanacsek's assessment, grabbed the controls from Jezzi, and put the UH-1H into a powered descent of approximately 500 feet per minute. Almost simultaneously, Coyne established radio contact with Mansfield control tower, ten miles to the northwest. Coyne thought the flight was an Air National Guard F-100 from Mansfield. After an initial acknowledgment ("This is Mansfield Tower, go ahead Army 1-5-triple-4"), radio contact failed. Jezzi then attempted transmission on both UHF and VHF frequencies without success. Although the channel and keying tones were both heard, there was no response from Mansfield; and a subsequent check by Coyne revealed that Mansfield had no tape of even the initial transmission, the the last F-100 had landed at 10:47 P.M.
The red light continued its radial bearing and increased greatly in intensity. Coyne increased his rate of descent to 2,000 feet per minute and his airspeed to 100 knots. The last altitude he noted was 1,700 feet. Just as a collision appeared imminent, the unknown light halted in its westward course and assumed a hovering relationship above and in front of the helicopter. "It wasn't cruising, it was stopped. For maybe ten to twelve seconds - just stopped," Yanacsek reported. Coyne, Healey, and Yanacsek agree that a cigar-shaped, slightly domed object substended an angle of nearly the width of the front windshield. A featureless, gray, metallic-looking structure was precisely delineated against the background stars. Yanacsek reported "a suggestion of windows" along the top dome section. The red light emanated from the bow, a white light became visible at a slightly indented stern, and then, from aft/below, a green 'pyramid shaped" beam equated to a directional spotlight became visible. The green beam passed upward over the helicopter nose, swung up through the windshield, continued upward and entered the tinted upper window panels. At that point (and not before), the cockpit was enveloped in green light. Jezzi reported only a bright white light, comparable to the leading light of a small aircraft, visible through the top "greenhouse' panels of the windshield. After the estimated ten seconds of "hovering," the object began to accelerate off to the west, now with only the white "tail" light visible. The white light maintained its intensity even as its distance appeared to increase, and finally (according to Coyne and Healey), it appeared to execute a decisive 45 degree turn to the right, head out toward Lake Erie, and then "snap out" over the horizon. Healey reported that he watched the object moving westward "for a couple of minutes." Jezzi said it moved faster than the 250-knot limit for aircraft below 10,000 feet, but not as fast as the 600-knot approach speed reported by the others. There was no noise from the object or turbulence during the encounter, except for one "bump" as the object moved away to the west. After the object had broken off its hovering relationship, Jezzi and Coyne noted that the magnetic compass disk was rotating approximately four times per minute and that the altimeter read approximately 3,500 feet; a 1,000 foot-per-minute climb was in progress. Coyne insists that the collective was still bottomed from his evasive descent. Since the collective could not be lowered further, he had no alternative but to lift it, whatever the results, and after a few seconds of gingerly maneuvering controls (during which the helicopter reached nearly 3,800 feet), positive control was achieved. By that time the white light had already moved into the Mansfield area. Coyne had been subliminally aware of the climb; the others not at all, yet they had all been acutely aware of the g-forces of the dive. The helicopter was brought back to the flight plan altitude of 2,500 feet, radio contact was achieved with Canton/Akron, the night proceeded uneventfully to Cleveland.
Domed Disc Near Airliner, Confirmed By Radar
Date: February 14, 1973
Location: McAlester, Oklahoma, USA
Domed Disc Near Airliner, Confirmed By Radar.
An airline DC-8 cargo flight was en route from St. Louis to Dallas on February 14, 1973, at about 2:30 a.m. At a point near McAlester, Oklahoma, the copilot noticed what he first thought was another aircraft just below the leading edge of the right wing about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) away. The object was on the same course and speed, keeping a constant position. Only its steady amber light seemed unconventional.
Suddenly the object rose straight up like an elevator, made a sharp turn and approached the plane, taking up a position about 300 yards (270 meters) away and slightly above them. It was disc-shaped with a transparent dome on top, its silvery, highly polished surface reflecting the moonlight. Besides some stubby protrusions no other features were visible.
The captain switched on the weather radar and it confirmed that something real and solid was there. When the radar beam hit its surface, the object reacted immediately, ascending straight up, then moving sideways over the DC-8 and briefly out of sight. The object reappeared quickly, descending straight down and taking up a new position just below the leading edge of their left wing. It then dropped below and behind the plane, abruptly reappearing only about 300 feet (90 meters) below them.
Looking down into the dimly lit dome, the pilots saw two or three shadowy entities moving around. The object then darted out in front, performed various oscillatory motions and another sharp (noninertial) turn before speeding out of sight. It disappeared off the radar scope at a distance of 50 miles (80 km).16
Report by Richard Hall, Volume II, The UFO Evidence, A Thirty-Year Report, Richard Hall, (2001), page 131
Lago de Cote UFO Photograph
Date: September 4, 1971
Location: Lago De Cote, Costa Rica
Source: STUDIOVNI
The photo above (cropped and enlarged) was taken by a Costa Rican government mapping plane during an aerial mapping mission. This UFO photograph is unique for several reasons. 1) The photograph was taken by a high-quality, professional camera. 2) The unidentified object is plainly visible against the uniformly dark background of the lake and appears in sharp focus. 3) The camera was aimed downward and the plane was flying at a known, fixed altitude (10,000 feet), which makes it easy to calculate a maximum size for the object (683 feet).
The plane carried a crew of four; a specialist in aerial photography, a geographer, a topographer, and the pilot. No member of the crew stated that they saw anything unusual during the routine flight.
Much analysis has been undertaken using the original negative, most notably by Dr. Richard F. Haines and Dr. Jacques F. Vallee. It seems safe to assume that it is not a double-exposure or the result of manipulation of the negative. All indications are that this is a photo of a large three-dimensional disk , or shallow cone, [hovering?] above, and possibly partially submerged in Lago de Cote.
There were apparently no witnesses to the disk's presence at the time of the photograph, but other incidents at that location had been reported by local farmers, involving strange, artificial objects moving around the surface or just below the surface of the lake. (NURMUFO)
The photo above (cropped and enlarged) was taken by a Costa Rican government mapping plane during an aerial mapping mission. This UFO photograph is unique for several reasons. 1) The photograph was taken by a high-quality, professional camera. 2) The unidentified object is plainly visible against the uniformly dark background of the lake and appears in sharp focus. 3) The camera was aimed downward and the plane was flying at a known, fixed altitude (10,000 feet), which makes it easy to calculate a maximum size for the object (683 feet).
The plane carried a crew of four; a specialist in aerial photography, a geographer, a topographer, and the pilot. No member of the crew stated that they saw anything unusual during the routine flight.
Much analysis has been undertaken using the original negative, most notably by Dr. Richard F. Haines and Dr. Jacques F. Vallee. It seems safe to assume that it is not a double-exposure or the result of manipulation of the negative. All indications are that this is a photo of a large three-dimensional disk , or shallow cone, [hovering?] above, and possibly partially submerged in Lago de Cote.
There were apparently no witnesses to the disk's presence at the time of the photograph, but other incidents at that location had been reported by local farmers, involving strange, artificial objects moving around the surface or just below the surface of the lake. (NURMUFO)
Pilot 'flees' from giant cone-shaped UFO pacing plane
Date: September 20, 1966
Location: NEar Sebring, Florida, USA
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon),
A Winter Haven, Florida, private pilot reported he fled from a giant cone-shaped UFO which kept his plane in shadow for about three minutes on the morning of September 20, 1966. James J. O'Connor, a former Army investigator, was flying at 9500 feet in a small private plane near Sebring, Florida about 10 a.m. (EST) when he noticed what appeared to be a delta-shaped object above him. Curious, he climbed toward the object, but leveled off about 10,000 feet because he had no oxygen equipment. Then the UFO began increasing in size, apparently descending toward his plane and pacing him.
O'Connor was somewhat unnerved, but "more curious than frightened." He timed the descent of the UFO at 37 seconds. The object made a "singing" noise like automobile tires on a wet pavement. When his plane was completely in the shadow of the object for several minutes and it continued to follow him, O'Connor became apprehensive. He pulled his plane up, reduced power and stalled out, diving as fast as he could without putting undue strain on his small plane. He dropped to 3500 feet before looking up again. "That's when I was frightened," he later reported. "That thing had not changed in size at all, but was still with me and pacing me. It was still as big as a football field."
Briefly O'Connor thought of shooting at the UFO with a .38 special he kept in the cockpit, but about that time the object appeared to change shape to a wedge, then a thin line, and then vanished. "I realized it was climbing," O'Connor said, "doing a reverse peel-off in a 360 degree turn. We don't have an aircraft that could do this I think. It was more like the thing was falling ‘up’.”
O'Connor estimated that the UFO followed him for 17 minutes. The sighting was in bright daylight with a clear sky and only a few alto-cirrus clouds high above. When he noticed the object overhead,- O'Connor opened his canopy and looked straight up at it. He was flying VFR from Winter Haven to Miami at the time. When the UFO broke off the pursuit and climbed away, O'Connor got a view of the underside of a cone, point upwards.
Experienced pilot and passenger sight disc-shaped UFO with dome on top
Date: May 21, 1966
Location: Near Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, USA
An 18,000-hour pilot and his passenger made a clear daylight sighting of a disc-shaped UFO with a dome on top on the afternoon of May 21, 1966 near Willow Grove, Pa. "It was as clear as seeing a Cadillac drifting by at 100 yards," said William C. Powell. Currently active in executive-transport flying, Powell was a pilot for the Dutch KLM airlines, and before that for the U.S. Air Force and RCAF.
During a panel discussion on UFOs before an annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C. (April 22, 1967), Powell described the experience. (Additional details are taken from the first hand report in NICAP's files). Powell was flying a Luscombe at about 4500 feet near Willow Grove, Pa., with a 15-mile visibility. At about 3:15 p.m., after seeing a flight of Navy jets climbing up from Willow Grove Naval Air Station, Powell spotted an object closing in behind the jets. Noting that the object had no protrusions like an aircraft, he watched more closely and saw it make an abrupt 150-160 degree turn and head for his aircraft. As the UFO passed under his starboard wing, Powell saw that it was a structured object. It seemed to be about 100 yards distant, and 30-40 feet in diameter. The overall configuration was discoidal; the base was bright red, and the dome was glistening white.
Powell and his passenger, Miss Muriel McClave, turned quickly as the UFO passed and observed it briefly through the right rear window; then it abruptly vanished. Powell later called Willow Grove Naval Air Station to report the incident. He had been flying a northwest course, behind the Navy jets. The UFO crossed his windshield from left to right, made the sharp turn across his front, approached head-on and passed to his right, disappearing on a southeast course.
