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Aftermath
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After the RB-47 returned to Forbes AFB in Kansas, several reports were made. Each contained information that was contradictory and seemed to contain errors.
Duncanville’s CIRVIS report
Shortly after the events (at 1445Z), the ground radar station (Duncanville), filed a CIRVIS report. Some comments worth noting are:
B-47, 30,000 feet, Mach 0.87, Forbes 1. AFB, Kansas. B-47 chased UFO over Fort Worth but was unable to overcome UFO.
Airborne radar was being used on B-47 2. to track object Aircraft stated they had good contact however Utah had negative contact with object.1
The first comment seems to be an error. The plane was supposedly at 34,500 feet and the maximum speed was Mach 0.85. Did the radar operators have problems determining the speed and altitude of the aircraft or was the 34,500 feet given by the crew too high?
The second comment also seems to contain errors. The first being that the RB-47 tracked the UFO with their radar. We know that the navigator denied this happened. What it probably was referring to was the tracking of the radar signal by McClure. The second error is that Duncanville denied tracking the UFO. Klass suggested that this was because they had identified the UFO as an aircraft. It seems the CO probably did not want to get involved in any UFO reports. It also may indicate that the type of contact they saw may have not been a solid return and they determined it just was not a good enough confirmation.
Reading the Piwetz report, it is odd that Duncanville had to be told where to look for the UFO on their radar screen:
ADC REQUESTED AIRCRAFT TO GO TO IFF MODE III FOR POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION AND REQUESTED POSITION OF OBJECT. CREW REPORTED POSITION OF OBJECT AS 10NM NORTH WEST OF FT WORTH, TEXAS, AND ADC SITE IMMEDIATELY CONFIRMED PRESENCE OF OBJECT ON THEIR SCOPES.2
This indicates that Duncanville needed to be directed towards the UFO. According to Chase’s testimony, they were tracking the UFO for some time. Did they suddenly
lose it or did they have problems recognizing it? One also wonders why the radar sites at Texarkana, England, and Ellington did not see the UFO when the RB-47 was moving through their area even though they should have seen it. It is too bad that Duncanville did not obtain a very convincing target or file a report that was more informative concerning any targets they did have.
Debriefing3
After landing, the crew was debriefed by the intelligence officer Piwetz. It was his report that added a lot to the RB-47 case file. However, there are portions of his report that appear to be erroneous based on what the air crew would later state to interviewers:
The “up-scope” incident was stated 1. to have occurred near Meridian, MS, when, by all accounts, it occurred near the coast.
The report stated both pilot and copilot saw two UFOs simultaneously, when they only reported one.
It was stated the plane was near 3. Mineral Wells, Texas at 1055Z, when it was not possible for the plane to reach that location.
Piwetz was convinced the UFO was emitting the signals and stated so in his report.
However, this conclusion would be considered somewhat hasty since he seemed to have little data to work with other than notes by McClure and only partial recordings (starting at 1048Z) of the events described.
UFO report4
In September, Major Chase would complete a UFO report. Some of the things he noted were:
There was no moon even though 1. there was a bright waning gibbous moon visible.
The radar operator never obtained 2. any radar contact.
He states that ECM equipment 3. tracked the object and that radar scope pictures were taken but then circled “NO” on “Were photographs taken?” My guess is he was implying
nobody took photographs of the visual UFO. McClure and Hanley denied taking any photographs so he must have been talking about Duncanville, which denied ever tracking the UFO in their report.
He incorrectly listed the upper level 4. winds as coming from a bearing of 260 at 50 knots. He incorrectly noted that the plane 5. made the turn towards the northwest at 1010Z.
Many of these errors could have been caused by simply memory issues and clerical mistakes on the part of Chase. However, it demonstrates that one has to question how accurate the report was when it was written two months later.
