21.04.2023
January 21, 1952 - Mitchell AFB, NY
January 21, 1952--Mitchel AFB, N.Y. Navy TBM pilot chased a dome-shaped, white circular object which accelerated and pulled away [IV].1
Section IV does not provide much in the way of additional information. It is part of a table and we have little information to work with.
Chased dome-shaped UFO which turned, accelerated, pulled away.2
The source of this information comes from Ruppelt’s book,“The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects”.
Ruppelt’s account
Edward Ruppelt’s account reads.
The morning before, on January 21, a Navy pilot had taken off from Mitchel in a TBM. He was a
lieutenant commander, had flown in World War II, and was now an engineer at the Navy Special
Devices Center on Long Island. At nine-fifty he had cleared the traffic pattern and was at about
2,500 feet, circling around the airfield. He was southeast of the field when he first noticed an ob-
ject below him and “about three runway lengths off the end of Runway 30.” The object looked like the top of a parachute canopy, he told me; it was white and he thought he could see the wedges or panels. He said that he thought that it was moving across the ground a little bit too fast to be drifting with wind, but he was sure that somebody had bailed out and that he was looking at the top of his parachute. He was just ready to call the tower when he suddenly realized that this “parachute” was drifting across the wind. He had just taken off from Runway 30 and knew which direction the wind was blowing.
As he watched, the object, whatever it was (by now he no longer thought that it was a parachute), began to gradually climb, so he started to climb, he said, staying above and off to the right of the object. When the UFO started to make a left turn, he followed and tried to cut inside, but he overshot and passed over it. It continued to turn and gain speed, so he dropped the nose of the TBM, put on more power, and pulled in behind the object, which was now level with him. In a matter of seconds the UFO made a 180-degree turn and started to make a big swing around the northern edge of Mitchel AFB. The pilot tried to follow, but the UFO had begun to accelerate rapidly, and since a TBM leaves much to be desired on the speed end, he was getting farther and farther behind. But he did try to follow it as long as he could. As he made a wide turn around the northern edge of the airfield he saw that the UFO was now turning south. He racked the TBM up into a tight left turn to follow, but in a few seconds the UFO had disappeared. When he last saw it, it had crossed the Long Island coast line near Freeport and it was heading out to sea.
When he finished his account of the chase, I asked the commander some specific questions about the UFO. He said that just after he’d decided that the UFO was not a parachute it appeared to be at an altitude of about 200 to 300 feet over a residential section. From the time it took it to cover a city block, he’d estimated that it was traveling about 300 miles an hour. Even when he pulled in behind the object and got a good look, it still looked like a parachute canopy—dome-shaped—white—and it had a dark undersurface. It had been in sight two and a half minutes.
He had called the control tower at Mitchel during the chase, he told me, but only to ask if any balloons had been launched. He thought that he might be seeing a balloon. The tower had told him that there was a balloon in the area.
Then the commander took out an aeronautical chart and drew in his flight path and the apparent path of the UFO for me. I think that he drew it accurately because he had been continually watching landmarks as he’d chased the UFO and was very careful as he drew the sketches on the map.
I checked with the weather detachment at Mitchel and they said that they had released a balloon. They had released it at nine-fifty and from a point southeast of the airfield. I got a plot of its path. Just as in the Long Beach Incident, where the six F-86’s tried to intercept the UFO, the balloon was almost exactly in line with the spot where the UFO was first seen, but then any proof you might attempt falls apart. If the pilot knew where he was, and had plotted his flight path even semi-accurately, he was never over the balloon. Yet he was over the UFO. He came within less than 2,000 feet of the UFO when he passed over it; yet he couldn’t recognize it as a balloon even though he thought it might be a balloon since the tower had just told him that there was one in the area. He said that he followed the UFO around the north edge of the airfield. Yet the balloon, after it was launched southeast of the field, continued on a southeast course and never passed north of the airfield.
But the biggest argument against the object’s being a balloon was the fact that the pilot pulled in behind it; it was directly off the nose of his airplane, and although he followed it for more than a minute, it pulled away from him. Once you line up an airplane on a balloon and go straight toward it you will catch it in a matter of seconds, even in the slowest airplane. There have been dogfights with UFO’s where the UFO’s turned out to be balloons, but the pilots always reported that the UFO “made a pass” at them. In other words, they rapidly caught up with the balloon and passed it. I questioned this pilot over and over on this one point, and he was positive that he had followed directly behind the UFO for over a minute and all the time it was pulling away from him.
This is one of the most typical UFO reports we had in our files. It is typical because no matter how you argue there isn’t any definite answer. If you want to argue that the pilot didn’t know where he was during the chase—that he was 3 or 4 miles from where he thought he was—that he never did fly around the northern edge of the field and get in behind the UFO—then the UFO could have been a balloon.
But if you want to believe that the pilot knew where he was all during the chase, and he did have several thousand hours of flying time, then all you can conclude is that the UFO was an unknown.
I think the pilot summed up the situation very aptly when he told me, “I don’t know what it was, but I’ve never seen anything like it before or since—maybe it was a spaceship.”
I went back to Dayton stumped—maybe it was a spaceship.
Blue Book file
As usual, Ruppelt’s book took liberties with some facts. The pilot was not a Lieutenant Commander (LCDR O-4)with World War II experience but a Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG O-2) or Lieutenant (LT O-3). The record is confusing. The witness refers to him- self as a LT but this was common when I was in the Navy. LTJG’s often dropped the “Junior grade” when referring to their rank and enlisted men did as well when addressing them. While he had 1600 hours of flying experience it did not mention if he had World War 2 combat experience. Other items of importance:
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At 0950 EST, the pilot was at 8,000 feet approximately three miles Southeast of Mitchell AFB when he saw the object about 1.5 miles southeast of runway 30. He was flying with an airspeed of 160 knots.