Planes chased by elliptical luminous object, EM effects over Japan
Date: March 21, 1965
Location: Himeji, Leshhima Isands, Japan
"Three Japanese airline pilots reported Friday night that they were 'chased by a flying saucer' while they were on their scheduled flights between this city and Osaka. The first to report seeing the so-called flying saucer was Yoshiaka Inaba, pilot of the domestic TOA Airlines, as he was flying his Convair-240 with 40 passengers aboard over Himeji, near Osaka, on his way to Hiroshima, shortly after 7 p.m.
" 'A mysterious elliptical luminous object appeared just after I had passed Himeji. I was flying at the time at an altitude of about 2,000 metres. The object followed for a while, and then stopped for about three minutes, and then followed along my left wing across the Inland Sea for a distance of about 90 kilometres (55 miles) until we reached Matsuyama on Shikoku Island. It then disappeared'.
"He said the object emitted a greenish coloured light and violently affected his automatic direction finder and his radio. He said he tried to contact the Osaka communications tower but was unsuccessful.
"His co-pilot Tetsu Umashima tried to contact the Matsuyama tower to report on their observation of the strange object. While he was trying to do so, he heard the frantic calls from the pilot of a Tokyo Airlines 'Apache', who said he was being chased by a 'mysterious luminous object' while he was flying along the northern edge of Matsuyama city.
"Inaba, a veteran of 20 years with more than 8,600 hours, said it was the first time in his flying experience that he had ever seen such an object."
Gigantic 'Cigar' UFO Over the Atlantic In 1963
Date: May 1963
Location: Over the Atlantic Ocean
second week of May 1963.
"I was at the time working for NATO as an English language
secretary, and based in Paris. On the day in question I was one
of a party of 50 NATO personnel who were en route to Canada for
the NATO Ministerial Meetings in Ottawa. Our plane, an Air
Canada DC-8, carried what seemed to be the usual crew, and two
stewardesses, though I had the impression that the flight was
under military or NATO control.
A.m., and we were told that the flight to Ottawa would take
about seven hours. As there were only 50 of us, the plane was
relatively empty. I took a window seat on the port side (left)
near the wing. The other two seats in my row remained empty
throughout the flight. As NATO personnel we were all of course
well known to each other, and very much a 'family group'.
"The weather was beautiful, and the Captain announced that we
would fly at 36,000 (or maybe 38,000 - I do not recall clearly)
feet. After lunch had been served, I sat enjoying the view of
the vast expanse of sky above the clouds. The windows of the
DC-8 were very large, the largest I seem to recall having seen
on an aircraft, and came down quite low beside the passenger.
"I was just reaching down to take a book from my hold-all, and
was astonished to glimpse below the 'plane something dark and
absolutely tremendous that stood out in vivid contrast to the
brightness all around. I could not believe my eyes. I pressed
close to the window in unbelief and there, almost beneath the
DC-8, was a gigantic dark grey 'torpedo'. It seemed menacing
and frightening, and I had the impression that it was
stationary. It was utterly unlike anything that I had ever seen
in my whole life. It looked as though made of steel. No
portholes or windows were visible. No wings or projections.
Nothing but the long perfect torpedo form, with its bullet-
shaped head, and the rear end which was cut off sharply and
squarely. (1) The monster - and I emphasise that it was this
terrifying size that impressed me - was well below us. I
thought maybe 2,000 metres or so below us, but of course I had
no way of being able to gauge this or to estimate the size of
the thing.
"I looked down again quickly at the monster, and saw that a
swathe of tiny clouds were beginning to pass over it, though it
remained visible through them for a few seconds before being
lost to my sight.
"I sat there in utter amazement that such a craft could exist.
Why, I thought, had I never heard, in all my life, of the
existence of anything like this! I felt stunned, and dazed,
contemplating my utter ignorance that such things could be, and
that I could know nothing whatever about them.
Disc-shaped UFO hovers, then evades pursuit by pilot
Date: October 2, 1961
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Source: NICAP / Richard Hall (1964) from NICAP case report
A grayish disc-shaped object which hovered, wobbling on its axis, then evaded pursuit, was sighted October 2, 1961 at Salt Lake City, Utah airport.
Private pilot Waldo J. Harris, a real estate broker, investigated the object in his light aircraft as 8-10 ground personnel at the airport watched. Mr. Harris signed a NICAP report form on October 10, and later answered additional questions by a NICAP Subcommittee member. His report: "I was preparing to take off in a Mooney Mark 20A from the North- South runway at Utah Central Airport when I noticed a bright spot in the sky over the southern end of the Salt Lake Valley. I began my take-off run without paying much attention to the bright spot as I assumed that it was some aircraft reflecting the sun as it turned. After I was airborne and trimmed for my climb-out, I noticed that the bright spot was still about in the same position as before. I still thought it must be the sun reflecting from an airplane, so I made my turn onto my cross-wind leg of the traffic pattern, and was about to turn downwind when I noticed that the spot was in the same spot still.
"I turned out of the pattern and proceeded toward the spot to get a better look. As I drew nearer I could see that the object had no wings nor tail nor any other exterior control surfaces protruding from what appeared to be the fuselage. It seemed to be hovering with a little rocking motion. As it rocked up away from me, I could see that it was a disc shaped object. I would guess the diameter at about 50 to 55 feet, the thickness in the middle at about 8 to 10 feet. It had the appearance of sand- blasted aluminum. I could see no windows or doors or any other openings, nor could I see any landing gear doors, etc., protruding, nor showing.
"I believe at the closest point I was about 2 miles from the object, at the same altitude or a little above the object. It rose abruptly about 1000 feet above me as I closed in, giving me an excellent view of the underneath side, which was exactly like the upper side as far as I could tell. Then it went off on a course of about 170 degrees for about 10 miles where it again hovered with that little rocking motion.
"I again approached the object, but not so closely this time, when it departed on a course of about 245 degrees climbing at about 18 to 20 degrees above the horizon. It went completely out of sight in 2 or 3 seconds. As you know I can keep our fastest jets in sight for several minutes, so you can see that this object was moving rather rapidly.
"All the time I was observing the object, after getting visual confirmation from the ground, I was describing what I saw on radio unicom frequency. I was answering questions from the ground both from Utah Central, and Provo. The voice at Provo said that they could not see the object, but at least 8 or 10 people did see it from the ground at Utah Central Airport.
"As to seeing it again, I was returning to the field after it had departed when I was asked over radio if I still could see the object , and I reported that I could not. They said they had it in sight again. I turned back and saw it at much greater distance only for about a second or two when it completely vanished. The guys on the ground said it went straight up as it finally left, but I didn't see that departure."
On the NICAP report form, Mr. Harris pointed out that the UFO at one time "passed below the horizon in front of mountains to the south." This fact rules out any astronomical explanation.
Airliners Paced by three UFOs (The Killian Case)
Date: February 23, 1959
Location: Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA
On February 24, 1959, Captain Peter W. Killian and First Officer James Dee, American Airlines, were flying a DC-6B nonstop from Newark to Detroit. It was a clear night, with stars brightly visible and no moon. At 8:20 P.M. (EST) the plane was approximately thirteen miles west of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, flying on a heading of 295 degrees at 8,500 feet. Off the left wingtip, Captain Killian noticed three bright lights, which he first thought was the three stars making up the belt of the constellation Orion. But then he realized that Orion was also visible, higher overhead. The UFOs were about 15 degrees above the plane.
As he and Flight Officer (F/O) Dee continued to watch, the objects pulled ahead of the wingtip. At this point, in the vicinity of Erie, Pennsylvania, Captain Killian contacted two other American Airlines planes in the area. One, at the "Dolphin checkpoint" (over the northern shore of Lake Erie), saw the objects directly to the south over Cleveland. The other aircraft, near Sandusky, Ohio, and heading toward Pittsburgh. spotted the objects a little to the left of their heading, to the southeast.
As the DC-6B continued west, the UFOs occasionally pulled ahead and dropped back until they were in their original position with respect to the left wingtip. Then Captain Killian began letting down for landing in Detroit, and the crew no longer had time to watch the objects.
During the forty-five minute observation, the UFOs continuously changed brightness, flashing "brighter than any star," and then fading completely. This did not occur in any apparent pattern. The color fluctuated from yellow-orange to a brilliant blue-white at their brightest. The last object in line moved back and forth at times, independently of the generally western motion of the formation.
Visibility was unlimited. The pilots agreed: "It could not be any clearer than it was that night above 5,000 feet."
When the plane began letting down for landing, about 9:15 P.M., Captain Killian and F/O Dee lost sight of the objects. At 9:30 P.M. in Akron, Ohio, George Popowitch of the UFO Research Committee received a phone call from a contact at the Akron airport. A United Airlines plane
(Flight 937) had just landed for a fifteen-minute stop and reported sighting three UFOs which had followed their plane for thirty minutes. Popowitch had already received nine reports from local citizens between 9:15 and 9:20 of there UFOs seen in the area, so he arranged to interview the crew of the airliner.
Captain A. D. Yates and Engineer L. E. Baney said they had tracked the object from the vicinity of Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, to Youngstown, Ohio, between 8:40 and 9:10 P.M. United Airlines flight 321, also, had discussed the objects by radio. Captain Yates had seen the UFOs pacing his plane to the south. But in the vicinity of Warren, Ohio, the objects passed the aircraft, veered to the right, and finally disappeared to the northwest.
On May 6, 1959, Major General W. P. Fisher, Air Force Director of Legislative Liaison, in a letter to Senator Harry Byrd, stated: "The investigation of this incident revealed that an Air Force refueling mission, involving a KC-97 and three B-47 aircraft, was flown in the vicinity of Bradford, Pennsylvania, at the time of the sighting by Captain Killian. The refueling operation was conducted at 17,000 feet altitude at approximately 230 knots true air speed (about 265 mph) for a period of approximately one hour."
As he and Flight Officer (F/O) Dee continued to watch, the objects pulled ahead of the wingtip. At this point, in the vicinity of Erie, Pennsylvania, Captain Killian contacted two other American Airlines planes in the area. One, at the "Dolphin checkpoint" (over the northern shore of Lake Erie), saw the objects directly to the south over Cleveland. The other aircraft, near Sandusky, Ohio, and heading toward Pittsburgh. spotted the objects a little to the left of their heading, to the southeast.
As the DC-6B continued west, the UFOs occasionally pulled ahead and dropped back until they were in their original position with respect to the left wingtip. Then Captain Killian began letting down for landing in Detroit, and the crew no longer had time to watch the objects.
During the forty-five minute observation, the UFOs continuously changed brightness, flashing "brighter than any star," and then fading completely. This did not occur in any apparent pattern. The color fluctuated from yellow-orange to a brilliant blue-white at their brightest. The last object in line moved back and forth at times, independently of the generally western motion of the formation.