Summary report5
A hand-written report is in the Bluebook files. Exactly who wrote it when is hard to determine as it is unclear. At the very end of the report it states:
A study of radar data that was later submitted indicated that the aircraft’s radar signals had the characteristics of ground radar equipment. Further, there was no firm correlation between the ground intercept and the visual sightings. The change of colors: blue, white, red are suggestive of aircraft lights which normally, all air crews would have little trouble recognizing.
It was also strange that objects disappeared or stopped when they had reached the large cities. In joint review with the CAA of the data from the incident, it was definitely established by the CAA that object observed in vicinity of Dallas and Fort Worth was an airliner.6
This was probably why the card for Bluebook concluded it was flight 966, which was a mistake.
Blue Book perplexed
On 30 October, 1957, a memo was sent to Captain Gregory of project Blue Book by AFCIN-4E1
This report is difficult to evaluate because there is such a mass of evidence which tends to all tie in together to indicate the presence of a physical object or UFO....since there are no “firm” correlation between the ground intercept and the sightings from the aircraft, it is impossible to make any determination from the information submitted. On the other hand, it is difficult to conclude that nothing was present, in face of the visual and other data present.7
No conclusions could be drawn in this report but the author seemed convinced that there may have been something present.
Resurrection
The Condon study inadvertently resurrected this case. Lewis Chase was the UFO officer at Malmstrom and he attended a meeting with the Condon representatives and Blue Book. He requested that Major Quintanilla look for the records and it caught the interest of Dr. Roy Craig. Unfortunately, Chase could not recall the date and thought it was in September 1957. The records were not found until Dr. McDonald spent time with the Blue Book files after the Condon Study was completed. It was Dr. McDonald’s work that first elevated this case to the status of “best evidence”.
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Various theories for the UFO lights
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One of the most interesting aspects of the RB-47 is the source of the lights that Major Chase reported seeing. According to Phil Klass, it was just an airliner that produced the light.
The end of the flight 966 myth
Phil Klass did a lot of work trying to locate the actual plane that the RB-47 had seen over Dallas-Fort Worth. He had contacted somebody from American Airlines in 1971 and they had confirmed that 966 was supposed to land in Dallas at 6AM Central time. Klass felt that the landing lights of the plane were the cause of the lights seen by Chase. But the case was not that solid. When asked by Dr. Hynek if the landing lights could have fooled him, Major Chase stated:
Not unless aimed at you. That aircraft would have been in some kind of climb. If the aircraft is landing, no way do his lights seem much brighter than a car on the freeway. 1
Brad Sparks determined that flight 966 could not have been in the area at the time of the RB-47 encounter because it was too far away. It had a near miss with flight 655 near El Paso at 3:30 AM MST. The plane could not make up the distance during that time. Was it late or is there a reasonable explanation?
In 1957, Daylight savings time was a problem. Different states and cities had different rules. It made for great confusion on airline, train, and bus schedules. The encounter had occurred before 1100Z. If Dallas were on Daylight Savings Time (CDT), that would have been 0600. However, it wasn’t. I checked several newspapers from Texas in July 1957 and all listed the times for Sunrise and Sunset as Standard Time (see weather above from Denton Record-Chronicle on July 17, 19573). This means 1100Z was actually 0500 CST. Flight 966 was not scheduled to land until an hour later just as Sparks computed. Klass’ information was correct but he made an error when he thought 1100Z was 6AM in Dallas.
The description of the lights
Dr. McDonald’s interviews with the Copilot McCoid and Chase are interesting.
His notes regarding his phone calls with Chase state:
I asked him if he any impression of angular size of the red light, when it showed a red light moving over ahead of him. He wouldn’t hazard a guess, except he did say it was far larger than any running light on a jet at the known 10-mile distance which radar was indicating. He also said it was not flashing or pulsating like a running light.4
His notes with McCoid mention a description of the light as well:
He brought up, voluntarily, the matter of gas burn-off flames from oil wells. He said that he had frequently seen them and, as soon as the phenomenon began, it went through his mind that he should be very careful to be dead sure that he wasn’t looking at any burn-off flames. He then stated that the intensity of the light, and its elevation angle (strictly below the horizon) ruled such flames as a source, in his mind.…He recalled that the Unknown was, at times, distinctly above their level. Definitely too far above the horizon to confuse it with oil well flames.5
Throughout the interviews, both Chase and McCoid implied the angular size of the light was not that large and usually refrained from estimating an angular size. It was perhaps a bit larger than the landing lights of an aircraft but there seemed to be little angular size to it. As a result, one can assume the only thing the witnesses saw was a bright light.