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It initially was heading Southwest at about 300 knots.
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Object was oval in shape and looked like a parachute.
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Its estimated size was 20-30 feet.
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It was initially at a 200-300 foot altitude.
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The object went about 3-4 miles south of the airfield and then began a turn to port.
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The pilot and object circled the field and, after going about 2-3 miles Northwest of the field, the object proceeded Southwest and climbed rapidly.
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It was last seen about seven miles Southwest of the field. Estimated speed was 500 knots.
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It had a rocking/oscillating motion to it.
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There is no mention of him pursuing the object and it outrunning his aircraft. All he mentions is that he was able to cut inside of the object’s turn and, after that, it rapidly climbed out of sight above his altitude of 6000 feet. Subsequent interviews revealed that he had estimated its last position after turning his aircraft around and lining it up with a point of land he noticed when he last saw the object.
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A weather balloon with radar reflector was launched from the base at 0950 EST.
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The tower personnel were interviewed and they stated they did not see the weather balloon or the TBM. They were too busy dealing with ground traffic. The first they heard about the event was at 0955 EST, when the aircraft contacted the tower stating he had seen the object.
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At 1008 EST, the pilot contacted the tower again and described the object as, “Round, very light in color, appeared to be a para- chute canopy, with a dark colored object underneath.”
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The radar tracking the balloon did not note the presence of any aircraft or unusual objects. However, they pointed out that, because of all the air traffic in the area, they ignore/do not note any aircraft and only focus on tracking the balloon.
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Weather at the time of the sighting was winds from the NNW at 15 knots with gusts up to 25 knots.
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Data from the balloon launch gave the following information:
Blue Book would classify this as a balloon, which was released from the field at the same time of the sighting. According to the file, the balloon had a radar reflector attached, which would make the balloon appear unusual. Additionally, the balloons, when removed from their packages, were coated in talcum powder that made the balloon a mix of black and white. This possibly created a shape that looked like a parachute.
Analysis
The obvious candidate for this sighting is the balloon that was released. It seems odd that the pilot saw the object but nobody else did. Those tracking the balloon on radar and visually made no mention of another object. The tower did not see the ob- ject, the balloon, or the TBM. This was also a heavily populated area and individuals below the object did not report any UFO even though it was 30 feet in size and only 200 feet above them. The only person that saw this object was the pilot. That alone makes one suspect that the balloon was the source of the sighting. It also makes one question if the pilot was circling the airfield as he suggested.
The real question is, “Does the balloon fit the flight profile described?” If we plot the balloon using the data in the record, the balloon takes a southeastward track and then turns southwestward after reaching an altitude of 9-10,000 feet. At a rate of rise of roughly of about 15 feet/second, the balloon would have ended 5-6 miles to the Southeast of the airport before heading Southwest nine min- utes after release. Blue Book determined that the event probably happened around 0954 EST. They based this on the initial verbal report made to the tower being at 0955, which recorded the pilot’s initial report on the radio. This time would have put the balloon at an altitude of 4000 feet and between 1-2 miles to the southeast of the base. That matches the location of the reported position of the object when the pilot first saw it. While he reported it as below his plane at a 200-300 foot altitude, this estimate could have been inaccurate based on his estimates of size. Blue Book determined that a small balloon would have been around 1700 feet below the plane based on his estimates of angular size. The main point was the balloon was in his location and below him, which is what he reported for the object.
According to Blue Book, the pilot’s plotted turn is too great based on his testimony. He stated he pulled 2-3 g’s while trying to make his initial turn. His plotted turn was a wide loop with a radius of about 6000 feet. The high g-forces indicated a tighter loop of a 1500-foot radius. This would result in the small loop shown in the right plot.
One must remember that the track was based on the pilots observations and we don’t know how accurate they were. One must recall that the pilot was in the middle of a tight turn and that would have made accurate observations difficult.
The main argument against the balloon made by Ruppelt was that the pilot claimed to have pursued the object and it got away from him. While Ruppelt mentions this, it is not in the report. The pilot never mentioned pursuing the object from behind after making his tight turn around the object/turning inside of the object. All that is stated is that the object disappeared by rising above him rapidly and he gave up pursuit.
Blue Book determined the duration of the event appears to have been about 30-45 seconds based on how long it would have taken to make the turn. The pilot estimated it was 2-3 minutes but Blue Book suspected it was probable that he overestimated the time. If the initial intercept was at 0954, the subsequent report to the tower at 0955 is more in line with the shorter duration.
As for his speed estimates of the object, we have to recall that the pilot estimated the object was 20-30 feet in size. If it were a bal- loon, that means his estimates were off by a factor of five to ten. If that was the case, his estimates of speed would also have been overestimated by this factor since he would be basing his speed estimates on the object’s angular size. That would put the true speeds around 30-100 knots. Wind speed at the altitudes mentioned were around 50 knots.
The disappearance to the southwest appears to have been more of a guess by the pilot. He took a point of land he had used as a reference during his turn and then determined that was the direction the object disappeared. Since the object was rising rapidly, this direction could have been off towards the south or southeast.
Conclusion
There is no good reason to dismiss the possibility that the source of the sighting was the weather balloon launched from the airfield. The lack of any other witnesses (even though there were plenty available) to an object, other than the balloon, tends to indicate he was looking at the balloon that was airborne in his vicinity. It seems likely that the pilot made some errors in his recol- lections about his “interception” and resulted in a more exciting story than what actually happened. This sighting should be listed as “probable balloon” and be removed from the UFO evidence category.
Quelle: SUNlite 1/2023