Visibility was unlimited. The pilots agreed: "It could not be any clearer than it was that night above 5,000 feet."
When the plane began letting down for landing, about 9:15 P.M., Captain Killian and F/O Dee lost sight of the objects. At 9:30 P.M. in Akron, Ohio, George Popowitch of the UFO Research Committee received a phone call from a contact at the Akron airport. A United Airlines plane
(Flight 937) had just landed for a fifteen-minute stop and reported sighting three UFOs which had followed their plane for thirty minutes. Popowitch had already received nine reports from local citizens between 9:15 and 9:20 of there UFOs seen in the area, so he arranged to interview the crew of the airliner.
Captain A. D. Yates and Engineer L. E. Baney said they had tracked the object from the vicinity of Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, to Youngstown, Ohio, between 8:40 and 9:10 P.M. United Airlines flight 321, also, had discussed the objects by radio. Captain Yates had seen the UFOs pacing his plane to the south. But in the vicinity of Warren, Ohio, the objects passed the aircraft, veered to the right, and finally disappeared to the northwest.
On May 6, 1959, Major General W. P. Fisher, Air Force Director of Legislative Liaison, in a letter to Senator Harry Byrd, stated: "The investigation of this incident revealed that an Air Force refueling mission, involving a KC-97 and three B-47 aircraft, was flown in the vicinity of Bradford, Pennsylvania, at the time of the sighting by Captain Killian. The refueling operation was conducted at 17,000 feet altitude at approximately 230 knots true air speed (about 265 mph) for a period of approximately one hour."
Commercial Plane Follows UFO over New York State
Date: April 8, 1958
Location: New York, USA
April 8, 1956: A very brilliant light was followed across New York State by an American Airlines plane. The pilots were Capt. Raymond Ryan and First Officer William Neff. The chase was described by radio to Air Force and civilian control tower operators. The following account of the sighting is taken from a tape-recorded interview program, "Meet the Millers," On WBEN TV, Buffalo, New York, April 16, 1956 (tape on file at NICAP). Mr. and Mrs. Miller are the interviewers (Int.); Captain Ryan, F/O Neff, and Bruce Foster (a Bell Aircraft Company engineer) are the guests:
Int: Was that a regular flight of American Airlines?
Ryan: Yes, it was.
Int: From Buffalo to New York?
Ryan: This flight comes out of New York and lands at Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and terminates in Buffalo.
Int: What was your first idea that anything was happening-- that you were seeing something?
Neff: This very brilliant white light, like an approaching aircraft with its landing lights on. Naturally we moved away from it thinking that's what it was. Then we noticed it was standing still at the time and we got sort of curious.
Int: Just about what location was this?
Ryan: This was just about over Schenectady. We were coming out of Albany. We took off north and we made a left turn and we noticed this light over Schenectady. It seemed to be standing still.
Int: A light? Now, when you say a light do you mean a light like a light bulb- about that color?
Ryan: Oh yes, very fluorescent--a very bright light.
Int: A big what?
Ryan: A large light. It looked more like a light coming into Albany airport.
MIT: And both of you saw it? At the same time?
Int: How close were you to it, do you think?
Ryan: We turned a little bit to pass to the south of it, and we were probably 2 or 3 miles from it.
Int: And the thing was just standing there?
Ryan: Just about standing; it was off our wingtip.
Int: Was there anyone else on the flight with you?
Ryan: Oh, we had Miss Reynolds, our stewardess was with us.
Int: Did she happen to notice it too?
Ryan: She came up. We called her and she came up and looked at it later on after this had taken off at this terrific speed from where we first noticed it.
Int: How long was it stationary there?
Neff: We couldn't say that it was actually stationary.....(several talking at once) < br />
Ryan: · . . from the time we were off the ground at Albany, until we--it's about 15 miles by air to Schenectady and it was off our wingtip, and we watched it go through a ninety degree arc, go right straight to the west, and it was-- how many seconds does it take to go through a ninety degree arc?
Int: Bruce?
Foster: How fast would you say it appeared to be going? Did it change speed very radically during the time that you saw it?
Ryan: The initial speed l would say probably was 800 to 1000 miles an hour. How fast can it--it's hard to say, just to compute that speed.
Neff: Certainly much faster than another airplane would.
Ryan: Oh much faster, much faster than a jet.
lnt: Faster than a jet?
Ryan: Yes ma 'am.
Neff: Couldn't be a jet, not at that altitude because their fuel is so critical.
Foster: Did it appear to change color at all?
Ryan: Yes it did. It changed color after it got to the west of us, probably 8 to 10 miles. It appeared--the light went out, that's what had Bill and I concerned. It went out momentarily, and we knew there was something up there, and now here we were with a load of passengers with something on our course up ahead, and what are we going to do, so we watched this where the light went out and this orange object came on--this orange light.
Ryan: We looked at one another a little bit amazed, so we decided we'd call Griffiss Air Force Base, and I thought they had the radar on. . . And they didn't have it on- It would taken them 30 minutes to energize the set.
Neff: They asked us to keep it sighted and we did, and we kept calling out our location and as we told them where we were we turned all our lights on. They asked us to turn them off and they could see us, and they asked if this object you see is orange in color. We said it was---
lnt: This is after it turned on I understand
Ryan: Yes. They said "we have a definite silhouette in sight south of the field." Now those fellas are observers who are in the tower. They said that they could see a silhouette.
Neff: Watertown could see it and they're quite a ways north of Griffiss, and Albany saw it--two men in the tower at Albany--one an Air Force man and one a CAA man. And they saw it after we first called them, and noticed--and they looked over to the west and saw it right away.
Int: And when they saw it was it moving?
Neff: Well, we didn't get to talk with them---
Int: But to you it was moving?
Neff: Oh yes.
Int: Real fast?
Ryan: It stayed just that far ahead of us, and they asked us what our point of next intended landing was, and 1 told them Syracuse, and they wanted to be identified--our aircraft, number and serial number, and they said "well abandon that next landing temporarily and maintain the course and your altitude," so we did. They were calling scramble.
41
Int: When you said ****(garbled), was it low, or was it low for a jet?
Neff: Well, it was low and it was also low for a jet. There happened to be an overcast that evening which eliminated the possibility of a star right off the bat, and ****(gar bled) the way I understand it a jet burns up three or four times the amount of fuel at low altitude than it does at high altitude. 1 don't think a jet could stay down that long with out using up a considerable amount of gas.
Int: How fast were you going?
Ryan: About 250 miles per hour.
Int: ****(garbled) then did they slow down or why didn't **** (garbled)
Ryan: They must have slowed down. "They" or 'it" must have slowed down.
Neff: We trailed out as far as Oswego which is right on the south shore of Lake Ontario and we passed up our point of landing at Syracuse and we weren't sure we should hold the passengers up any longer, and of course we didn't advise them.
Ryan: We called them (Griffiss AFB) and they said they were "about off, "and that was about 8 minutes and we couldn't work them any longer, and we turned over with Syracuse tower, and they were giving--relaying the messages back and forth, and it was then about 10 to 12 minutes and they're still not off yet. And we can't - -I don 'I know, we'd probably still be flying. I just don't know where the jets were. Why didn't they get the jets up?
Int: Well what happened to the object?
Ryan: It went off, it just went to the northwest and it went out of sight.
Foster: Was it more rapid? All of a sudden did it accelerate its speed?
Ryan: It did appear to - -after it got over the water it appeared really get out of sight very fast.
Neff: It did, in the direction of Toronto--in that direction.
Int: Was this object saucer-shaped or not?
Ryan: Oh I don't know; I couldn't say.
Neff: There was no definite shape to it, it was just a brilliant light.
The RB-47 UFO Encounter
Date: July 17, 1957
Location: Gulf Coast Area, USA
On board an RB-47H aircraft equipped with sophisticated electronic countermeasures equipment, over the Gulf of Mexico.
The crew consisted of:
Lewis D. Chase, pilot, Spokane, WA
James H. McCoid, copilot, Offutt AFB
Thomas H. Hanley, navigator, Vandenberg AFB
John J. Provenzano, No. 1 monitor, Wichita, KS
Frank B. McClure, No. 2 monitor, Offutt AFB
Walter A. Tuchscherer, No. 3 monitor, Topeka, KS
These six men were on a training/test exercise in an RB-47H electronic countermeasures reconnaissance aircraft. The RB-47, while originally developed as a bomber, was also used extensively as a reconnaissance aircraft. One was shot down by the Soviet Union while on such a mission in 1960.
This particular mission began at Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas as an exercise including gunnery exercises over the Texas-Gulf area, navigation exercises over the open Gulf, and Electronic CounterMeasures exercises on the return trip across the south-central U.S.
The men participating were soon to depart for Germany and duty there. It should be noted that the ECM equipment was not radar. It did not emit a signal and then pick up reflected echoes off of an object. Rather, it detected electromagnetic signals that were actually emitted by an object itself. The purpose of this was to detect and locate enemy radar installations. On this aircraft, the #2 monitor consisted of a direction finder with antenna on the lower rear of the aircraft, and the #1 monitor consisted of a direction finder with antennas on each wingtip of the aircraft. The #3 monitor was not involved in the events of July 17, because its range did not include the frequencies involved. The first contact with the unknown object was before 4:00 AM CST. The first two parts of the mission had been completed, and the aircraft was just leaving the airspace over the Gulf of Mexico near Gulfport, Mississippi, when Frank McClure, on the #2 ECM monitor, detected an airborne signal to the right rear of the aircraft, out over the Gulf of Mexico. The signal was of a type usually confined to ground-based radar installations. It was at 2800 megacycles, a common frequency for S-band search radar. McClure at first thought that his scope must be 180° out of alignment and that he must be picking up a ground-based radar station in Louisiana, which would actually be to the left front of the aircraft. As he watched, the signal moved up the scope, as it would if the scope was 180° out of alignment. However, he was amazed to see that, after it had moved up the scope on the right-hand side of the aircraft, it then crossed the path of the RB-47 and proceeded to move down the scope on the left-hand side. In other words, whatever was emitting the signal flew a ring around the RB-47, which was flying at approximately 500 mph. Even if the scope was 180° out of alignment, the signal source still moved completely around the aircraft, which no ground radar could do. McClure said and did nothing at this time, not mentioning the signal to the other crew members. The signal faded as they flew north.
The RB-47 made a scheduled turn to the west over Jackson, Mississippi and the crew was preparing to begin a series of simulated ECM operations against Air Force ground radar units, when suddenly the pilot, Lewis Chase, saw a light coming in from the left, at approximately the same altitude as the RB-47. At first he thought it was another plane, but it was only a single white light, closing fast. He gave the command to prepare for evasive maneuvers, but the light flashed across from left to right so fast that no such action could have been taken. It then blinked out at a point to the right front of the aircraft. Both Chase and Copilot James McCoid observed this. At this point, approximately 4:10 AM CST, they were approximately over Winnsboro, Louisiana.