The description of where in the sky the object was is confusing because McCoid seems to state the light was above and below the horizon. Chase implies it was below the horizon. Perhaps McCoid was confusing memories of the 1010 meteor event with the later events around Dallas-Fort Worth. In his letters with Dr. Hynek, Chase could not recall if the light was above or below the horizon. He told Klass he felt the light was about 5000 feet below him and, at one point, was as low as 15,000 feet.
What this all indicates is the light was probably below 34,500 feet and not above the horizon. So, what was the source of the light?
Potential Sources
I have gone down a path of many possible
scenarios for the light. Here are a few possibilities that I and other skeptics considered and why some were rejected as not plausible:
The moon reflecting off of some1.
thing. This seemed highly unlikely but there was a bright waning moon in the southwestern sky. What ever this light reflected off would have to be airborne and the only thought was clouds or ice crystals. This is very unlikely.
A red spot aurora could have been 2. involved. This seemed to have merit in that there was increased solar activity that year but there was no record of widespread auroras visible on the date in question. Additionally, the bright moon and approaching dawn would have washed out most aurorae.
Astronomical objects were proposed 3. by Klass but the sky was rapidly brightening with sunrise less than an hour away when the plane began its pursuit phase. Even first magnitude stars would start to lose their brilliance by the time the plane was flying over Dallas at time 1050Z. Additionally, the pilot/copilot all agreed the light was below the horizon making any astronomical explanation for the light over Dallas-Fort Worth untenable.
The light of a train heading south4. bound. This was an interesting idea and there are tracks for the southern pacific headed towards New Orleans from Fort Worth. Still, I felt that a train is a stretch unless it had a high beam searchlight that pointed skyward.
The Condon study at one point suggested the light was an optical phenomena involving the city lights of Oklahoma City. They rejected this after further analysis. I mention it here for information purposes only. I never considered this as a plausible explanation.
Gas burn-off flames or a ground fire 6. of some kind. McCoid described the light being similar. There are no records of any fires but it is interesting to note that there was a General Motors plant on the eastern side of Arlington along the RB-47’s flight path. It seems unlikely they would have some sort of gas burn-off flame but there may have had another light source at the plant.
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Another plane taking off or land7. ing. While Dallas had Love Field, Fort Worth had created its own airport and had called it the Greater Southwestern airport. It is no longer in existence but was to the south of what is now DFW international airport. In 1957, it was fairly active. The RB-47 flight path takes it over this area.
Dallas Naval Air station was also 8. along the RB-47 flight path. Dallas NAS was often used as a way point for aircraft making cross country trips Located at Dallas NAS were two reserve squadrons of P2V Neptunes. The P2V had a large searchlight on the starboard wing tip of the aircraft. Seen from a distance, the searchlight would have been unusual.
The U-2 was mentioned at one point 9. but it seems very unlikely to be the source. The plane would have to have been higher than the RB-47 and possibly reflecting the sun. There were U-2s in southern Texas but they were probably painted black and would not reflect the sun before sunrise when flying at 15,000-30,000 feet .
An RB-69A. This was a CIA modi10.fied P2V Neptune aircraft that would Europe.
The airplane had some unique equipment (including side-looking radar and high intensity lights) and was built at the “skunk works”. In 1957, one of the RB-69As were flown to Eglin AFB in Florida for testing and may have had to make a stop at Dallas NAS. The other aircraft would eventually have been flown to Eglin as well. What are the chances of one of these planes being in the area of Fort Worth in July of 1957? If it was in the area that morning and involved in some way, it would explain the need not to have the aircraft mentioned in any reports. While this is compelling, it seems like the odds of it being involved is low. It is an avenue for future investigation.