Chase told the other crewmembers what he had seen, and McClure now told him about his earlier signal reading. At 4:30 AM, McClure set his scope to detect signals near 3000 mcs again, and he detected a strong signal at the same location in relation to the RB-47 that Chase had last seen the light. He and Provenzano checked the alignment of the #2 monitor by tuning in on known ground radar installations and found it to be in perfect working order. At 4:30 AM, Provenzano tuned his own monitor, #1, to 3000 mcs, and found that his equipment detected a signal at the same location. What's more, he and McClure found that the signal was staying in the same position, keeping pace with the RB-47, which was still flying at 500 mph. This meant that it was not a signal from a ground-based radar.
The Unknown Companion
By this time they had reached the Duncanville, Texas area. At 4:39, Chase spotted a huge light to the right front of the RB-47 an about 5,000 feet below the aircraft's 34,500 feet altitude. The weather was perfectly clear. At 4:40, McClure reported two signals, at 40° and 70°. Chase and McCoid reported seeing red lights at those locations. Chase contacted radar Station Utah at Duncanville, Texas and requested permission to abandon his flight plan and pursue the lights, which he received. At 4:48 AM, radar station Utah requested the position of the signals that McClure was receiving, and they immediately confirmed that their radar had detected the objects at the same location. As the RB-47 attempted to pursue, the object appeared to stop suddenly. Chase could see that they were gaining on it, and they over shot it.
At 4:52 it blinked out, and simultaneously vanished from McClure's scope and the ground radar! Chase put the aircraft into a port turn, and the object suddenly blinked on again, simultaneously reappearing on McClure's scope and the ground radar at 4:52! They began to close to within 5 miles of the object, when it suddenly dropped to 15,000 feet and then blinked out again, once again vanishing from the scopes and ground radar. At 4:55, Chase radioed Utah radar station that they had to break of pursuit and continue with their scheduled flight plan due to low fuel. At 4:57 McClure picked up the signal again, and at 4:58 Chase made visual contact again. As they headed into Oklahoma, McClure continued to receive a signal, now from the rear of the aircraft, until it finally faded as they neared Oklahoma City. The Director of Intelligence, 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, stated in his report that he had: ...no doubt the electronic D/F's coincided exactly with visual observations by aircraft cmdr numerous times, thus indicating positively the object being the signal source.
What can be detected on ECM direction finding devices, can be seen visually, and can be detected on ordinary ground-based radar all at the same time? What can be detected by all the sensors and can also fly rings around a jet travelling at 500 mph?
Project Bluebook said that the sightings in Dallas - Fort Worth area were an ordinary jet airliner. They couldn't explain the abrupt, simultaneous disappearance and reappearance of the object from radar screens, ECM scopes, and visual detection. They also couldn't explain the events that occurred over Mississippi and Louisiana. It's odd that the Utah radar station couldn't tell an airliner from an unknown.
The crew consisted of:
Lewis D. Chase, pilot, Spokane, WA
James H. McCoid, copilot, Offutt AFB
Thomas H. Hanley, navigator, Vandenberg AFB
John J. Provenzano, No. 1 monitor, Wichita, KS
Frank B. McClure, No. 2 monitor, Offutt AFB
Walter A. Tuchscherer, No. 3 monitor, Topeka, KS
These six men were on a training/test exercise in an RB-47H electronic countermeasures reconnaissance aircraft. The RB-47, while originally developed as a bomber, was also used extensively as a reconnaissance aircraft. One was shot down by the Soviet Union while on such a mission in 1960.
This particular mission began at Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas as an exercise including gunnery exercises over the Texas-Gulf area, navigation exercises over the open Gulf, and Electronic CounterMeasures exercises on the return trip across the south-central U.S.
The men participating were soon to depart for Germany and duty there. It should be noted that the ECM equipment was not radar. It did not emit a signal and then pick up reflected echoes off of an object. Rather, it detected electromagnetic signals that were actually emitted by an object itself. The purpose of this was to detect and locate enemy radar installations. On this aircraft, the #2 monitor consisted of a direction finder with antenna on the lower rear of the aircraft, and the #1 monitor consisted of a direction finder with antennas on each wingtip of the aircraft. The #3 monitor was not involved in the events of July 17, because its range did not include the frequencies involved. The first contact with the unknown object was before 4:00 AM CST. The first two parts of the mission had been completed, and the aircraft was just leaving the airspace over the Gulf of Mexico near Gulfport, Mississippi, when Frank McClure, on the #2 ECM monitor, detected an airborne signal to the right rear of the aircraft, out over the Gulf of Mexico. The signal was of a type usually confined to ground-based radar installations. It was at 2800 megacycles, a common frequency for S-band search radar. McClure at first thought that his scope must be 180° out of alignment and that he must be picking up a ground-based radar station in Louisiana, which would actually be to the left front of the aircraft. As he watched, the signal moved up the scope, as it would if the scope was 180° out of alignment. However, he was amazed to see that, after it had moved up the scope on the right-hand side of the aircraft, it then crossed the path of the RB-47 and proceeded to move down the scope on the left-hand side. In other words, whatever was emitting the signal flew a ring around the RB-47, which was flying at approximately 500 mph. Even if the scope was 180° out of alignment, the signal source still moved completely around the aircraft, which no ground radar could do. McClure said and did nothing at this time, not mentioning the signal to the other crew members. The signal faded as they flew north.
The RB-47 made a scheduled turn to the west over Jackson, Mississippi and the crew was preparing to begin a series of simulated ECM operations against Air Force ground radar units, when suddenly the pilot, Lewis Chase, saw a light coming in from the left, at approximately the same altitude as the RB-47. At first he thought it was another plane, but it was only a single white light, closing fast. He gave the command to prepare for evasive maneuvers, but the light flashed across from left to right so fast that no such action could have been taken. It then blinked out at a point to the right front of the aircraft. Both Chase and Copilot James McCoid observed this. At this point, approximately 4:10 AM CST, they were approximately over Winnsboro, Louisiana.
Chase told the other crewmembers what he had seen, and McClure now told him about his earlier signal reading. At 4:30 AM, McClure set his scope to detect signals near 3000 mcs again, and he detected a strong signal at the same location in relation to the RB-47 that Chase had last seen the light. He and Provenzano checked the alignment of the #2 monitor by tuning in on known ground radar installations and found it to be in perfect working order. At 4:30 AM, Provenzano tuned his own monitor, #1, to 3000 mcs, and found that his equipment detected a signal at the same location. What's more, he and McClure found that the signal was staying in the same position, keeping pace with the RB-47, which was still flying at 500 mph. This meant that it was not a signal from a ground-based radar.
The Unknown Companion
By this time they had reached the Duncanville, Texas area. At 4:39, Chase spotted a huge light to the right front of the RB-47 an about 5,000 feet below the aircraft's 34,500 feet altitude. The weather was perfectly clear. At 4:40, McClure reported two signals, at 40° and 70°. Chase and McCoid reported seeing red lights at those locations. Chase contacted radar Station Utah at Duncanville, Texas and requested permission to abandon his flight plan and pursue the lights, which he received. At 4:48 AM, radar station Utah requested the position of the signals that McClure was receiving, and they immediately confirmed that their radar had detected the objects at the same location. As the RB-47 attempted to pursue, the object appeared to stop suddenly. Chase could see that they were gaining on it, and they over shot it.
At 4:52 it blinked out, and simultaneously vanished from McClure's scope and the ground radar! Chase put the aircraft into a port turn, and the object suddenly blinked on again, simultaneously reappearing on McClure's scope and the ground radar at 4:52! They began to close to within 5 miles of the object, when it suddenly dropped to 15,000 feet and then blinked out again, once again vanishing from the scopes and ground radar. At 4:55, Chase radioed Utah radar station that they had to break of pursuit and continue with their scheduled flight plan due to low fuel. At 4:57 McClure picked up the signal again, and at 4:58 Chase made visual contact again. As they headed into Oklahoma, McClure continued to receive a signal, now from the rear of the aircraft, until it finally faded as they neared Oklahoma City. The Director of Intelligence, 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, stated in his report that he had: ...no doubt the electronic D/F's coincided exactly with visual observations by aircraft cmdr numerous times, thus indicating positively the object being the signal source.
What can be detected on ECM direction finding devices, can be seen visually, and can be detected on ordinary ground-based radar all at the same time? What can be detected by all the sensors and can also fly rings around a jet travelling at 500 mph?
Project Bluebook said that the sightings in Dallas - Fort Worth area were an ordinary jet airliner. They couldn't explain the abrupt, simultaneous disappearance and reappearance of the object from radar screens, ECM scopes, and visual detection. They also couldn't explain the events that occurred over Mississippi and Louisiana. It's odd that the Utah radar station couldn't tell an airliner from an unknown.
Canadian military pilots see and photograph UFO
Date: August 27, 1956
Location: McCleod, Alberta, Canada
Source: STUDIOVNI
August 27, 1956, near McCleod, Alberta, Canada. The witnesses were two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots who were flying in a formation of four F86 Sabre jet aircraft. The planes were flying due west over the Canadian Rockies at 36,000 feet about one hour before sunset. One of the pilots saw a "bright light which was sharply defined and disk-shaped," that resembled "a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal," situated below the planes but above a thick layer of clouds. It appeared to be considerably brighter than sunlight reflecting off the clouds. The duration of the sighting was estimated to be between 45 seconds and 3 minutes. The first pilot to notice the object reported the observation to the flight leader and then took a photograph on a Kodachrome color slide. This case and this photograph were subsequently analyzed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee (Maccabee, 1996). Maccabee has presented an argument against the propositions that the phenomenon is due either to reflection of sunlight by the clouds or to lightning. From the available data, Maccabee estimates the luminosity of the object (the power output within the spectral range of the film) to be many megawatts. ("Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports" - The Sturrock Panel Report)
August 27, 1956, near McCleod, Alberta, Canada. The witnesses were two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots who were flying in a formation of four F86 Sabre jet aircraft. The planes were flying due west over the Canadian Rockies at 36,000 feet about one hour before sunset. One of the pilots saw a "bright light which was sharply defined and disk-shaped," that resembled "a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal," situated below the planes but above a thick layer of clouds. It appeared to be considerably brighter than sunlight reflecting off the clouds. The duration of the sighting was estimated to be between 45 seconds and 3 minutes. The first pilot to notice the object reported the observation to the flight leader and then took a photograph on a Kodachrome color slide. This case and this photograph were subsequently analyzed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee (Maccabee, 1996). Maccabee has presented an argument against the propositions that the phenomenon is due either to reflection of sunlight by the clouds or to lightning. From the available data, Maccabee estimates the luminosity of the object (the power output within the spectral range of the film) to be many megawatts. ("Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports" - The Sturrock Panel Report)
Navy Sees 'Flying Saucers' on Radar Screen
Date: December 16, 1954
Location: Goulburn, Australia
Navy pilot has reported seeing two "flying saucers" flash past him while he was flying over Goulburn, N.S.W.
Radar officers at Nowra Fleet Air station picked up the objects on their screen. The pilot said he had the "saucers" go past his Sea Fury plane at supersonic speed.
Navy authorities last night would not comment on the reports which they said was "top secret" but they said the incident occurred three months ago. Pressmen heard of the report while visiting the Nowra Fleet Air Arm station yesterday with the minister of the Navy (Mr Francis). The pilot report said he was flying over Goulburn at 15,000 feet when he saw two lighted objects flash past. He said they easily passed his sea Fury fighter which was capable of flying 450 to 500 miles per hour.
CHECK
The pilot reported the incident to Nowra radar officers about 9.30 p.m. The screen showed three objects at his position-his Sea Fury and two other flying objects. radar officers were unable to identify the two mother objects. A later check showed no other planes were in the vicinity. The pilot said he saw the objects for only a few seconds before they disappeared. He told the interviewing senior officers that the objects, which were brightly lit, appeared to be spinning at fantastic" speed.
SECURITY
Pilots last night would not discuss the report or revel just what the pilot had seen. Unofficial sources said the pilot's report had gone to security section on the Navy, Army and Air Force. This was because of a standing order to all forces to be "on the alert" for unidentified flying objects. Authorities instituted the order after similar after similar reports by other service and civil pilots in the past six months.
The 'Sea Fury' Incident
Date: August 31, 1954
Location: Nowra, Australia
Lieutenant J.A. O'Farrell was returning to Royal Australian Navy Air Station Nowra after a night cross country in a Sea Fury aircraft. After contacting Nowra at about 1910 hours, O'Farrell saw a very bright light closing fast at one o'clock. It crossed in front of his aircraft taking up position on his port beam, where it appeared to orbit. A second and similar light was observed at nine o'clock. It passed about a mile in from of the Sea Fury and then turned in the position where the first light was observed.
According to O'Farrell, the apparent crossing speeds of the lights were the fastest he had ever encountered. He had been flying at 220 knots. O'Farrell contacted Nowra who in turn confirmed that they had two radar "paints" in company with him. The radar operator, Petty Officer Keith Jessop, confirmed the presence of 2 objects near the Sea Fury on the G.C.I. remote display. The two lights reformed at nine o'clock and then disappeared on a north easterly heading. O'Farrell could only make out "a vague shape with the white light situated centrally on top."
The Directorate of Naval Intelligence at the time wrote that O'Farrell was "an entirely credible witness" and that he "was visibly 'shaken' by his experience, but remains adamant that he saw these objects"
In a recent interview, "Shamus" O'Farrell described the incident:
"I said, "Nowra, this is 921. Do you have me on radar." "And a few seconds later they came back and said, "Affirmative 921. We have you coming in from the west. We have another two contacts as well. Which one are you." "I said, "I think I'm the central one." And so they said, "Do a 180...for identification." So I did a quick 180 and then continued on around and made it a 360 back to where I was going.
"They said, "Yes, we've got you. You're the centre aircraft." I said that's correct. They then said to me, "Who are the other two aircraft," and I said, "I don't know. I was hoping you would tell me, because I didn't think there was anyone up here. "They said, "Well there shouldn't be, and they certainly shouldn't be that close to you."
The Kinross Air Force Base Incident (jet disappears while chasing UFO)
Date: November 23, 1953
Location: Lake Superior, Michigan, USA
Ground Control vectored the jet toward the target, noting that the target changed course as the F-89 approached it at over 500 mph. Lt. Wilson had problems tracking the target on his onboard radar, so ground control continued to direct the jet to the target. For thirty minutes, the jet pursued the radar blip and began to close the gap as the UFO accelerated out over Lake Superior.
As Ground Control watched, the gap between the two blips on the radar screen grew smaller and smaller until the two blips became one blip. Ground Control thought that Moncla had flown over the target and that the two blips would separate again as he moved past it.
That didn't happen. Suddenly, the single blip flashed off the screen and the radar screen was clear of any return at all.
Frantically, Ground Control tried to contact the F-89 by radio. There was no response. Marking the last radar position, Ground Control dispatched an emergency message to Search and Rescue. That last sighting was about seventy miles off Keweenaw Point in upper Michigan, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, approximately 160 miles northwest of Soo Locks.
After an all night air/sea rescue search, not a trace of the plane or the men was ever found. No debris, no oil slick, nothing was ever found.
Officials at Norton Air Force Base Flying Safety Division issued a statement that "the pilot probably suffered from vertigo and crashed into the lake." However, this was merely speculation and was based on hearsay reports that Moncla was prone to vertigo.
The Air Force explained the unknown radar target at first as a Canadian DC-3, then later as a RCAF jet. Canadian officials responded that there were no Canadian aircraft in the airspace over the lake at any time during the chase. The Air Force finally stated that the F-89 had exploded at high altitude, ignoring the fact that this would have left a lot of debris on the lake surface.
NICAP investigators found that mentions of Moncla's mission - chasing an unidentified target - had been obliterated from official records. Project Bluebook files simply listed the case as an "accident."
Off the record, those that were present in the Ground Control radar room that day have expressed other opinions. They think that whatever the F-89 was chasing directly caused the disappearance of the jet...
Ellsworth Air Force Base UFO Incident
Date: August: 5, 1953
Location: Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, USA
Source: Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, Former Director of Project Blue Book
I first heard about the sighting about two o'clock on the morning of August 11,1953, when Max Futch called me from ATIC. A few minutes before, a wire had come in carrying a priority just under that reserved for flashing the word the U.S. has been attacked. Max had been called over to ATIC by the OD to see the report, and he thought that I should see it. I was a little hesitant to get dressed and go out to the base, so I asked Max what he thought about the report. His classic answer will go down in UFO history, "Captain," Max said in his slow, pure Louisiana drawl, "you know that for a year I've read every flying saucer report that's come in and that I never really believed in the things." Then he hesitated and added, so fast that I could hardly understand hini, "But you should read this wire." The speed with which he uttered this last statement was in itself enough to convince me. When Max talked fast, something was important.
A half hour later I was at ATIC - just in time to get a call from the Pentagon. Someone else had gotten out of bed to read his copy of the wire.
I used the emergency orders that I always kept in my desk and caught the first airliner out of Dayton to Rapid City, South Dakota. I didn't call the 4602nd because I wanted to investigate this one personally. I talked to everyone involved in the incident and pieced together an amazing story.
Shortly after dark on the night of twelfth, the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB, just east of Rapid City, had received a call from the local Ground Observer Corps filter center. A lady spotter at Black Hawk, about 10 miles west of Ellsworth, had reported an extremely bright light low on the horizon, off to the northeast. The radar had been scanning an area to the west, working a jet fighter in some practice patrols, but when they got the report they moved the sector scan to the northeast quadrant There was a target exactly where the lady repored the light to be. The warrant officer who was the duty controller for the night, told me that he'd studied the target for several minutes. He knew how weather could affect radar but this target was well defined, solid, and bnght." It seemed to be moving, but very slowly. He called for an altitude reading, and the man on the height-finding radar checked his scope. He also had the target - it was at 16.000 feet.
The warrant officer picked up the phone and asked the filter center to connect him with the spotter. They did, and ihe two people compared notes on the UFO's position for several minutes. But right in the middle of a sentence the lady suddenly stopped and excitedly said, "It'sstarting to move - it's moving southwest toward Rapid."
The controller looked down at his scope and the target was begining to pick up speed and move southwest. He yelled at two of his men to run outside and take a look. In a second or two one of them shouted back that they could both see a large bluish-white light moving toward Rapid City. The controller looked down at his scope, the target was moving toward Rapid City. As all three parties watched the light and kept up a steady cross conversation of the description, the UFO swiftly made a wide sweep around Rapid City and returned to its original position in the sky.
A master sergeant who had seen and heard the happenings told me that in all his years of duty - combat radar operations in both Europe and Korea - he'd never been so completely awed by anything. When the warrant officer had yelled down at him and asked him what he thought they should do, he'd just stood there. "After all," he told me, "what in hell couldf we do - they're bigger than all of us."
But the warrant officer did do something. He called to the F-84 pilot he had on combat air patrol west of the base and told him to get ready for an intercept. He brought the pilot around south of the base and gave him a course correction thai would take him riglit into the light. which was still at 16.000 feet. By this time the pilot had it spotted. He made the turn, and when he closed to within about 3 miles of the target, it began to move. The controller saw it begin to move, the spotter saw it begin to move and the pilot saw it begin to move - all at the same time There was now no doubt that all of them were watching the same object.
Once it began to move, the UFO picked up speed fast and started to climb, heading north, but the F-84 was right on its tail. The pilot would notice that the light was getting brighter, and he'd call the controller to tell him about it. But the controller's answer would always be the same, "Roger, we can see it on the scope."
There was always a limit as to how near the jet could get, however. The controller told me that it was just as if the UFO had some kind of an automatic warning radar linked to its power supply. When something got too close to it, it would automatically pick up speed and pull away. The separation distance always remained about 3 miles.
The chase continued on north out of sight of the lights of Rapid City and the base - into some very black night.
When the UFO and the F-84 got about 120 miles to the north, the pilot checked his fuel; he had to come back. And when I talked to him, be said he was damn glad that he was running out of fuel because being out over some mighty desolate country alone with a UFO can cause some worry.
Both the UFO and the F-84 had gone off the scope, but in a few minutes the jet was back on, heading for home. Then 10 or 15 miles behind it was the UFO target also coming back.
While the UFO and the F-84 were returning to the base - the F-84 was planning to land - the controller received a call from the jet interceptor squadron on the base. The alert pilots at the squadron had heard the conversations on their radio and didn't believe it. "Who's nuts up there?" was the comment that passed over the wire from the pilots to the radar people. There was an F-84 on the line ready to scramble, the man on the phone said, and one of the pilots, a World War II and Korean veteran, wanted to go up and see a flying saucer. The controller said, "OK, go."
In a minute or two the F-84 was airborne and the controller was working him toward the light. The pilot saw it right away and closed in. Again the light began to climb out, this time more toward the northeast. The pilot also began to climb, and before long the light, which at first had been about 30 degrees above his horizontal line of sight, was now below him. He nosed the '84 down to pick up speed, but it was the same old story - as soon as he'd get within 3 miles of the UFO, it would put on a burst of speed and stay out ahead.