At Dallas NAS was the Vought plant 11. where the new F-8 crusaders were being built. The day before, John Glenn had just broken the cross country speed record in one of these F-8s. An F-8 may have been flying about that early in the morning with lighting the pilots were not familiar with.This is a low probability scenario but can not be completely dismissed.
Some unusual ground lighting the 12. pilots were not familiar with. South of Grand Prairie airport (the 1957 airfield and not the one currently using that name) is a water tower. It is possible this had illumination that might have been confusing. Additionally, the city of Fort Worth seemed to have a large quantity of neon lighting downtown similar to one might expect from some place like Las Vegas. 9 (See frame grab below)
An unknown man-made aircraft in 19608the area.
So, what was the light? I really don’t know but there are many possibilities. In my opinion, I think it probably was an aircraft of some kind and the P-2V Neptune with it’s searchlight beam is a good candidate to start with. It also might have been just an aircraft landing at or taking off from Great Southwestern airport or Dallas NAS. We really will never know at this point without the actual records of aircraft activity on the date in question.
It is interesting that the handwritten summary stated the CAA had confirmed the aircraft was an airliner (but not flight 966).
Notes and References
Herb, Gert. “A rebuttal to Philip J. Klass’s analy1.
sis of the RB-47 incident of July 17, 1947.” Center
for UFO Studies (CUFOS) Bulletin. CUFOS. Evanston, Ill. Summer 1977. P. 8.
Phil Klass notes concerning the schedule of 2. flight 966. American Philosophical Society. Philip Klass Collection. Box Series II-6.
“Weather”. 3. Denton Record-Chronicle. Denton, Texas. July 17, 1957. P. 1.
McDonald, James. 4. Interview notes with James McCoid. February 2, 1969.
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RB47 conclusions
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Is the case solved? I would never suggest so unless there was much more evidence as to aerial activities that morning.
As a result, the case is still “unidentified” so UFOlogists can rest easy on that point. Of course, that is what the definition of a UFO is, right? In this case, the visual was apparently flying and nobody can positively identify it.
Skeptics have no problems accepting the fact the case can not be positively identified. However, it is the proponents that seem to have a problem with a case just having the label of “unidentified”. To have such a label is not good enough. They have to draw conclusions that the evidence does not support.
In the conclusion of his article, Sparks states the case is “irrefutable” and the evidence is “unassailable”. I find such statements hyperbole, which have no place in a scientific endeavour. However, in the following conclusion, one has to wonder what data he is looking at:
This mass of strikingly self-consistent data demonstrates the existence of a large metallic rapidly maneuvering airborne source of S-band radar like signals and visible light - a UFO - that played tag with an Air Force intelligence-gathering jet for more than two hours on the night of July 17, 1957, across four states in the southern United States.1
He states this as if this was proven without a doubt. Objective observers would state that he has not come close to proving this conclusion and that he has rejected other possibilities without good reason.
The greatest UFO case ever?
This case is being billed as the best evidence for UFOs being some form of exotic unknown phenomenon based mostly on what Sparks wrote about the case. This overinflated claim seems to have been simply accepted without questioning it. There are several reasons to question this claim:
We do not know if all the signals reported were the same exact frequency and same characteristics. It is assumed that this is the case but there is no proof this is so. They could just as easily have been in the same frequency range but not the same exact frequency as the signal mentioned in the Piwetz report.
For a majority of the signals, there 2. seems to be radars located along those bearings that might have been detected by the RB-47. Only the signals at time 1030, 1042 and 1044 seem to have questionable radar sources. Since we don’t know exactly what the plane’s heading was at that instant, what the exact frequency of the signals were for those bearings, and what the exact conditions were for radio wave propagation, can we really conclude that these radar signals were emitted by some “unknown airborne intelligence”?