Even though the pilot could see the light and hear the ground controller telling him that he was above it, and alternately gaining on it or dropping back, he still couldn't believe it - there must be a simple explanation He turned off all of his lights - it wasn't a reflection from any of the airplane's lights because there it was. A reflection from a ground light, maybe. He rolled the airplane - the position of the light didn't change. A star - he picked out three bright stars near the light and watched carefully. The UFO moved in relation to the three stars. Well, he thought to himself, if it's a real object out there, my radar should pick it up too; so he flipped on his radar-ranging gun sight. In a few seconds the red light on his sight blinked on - something real and solid was in front of him. Then he was scared. When I talked to him, he readily admitted that he'd been scared. He'd met MD 109's, FW 190's and ME 262's over Germany and he'd met MIG-15's over Korea but the large, bright, bluish-white light had scared - he asked the controller if he could break off the intercept
This time the light didn't come back.
What he UFO went off the scope it was headed toward Fargo, North Dakota, so the controller called the Fargo filter center. "Had they had any reports of unidentified lights?" he asked. They hadn't.
But in a few minutes a call came back. Spotter posts on a southwest- northeast line a few miles west of Fargo had reported a fast-moving, bright bluish-white light.
This was an unknown - the best..
The sighting was thoroughly investigated, and I could devote pages of detail on how we looked into every facet of the incident; but it will suffice to say that in every facet we looked into we saw nothing. Nothing but a big question mark asking what was it.
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
Former Director, Project Blue Book
B-29 Radar Visual, Multiple Witness of UFO.
Date: December 6, 1952
Location: Gulf of Mexico, USA
Just before dawn on December 6, 1952, on a bright moonlight night, a B-29 bomber of the US Air Force was cruising at the altitude of 18.000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, 100 miles south of Louisiana, on a bearing which has not been disclosed.
The B-29 had been on a night training flight and the mission was at its end, the plane was now traveling back to his home base.
The crew comprised:
Captain John Harter, flight commander
Lieutenant Sidney Coleman, radar operator
Master Sergeant Bailey, assistant radar operator to Lieutenant Coleman Staff Sergeant Ferris, assistant radar operator to Lieutenant Coleman
Lieutenant Coleman was watching his radarscope, waiting to detect he coastline. At 05:25 local time, he saw a fast moving target on the radarscope, approaching the plane from ahead, at the relative direction of 12 o'clock. What puzzled Coleman is that between each sweep of the radar, the object seemed to have moved 13 nautical miles towards the B-29, which he knew was a speed impossible to any known aircraft.
Lieutenant Coleman used his stopwatch to measure the sped of the object and calculated that it was flying at the speed of 5.240 miles per hour.
He then decided to alert the flight commander, Captain Harter. Harter replied that such as speed was "impossible" and asked Coleman to re-calibrate his radar set.
As Coleman was re-calibrating his radar set, four other blips of an unknown nature appeared on his radarscope, but also on Captain Harder's radarscope and on the navigator's scope, also at the relative position of 12 o'clock, and also approaching the B-29 at high speed.
Coleman was done recalibrating the radar set; he actually found out that the calibration was correct from the start and that the radar was functioning correctly.
At this time, one of the four blips on the radarscope left the group of the four blips and accelerated, approaching the B-29, coming very near. Master Sergeant Bailey noted that, and rushed to the right waist blister to try to see what the object was.
Bailey was totally bewildered to see that indeed at the expected position, an object was visually visible; a blue lit object streaking by the plane far enough to the right side of the plane, circling around it.
At this moment, a second group of blips appeared on all three radar set, seen by all, as the crew was now aware that there was something strange on the radar set. The new group of object also appeared at the relative position of 12 o'clock, they were rushing towards the bomber but this time their courses missed the bomber by several miles. Their speed was calculated with the sop watch; it was also 5.000 miles per hour.
At 05:31 local time, the radar set was clear again. The crew who has been on his nerves started to relax a little. But then a third group of blips appeared on the scope, also coming from their 12 o'clock position. Lieutenant Coleman was using the stopwatch again and Master Sergeant Bailey was doing the calculation: the objects of this third group moved at a pace above 5000 miles per hour. This time, it was the flight navigator who rushed to the right waist blister, and he could see two of the unidentified object: they appeared as blue-white lights streaking at a fantastic speed.
Meanwhile, Captain Harter was studying his radarscope; he noted that forty miles behind the B-29, at the relative position of 6 o'clock, a group of five object was cutting the flightpath of the B-29, and turned as to follow the B-29 from behind. They were heading straight to the B-29 at fast speed, then slowed down when they were closing in on the B-29. The remained right there at the back of the B-29 for ten seconds.
Meanwhile, a larger blip had appeared on the radarscopes. This blip made a motionless half inch spot on the radarscopes, a size impossible to any known plane.
The group of five objects pacing the B-29 then turned, and started to accelerate. The entire crew saw on their radarscope that the group of five approached the huge motionless blip and seemed to merge into it. Now, only the large blip remained on the scope. In a moment, the huge blip took speed.
Coleman called Harter on the intercom and told him that he and Bailey clocked the huge blip. Coleman said: "You won't believe this. It was making over 9000 miles per hour."
Harter replied: "I believe it, all right. That's just what I figured."
The Nash-Fortenberry Sighting (aircraft encounter with formation of UFOs)
Date: July 14, 1952
Location: Virginia, USA
On the evening of July 14,1952, a Pan American World Airways DC-4 was on a routine flight, ferrying from New York to Miami with ten passengers and a crew of three, including, Captain F. V. Koepke, First Officer William B. Nash and Second Officer William H. Fortenberry.
The sun had set an hour before though the coastline was still visible, and the night was clear and almost entirely dark. With the aircraft set on automatic pilot, while cruising at 8000 feet over the Chesapeake Bay approaching Norfolk, Virginia, they were due to over fly the VRF radio range station in six minutes and make a position report. In the mean time, since this was Fortenberry’s first run on this course, Nash, in the left pilot’s seat, was orientating Fortenberry by pointing out landmarks and the distant lights of the cities along the route.
Nash had just pointed out the city of Newport News and Cumberland, ahead and to the right of the plane, when unexpectedly a red-orange brilliance appeared near the ground, beyond and slightly east of Newport News. The brilliance seemed to have appeared all of a sudden and both pilots witnessed the startling appearance at practically the same moment. In the excitement someone blurted out, “What the hell is that?”
The sun had set an hour before though the coastline was still visible, and the night was clear and almost entirely dark. With the aircraft set on automatic pilot, while cruising at 8000 feet over the Chesapeake Bay approaching Norfolk, Virginia, they were due to over fly the VRF radio range station in six minutes and make a position report. In the mean time, since this was Fortenberry’s first run on this course, Nash, in the left pilot’s seat, was orientating Fortenberry by pointing out landmarks and the distant lights of the cities along the route.
Nash had just pointed out the city of Newport News and Cumberland, ahead and to the right of the plane, when unexpectedly a red-orange brilliance appeared near the ground, beyond and slightly east of Newport News. The brilliance seemed to have appeared all of a sudden and both pilots witnessed the startling appearance at practically the same moment. In the excitement someone blurted out, “What the hell is that?”
“Almost immediately we perceived that it consisted of six bright objects streaking toward us at tremendous speed, and obviously well below us. They had the fiery aspect of hot coals, but of much greater glow, perhaps twenty times more brilliant than any of the scattered ground lights over which they passed or the city lights to the right. Their shape was clearly outlined and evidently circular; the edges were well defined, not phosphorescent or fuzzy in the least and the red-orange color was uniform over the upper surface of each craft.”
“Within the few seconds that it took the six objects to come half the distance from where we had first seen them, we could observe that they were holding a narrow echelon formation, a stepped-up line tilted slightly to our right with the leader at the lowest point, and each following craft slightly higher. At about the halfway point, the leader appeared to attempt a sudden slowing. We received this impression because the second and third wavered slightly and seemed almost to overrun the leader, so that for a brief moment during the remainder of their approach the positions of these three varied. It looked very much as if an element of "human" or "intelligence" error had been introduced, in so far as the following two did not react soon enough when the leader began to slow down and so almost overran him.”
“Within the few seconds that it took the six objects to come half the distance from where we had first seen them, we could observe that they were holding a narrow echelon formation, a stepped-up line tilted slightly to our right with the leader at the lowest point, and each following craft slightly higher. At about the halfway point, the leader appeared to attempt a sudden slowing. We received this impression because the second and third wavered slightly and seemed almost to overrun the leader, so that for a brief moment during the remainder of their approach the positions of these three varied. It looked very much as if an element of "human" or "intelligence" error had been introduced, in so far as the following two did not react soon enough when the leader began to slow down and so almost overran him.”
F-86 intercepts and shoots at saucer-shaped UFO
Date: 1952
Location: USA
In the summer of 1952 a United States Air Force F-86 jet interceptor shot at a flying saucer. This fact, like so many others that make up the full flying saucer story has never before been told. I know the full story about flying saucers and I know that it has never before been told because I organized and was chief of the Air Force Project Blue Book, the special project set up to investigate and analyze unidentified flying object, or UFO reports. (UFO is the official term that I created to replace the words 'flying saucers.")
About ten o'clock in the morning, one day a few weeks before, a radar near the base had picked up an unidentified target. It was an odd target in that it came in very fast - about 700 miles per hour - and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour. The radar showed that it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area. Unfortunately the radar station didn't have any height finding equipment. The operators knew the direction of the target and its distance from the station but they didn't know its altitude. They reported the target, and two F-86's were scrambled. The radar picked up the F-86's soon after they were airborne, and had begun to direct them into the target when the target started to fade on the radarscope. At the time several of the operators thought that this fade was caused by the target's losing altitude rapidly and getting below the radar's beam. Some of the other operators thought that it was a high flying target and that it was fading just because it was so high. In the debate which followed, the proponents of the high flying theory won out, and the F-86's were told to go up to 40,000 feet. But before the aircraft could get to that altitude, the target had been completely lost on the radarscope. The F-86's continued to search the area at 40,000 feet, but could see nothing. After a few minutes the aircraft ground controller called the F-86's and told one to come down to 20,000 feet, the other to 5,000 feet, and continue the search, The two jets made a quick letdown, with one pilot stopping at 20,000 feet and the other heading for the deck.
The second pilot, who was going down to 5,000 feet, was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him. He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen the light. As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought was a weather balloon. A few seconds later be realized that it couldn't be a balloon because it was staying ahead of him. Quite an achievement for a balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and now was flying almost straight and level at 3,000 feet and was traveling "at the Mach." Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after the object. He closed fairly fast, until he came to within an estimated 1,000 yards. Now he could get a good look at the object. Although it had looked like a balloon from above, a closer view showed that it was definitely round and flat saucer shaped. The pilot described it as being "like a doughnut without a hole." As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew that the object was picking up speed. But he pulled in behind it and started to follow. Now he was right on the deck. About this time the pilot began to get a little worried. What should he do? He tried to call his buddy, who was flying above him somewhere in the area at 20,000 feet. He called two or three times but could get no answer. Next he tried to call the ground controller but he was too low for his radio to carry that far. Once more he tried his buddy at 20,000 feet, but again no luck. By now he had been following the object for about two minutes and during this time had closed the gap between them to approximately 500 yards. But this was only momentary. Suddenly the object began to pull away, slowly at first, then faster. The pilot, realizing that he couldn't catch it, wondered what to do next. When the object traveled out about 1,000 yards, the pilot suddenly made up his mind - he did the only thing that he could do to stop the UFO. It was like a David about to do battle with a Goliath, but he had to take a chance. Quickly charging his guns, he started shooting. . . . A moment later the object pulled up into a climb and in a few seconds it was gone. The pilot climbed to 10,000 feet, called the other F-86, and now was able to contact his buddy. They joined up and went back to their base.
As soon as he had landed and parked, the F-86 pilot went into operations to tell his story to his squadron commander. The mere fact that he had fired his guns was enough to require a detailed report, as a matter of routine. But the circumstances under which the guns actually were fired created a major disturbance at the fighter base that day.
UFO over Mt. Kilimanjaro witnessed by pilot and passengers
Date: February 19, 1951
Location: Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
One of the earliest and most spectacular reports from Africa concerns the sighting of a huge cigar-shaped UFO which hovered over famous Mt. Kilimanjaro February 19,1951. The UFO was photographed from an East African Airways plane flying in the vicinity. After remaining motionless for a considerable period of time, the object suddenly climbed steeply and disappeared. The movie film was developed and reportedly showed a clear and sizeable image of the object, according to the Natal Mercury.
The sighting was detailed in the Nairobi Sunday Post, February 25, 1951, by Capt. Jack Bicknell, pilot of the East African Airways plane. Extracts from Capt. Bicknell's report: "The Lodestar plane left Nairobi West at 7:00 a.m. At 7:20 a.m., the radio officer (D. W. Merrifield) drew my attention to a bright object like a white star hanging motionless about 10,000 feet above Kilimanjaro. My first reaction was to say nothing. We watched it for three minutes. Then we told the passengers about it. One of them had a very powerful pair of binoculars with him and he began to study it. In the meantime, we put a radio message through to Eastleigh describing it. Eastleigh asked us to check whether it was a meteorological balloon. I then examined it for several minutes through the binoculars. . . [At this point the plane had approached to within about 50 miles of the mountain]...
"Through the glasses I saw a metallic, bullet shaped object which must have been over 200 feet long. At one end was a square- cut vertical fin. Its color was a dull silver, and at regular intervals along the fuselage were vertical dark bands. Its whole outline was clear and sharp and there was no haziness about it at all. . . It was absolutely stationary, and remained that way for 17 minutes. . . [Capt. Bicknell states that two passengers were taking photographs at this time]
"Then it began to move eastwards, rising as it did so. It disappeared at about 40,000 feet. . . The machine left no vapor trail, and it had no visible means of propulsion. . . My impression was that it was definitely a flying machine of some kind."
The sighting was detailed in the Nairobi Sunday Post, February 25, 1951, by Capt. Jack Bicknell, pilot of the East African Airways plane. Extracts from Capt. Bicknell's report: "The Lodestar plane left Nairobi West at 7:00 a.m. At 7:20 a.m., the radio officer (D. W. Merrifield) drew my attention to a bright object like a white star hanging motionless about 10,000 feet above Kilimanjaro. My first reaction was to say nothing. We watched it for three minutes. Then we told the passengers about it. One of them had a very powerful pair of binoculars with him and he began to study it. In the meantime, we put a radio message through to Eastleigh describing it. Eastleigh asked us to check whether it was a meteorological balloon. I then examined it for several minutes through the binoculars. . . [At this point the plane had approached to within about 50 miles of the mountain]...
"Through the glasses I saw a metallic, bullet shaped object which must have been over 200 feet long. At one end was a square- cut vertical fin. Its color was a dull silver, and at regular intervals along the fuselage were vertical dark bands. Its whole outline was clear and sharp and there was no haziness about it at all. . . It was absolutely stationary, and remained that way for 17 minutes. . . [Capt. Bicknell states that two passengers were taking photographs at this time]
"Then it began to move eastwards, rising as it did so. It disappeared at about 40,000 feet. . . The machine left no vapor trail, and it had no visible means of propulsion. . . My impression was that it was definitely a flying machine of some kind."
The Bethune / Gandor Air Encounter
Date: February 10, 1951
Location: Gandor, Newfoundland, Canada
Graham Bethune's testimony at the Disclosure Project Press Conference at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 2001.
"About 300 miles outside of Argentia, Newfoundland, I saw a glow on the water. As we approached this glow, it turned into hundreds of circles of white lights on the water. We watched it for a while; when the lights went out, there was nothing on the water. The next thing that we saw was a yellow halo that was very small, about 15 miles away. It came up to 10,000 feet in a fraction of a second. I disengaged the autopilot and pushed the nose over, because I was going to go under it at the angle that it was coming toward me. The minute that I did that, it was up at our altitude and I could see nothing outside of the cockpit but this craft."
"I didn't know which way to go. Then all of a sudden I heard a racket. I didn't know what it was. And I said: 'What the hell was that?' One of the crewmen looked around and said: 'Everyone [in the plane] was ducking [down] and they collided [with each other]. They were all lying on the [floor of the plane]."
"Then [the UFO] appeared over to the right, moved out slowly and flew with us. It was not at our altitude, but we could see the shape of it. It was a dome and I could see the coronal discharge. I went back aft, let the other pilot, Al Jones, take my seat, and went to see if the passengers were OK. They had some bumps and bruises. One passenger was a doctor so I went to him first. I said: 'Doc, did you see what we saw?' He looked me straight in the eye and said: 'Yeah, it was a flying saucer.' He said: 'I didn't look at it because I don't believe in such things.' It took me a couple of seconds to realize what he was saying. Being a psychiatrist, he couldn't believe in that kind of thing."
"So I went back to the cockpit and said, 'Al, whatever you do, don't tell anybody we saw anything. They will lock us up as soon as we get on the ground.' He says: 'It's too late. I just called Gander control [in Newfoundland] to see if they could track this by radar.' So that's how the story got out."
"It was obvious from the questions and demeanor of the US Navy men who debriefed us that they'd seen things out there before. When the crew returned to the Patuxant River Naval Air Test Center in Maryland, they required that each of us writes a report."
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Airline pilots observe fast-moving, disc-shaped UFO over Arkansas
Date: March 20, 1950
Location: Stuttgaart, Arkansas, USA
Source: U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report #14 (Battelle Institute Study), 1955
On March 20, 1950, a Reserve Air Force Captain and an airlines Captain were flying a commercial airlines flight. At 21:26, the airline Captain directed the attention of the Reserve Air Force Captain to an object which apparently was flying at high speed, approaching the airliner from the south on a north heading. The Reserve Air Force Captain focused his attention on the object. Both crew members watched it as it passed in front of them and went out of sight to the right. The observation, which lasted about 25 to 35 seconds, occurred about 15 miles north of a medium-sized city. When the object passed in front of the airliner, it was not more than 1/2 mile distant and at an altitude of about 1000 feet higher than the airliner.
The object appeared to be circular, with a diameter of approximately 100 feet and with a vertical height considerably less than the diameter, giving the object a disk-like shape. In the top center was a light which was blinking at an estimated 3 flashes per second. This light was so brilliant that it would have been impossible to look at it continuously had it not been blinking. This light could be seen only when the object was approaching and after it had passed the airliner. When the object passed in front of the observers, the bottom side was visible. The bottom side appeared to have 9 to 12 symmetrical oval or circular portholes located in a circle approximately 3/4 of the distance from the center to the outer edge. Through these portholes came a soft purple light about the shade of aircraft line without spinning. Considering the visibility, the length of time the object was in sight, and the distance from the object, the Reserve Air Force Captain estimates the speed to be in excess of 1000 mph.
The Gorman Dogfight
Date: October 1, 1948
Location: Fargo, North Dakota, USA
On this date in 1948, Lieutenant George F. Gorman wrote a letter stating, “...the Air Materiel Command has issued orders classifying the information as Secret. And this makes it a General Court Martial to release any more information. The Command has asked that my commanding officer and myself be court-martialed for releasing what information we did.”
The incident the young lieutenant was referring to has since become known as the Gorman Dogfight, one of the early “classics” in UFO history.
On the evening of October 1st, 1948, Lieutenant Gorman was returning from a cross-country flight with his squadron of North Dakota Air National Guard. When the pilots got to Hector airport in Fargo, Gorman decided to log some night-flying time, so he stayed up and circled his F-51 around the city. As he was preparing to land, the control tower advised him that a Piper Cub was in the air. Gorman saw the Piper 500 feet below, but then what appeared to be the taillight of another plane flashed by on the right. The tower insisted there weren’t any other planes in the sky, so Gorman told them he wanted to investigate and took off after the moving light.
He closed to within about l,000 yards to take a good look, later saying, “It was about six to eight inches in diameter, clear white, and completely round without fuzz at the edges.
It was blinking on and off. As I approached, however, the light suddenly became steady and pulled into a sharp left bank. I thought it was making a pass at the tower. I dived after it and brought my manifold pressure up to sixty inches, but I couldn't catch up with the thing. It started gaining altitude and again made a left bank,” he said. “I put my F-51 into a sharp turn and tried to cut the light off in its turn. By then we were at about 7,000 feet. Suddenly it made a sharp right turn and we headed straight at each other. Just when we were about to collide, I guess I got scared. I went into a dive, and the light passed over my canopy at about 500 feet.”
Gorman said he cut sharply toward the light, which was once more coming at him. When it again appeared they’d collide, the object shot straight up in a steep climb-out, disappearing overhead. Gorman again went after it, but his plane went into a power stall, and the object disappeared. The dogfight had lasted 27 minutes. Gorman was so shook up, he had a hard time landing his plane, even though he was a veteran pilot and flight instructor.
The official explanation the Air Force gave was that the light was merely a lit weather balloon. But Gorman’s story wouldn’t die. In April, 1952, LIFE Magazine did a story on UFOs, stating, The Air Force is now ready to concede that many saucer and fireball sightings still defy explanation; here LIFE offers some scientific evidence that there is a real case for interplanetary saucers.