Sparks claims the UFO was large and 3. metallic. However, the witnesses all stated the light/UFO sighted was of small angular size. It never was seen as a physical craft of any kind even when the plane was reasonably close. Is a point source of light really something to get that excited about?
Contrary to what Sparks stated, the 4. UFO sighted never appeared to make any exotic maneuvers. There were statements it paced the aircraft but this is not stated in any of the reports from 1957. There are no indications the visually observed UFO flew loops, stopped on a dime, or zigzagged about. It was just a light that was seen, and when the RB-47 got near the UFO, it disappeared. This makes it nothing more than a nocturnal light, which Dr. Hynek considered to be a waste of time: “We can forget about all this lights-in-the-sky stuff, which we can’t do anything about anyway...”2
There are no UFO reports mentioned 5. by anybody but the crew. One would think a UFO that could be seen from dozens of miles away over a major metropolis like Fort Worth-Dallas, might generate some reports even at that hour of the morning. There were four control towers that were manned in the area (Carswell, Greater Southwestern, Dallas NAS and Love field). Add to this list of potential witnesses were the military personnel on duty at Dallas NAS and Carswell AFB, police officers, early morning commuters, civilian pilots, etc. One wonders why there were no other UFO reports. Additionally, one would expect that some technicians at Duncanville, might go out and see if they could see the RB-47 chasing the UFO as it passed nearby. The lack of any confirming reports indicate the UFO was not as obvious to ground based observers as it was to those in the plane.
It appears that Sparks’ characterization of the “data” and what it proves is just not accurate.
In 1997, UFOlogists presented several of their “best cases” to a panel of scientists. Strangely, the RB-47 case was not one of their primary cases (it was mentioned briefly in the paper about the Condon Study). Is it possible that it has received the label of “the best evidence” because it is now the “flavor of the month”? I can recall reading UFO experts say the same thing about other cases before evidence was unearthed showing they were not as compelling as first thought.
We do know the case was examined to some extent by the Condon study with the conclusion they could not explain it. However, they also realized that it did not mean the case involved some supernatural event/intelligence. Writing in his book, UFOs: An insider’s view of the official quest for evidence, Dr. Roy Craig wrote:
Are we left with only the extraordinary conclusion, or do misinterpretation of observations and vagueness of memory open the door to explanation in terms of the ordinary?3
In my opinion, this latter scenario is more plausible. When faced with choosing between the two scenarios of misinterpretation of events by the witnesses and the presence of some “unknown intelligence” emitting radio waves that acted like a ground radar in use at the time, one will tend to conclude that misinterpretation is more likely.
I doubt that most UFOlogists will side with this type of reasoning. This approach was noted in the Condon study:
....others who desire to have a residue of unexplained cases in order to add mystery and importance to the UFO problem incline to set impossibly high standards of certainty in the evidence before they are willing to accept a simple explanation for a report.4
If only these UFOlogists set equally high standards for evidence that an “unknown intelligence” was involved. In my opinion, the evidence in the RB-47 case is inadequate
to draw this kind of a conclusion.
Lipstick on a pig?
Some might suggest that I have simply “put more lipstick on the same pig” (the pig being Klass’ explanation). I disagree.
My original goal was to evaluate the two arguments presented in the case. In my opinion, I have done this and have determined that nobody has positively established a direct link between the radar signals and the nocturnal light. There seems to be other potential sources for the radar signals and the observed light. All the incidents can be potentially explained and Klass’ argument, while containing some flaws and requiring some tweaking, is still an adequate answer to the RB-47 case.
Notes and References
Sparks, Brad. “RB-47 radar/visual case”. 1. The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon From The Beginning, Vol. II: L-Z, 2nd Edition. Jerome Clark editor. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, Inc.; 1998. Page 790
Close encounter still up in the air for UFO ex2.
pert by Michael Tenszen - Toronto Globe and Mail. July 5, 1982
Craig, Roy. 3. UFOs: An Insider’s View of the Official
Quest for Evidence. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1995. P. 148
Condon, E. U., et al., eds. 4. Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Bantam
1968. p 18
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