The article went on to describe the Gorman Dogfight: For 27 hair-raising minutes, Gorman pursued the light through a series of intricate maneuvers. He said it was...going faster than his F-51 (300-400 mph). It made no sound and left no exhaust trail. After Gorman landed, the light having suddenly flashed away in the upper air, he found support for his story - the chief of the control tower had followed the fantastic “combat” with binoculars.
That’s right. Both men in the control tower saw the whole thing, and so did the two men in the Piper Cub. The Gorman Dogfight has now become one of the most noted UFO encounters in PROJECT BLUE BOOK, the Air Force’s official record – and denial – of such things.
The Chiles-Whitted Case
Date: July 24, 1948
Location: Montgomery, Alabama, USA
Another one of the famous airline sightings of earlier years is the Chiles-Whitted Eastern Airlines case (Refs. 3, 5, G , 10, 23, 24, 25, 26). An Eastern DC-3, en route from Houston to Atlanta, was flying at an altitude of about 5,000 ft.. near Montgomery at 2:45 a.m. The pilot, Capt. Clarence S. Chiles, and the co-pilot, John B. Whitted, both of whom now fly jets for Eastern, were experienced fliers (for example, Chiles then had 8500 hours in the air, and both had wartime military flying duty behind them.). I interviewed both Chiles and Whitted earlier this year to crosscheck the many points of interests in this case. Space precludes a full account of all relevant details.
Chiles pointed out to me that they first saw the object coming out of a distant squall line area which they were just reconnoitering. At first, they thought it was a jet, whose exhaust was somehow accounting for the advancing glow that had first caught their eyes. Coming almost directly at them at nearly their flight altitude, it passed off their starboard wing at a distance on which the two men could not closely agree: one felt it was under 1000 ft., the other put it at several times that. But both agreed, then and in my 1968 interview, that the object was some kind of vehicle. They saw no wings or empennage, but both were struck by a pair of rows of windows or some apparent openings from which there came a bright glow "like burning magnesium." The object had a pointed "nose", and from the nose to the rear along its underside there was a bluish glow. Out of the rear end came an orange-red exhaust or wake that extended back by about the same distance as the object's length. The two men agreed that its size approximated that of a B-29, though perhaps twice as thick. Their uncertainty as to true distance, of course, renders this only a rough impression. There is uncertainty in the record, and in their respective recollections, as to whether their DC-3 was rocked by something like a wake. Perception of such an effect would have been masked by Chiles' spontaneous reaction of turning the DC-3 off to the left as the object came in on their right. Both saw it pass aft of them and do an abrupt pull-up; but only Whitted, on the right side, saw the terminal phase in which the object disappeared after a short but fast vertical ascent. By "disappeared", Whitted made clear to me that he meant just that; earlier interrogations evidently construed this to mean "disappeared aloft" or into the broken cloud deck that lay above them. Whitted said that was not so; the object vanished instantaneously after its sharp pull-up. (This is not an isolated instance of abrupt disappearance. Obviously I cannot account for such cases.)
The Thomas Mantell Incident (aircraft crashes after chasing UFO)
Date: January 7, 1948
Location: Godman Air Force Base, Kentucky, United States
The Thomas Mantell incident began at 1.20pm. On the 7th. January, 1948. when the control tower operators at Godman Field Army Air Force Base, Kentucky sighted a strange unidentified airborne object hovering in the sky close to the base. Several senior officers were summoned, and the base Operations and Intelligence Officer were soon joined by the Commanding Officer, but none were able to identify the slowly rotating object.
At the time a flight of four P-51 fighters were on a routine training flight under the supervision of Flight Commander Captain Thomas Mantell. They were flying towards Godman Field when at approximately 2.45pm, the control tower officer in charge ordered them to investigate the strange object. Captain Mantell acknowledged, but a short time later one of the pilots requested permission to brake away as he was running low on fuel, leaving the three remaining aircraft to head in the direction of the strange object.
The next message came from one of the three remaining pilots, who said he was losing his bearings and was becoming fearful of becoming lost. He too was granted permission to break away and return, but he would be accompanied by one of the two remaining pilots, who was instructed to accompany his colleague to guide him safely back to base. The only aircraft now in pursuit of the object was that piloted by Captain Thomas Mantell.
At 15,000 feet Mantell contacted the control tower and stated that he had the object in sight and was climbing to investigate. A short time later Mantell reported that he was closing on the object but that was the last message broadcast. Mantell’s aircraft crashed approximately 130 miles down range from Godman Field.
The official Air Technical Information Command report on the crash stated that they were of the opinion that Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to oxygen starvation. The trimmed aircraft had continued to climb until increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to level out. The aircraft then began to turn left due to torque and as the wing drooped, so did the nose, until it was in a tight turning spiral. The uncontrolled descent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to disintegrate. It is believed that Captain Mantell never regained consciousness. This was born out by the fact that the canopy lock was still in place after the crash, discounting any attempt to abandon the aircraft. They also stated that the UFO was in no way responsible for the crash.
At the time a flight of four P-51 fighters were on a routine training flight under the supervision of Flight Commander Captain Thomas Mantell. They were flying towards Godman Field when at approximately 2.45pm, the control tower officer in charge ordered them to investigate the strange object. Captain Mantell acknowledged, but a short time later one of the pilots requested permission to brake away as he was running low on fuel, leaving the three remaining aircraft to head in the direction of the strange object.
The next message came from one of the three remaining pilots, who said he was losing his bearings and was becoming fearful of becoming lost. He too was granted permission to break away and return, but he would be accompanied by one of the two remaining pilots, who was instructed to accompany his colleague to guide him safely back to base. The only aircraft now in pursuit of the object was that piloted by Captain Thomas Mantell.
At 15,000 feet Mantell contacted the control tower and stated that he had the object in sight and was climbing to investigate. A short time later Mantell reported that he was closing on the object but that was the last message broadcast. Mantell’s aircraft crashed approximately 130 miles down range from Godman Field.
The official Air Technical Information Command report on the crash stated that they were of the opinion that Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to oxygen starvation. The trimmed aircraft had continued to climb until increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to level out. The aircraft then began to turn left due to torque and as the wing drooped, so did the nose, until it was in a tight turning spiral. The uncontrolled descent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to disintegrate. It is believed that Captain Mantell never regained consciousness. This was born out by the fact that the canopy lock was still in place after the crash, discounting any attempt to abandon the aircraft. They also stated that the UFO was in no way responsible for the crash.
United Airlines Flight 105 pilots witness formation of disc-shaped objects
Date: July 4, 1947
Location: Emmet, Idaho, United States
Only about a week after the now-famous Mt. Rainier sighting by private pilot Kenneth Arnold, a United Air Lines DC-3 crew sighted two separate formations of wingless discs, shortly after takeoff from Boise (Refs. 8, 10, 22, 28). I located and interviewed the pilot, Capt. Emil J. Smith, now with United's New York office. He confirmed the reliability of previously published accounts. United Flight 105 had left Boise at 9:04 p.m. About eight minutes out, en route to Seattle, roughly over Emmett, Idaho, Co-pilot Stevens, who spotted the first of two groups of objects, turned on his landing lights under the initial impression the objects were aircraft. But, studying them against the twilight sky, Smith and Stevens soon realized that neither wings nor tails were visible on the five objects ahead. After calling a stewardess, in order to get a third confirming witness, they watched the formation a bit longer, called Ontario, Oregon CAA to try to get ground-confirmation, and then saw the formation spurt ahead and disappear at high speed off to the west.
Smith emphasized to me that there were no cloud phenomena to confuse them here and that they observed these objects long enough to be quite certain that they were no conventional aircraft. They appeared "flat on the bottom, rounded on top", he told me, and he added that there seemed to be perceptible "roughness" of some sort on top, though he could not refine that description. Almost immediately after they lost sight of the first five, a second formation of four (three in line and a fourth off to the side) moved in ahead of their position, again traveling westward but at a somewhat higher altitude than the DC-3's 8000 ft. These passed quickly out of sight to the west at speeds which they felt were far beyond then-known speeds. Smith emphasized that they were never certain of sizes and distances, but that they had the general impression that these disc-like craft were appreciably larger than ordinary aircraft. Smith emphasized that he had not taken seriously the previous week's news accounts that coined the since-persistent term, "flying saucer." But, after seeing this total of nine unconventional, high-speed wingless craft on the evening of 7/4/47, he became much more interested in the matter. Nevertheless, in talking with me, he stressed that he would not speculate on their real nature or origin. I have spoken with United Air Lines personnel who have known Smith for years and vouch for his complete reliability.
Smith emphasized to me that there were no cloud phenomena to confuse them here and that they observed these objects long enough to be quite certain that they were no conventional aircraft. They appeared "flat on the bottom, rounded on top", he told me, and he added that there seemed to be perceptible "roughness" of some sort on top, though he could not refine that description. Almost immediately after they lost sight of the first five, a second formation of four (three in line and a fourth off to the side) moved in ahead of their position, again traveling westward but at a somewhat higher altitude than the DC-3's 8000 ft. These passed quickly out of sight to the west at speeds which they felt were far beyond then-known speeds. Smith emphasized that they were never certain of sizes and distances, but that they had the general impression that these disc-like craft were appreciably larger than ordinary aircraft. Smith emphasized that he had not taken seriously the previous week's news accounts that coined the since-persistent term, "flying saucer." But, after seeing this total of nine unconventional, high-speed wingless craft on the evening of 7/4/47, he became much more interested in the matter. Nevertheless, in talking with me, he stressed that he would not speculate on their real nature or origin. I have spoken with United Air Lines personnel who have known Smith for years and vouch for his complete reliability.
The 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting
Date: June 24, 1947
Location: Near Mt. Rainier, Washington, United States
On June 24, 1947, he was returning home from a business trip when he made a detour into the Yakima, Washington area to help in an aerial search for a missing C-46 marine transport plane that was believed to have gone down in the area.
At around 3:00 in the afternoon, he was flying at about 9,000 feet, near Mount Rainier, when a flash of light caught his eye. He turned and saw a procession of nine very strange objects flying from north to south in front of his plane. They were flat and rather heel-shaped, very shiny, and they moved erratically, like a "saucer would if you skipped it across water." You can see Arnold's drawing of what he saw here. Arnold estimated their size at about two-thirds that of a DC-4, and he calculated their speed at over 1500 mph by timing their travel between two mountain peaks of known distance.
When he arrived at Yakima, Washington, Arnold told several other pilots about his sighting. The consensus among them was that it was some type of military "secret weapon". However, Arnold would later find that the U.S. military was as mystified by the objects as he himself was.
In Pendleton, Oregon, Arnold went to make a report to the FBI, but the local office was closed, so he talked to the editor of the East Oregonian newspaper instead and it was the editor who put the story on the newswires.