.
In SUNlite 4-3, I addressed Stanton Friedman’s use of The UFO evidence document by NICAP as some sort of statistical study. To directly quote what he stated:
In Richard Hall’s “The UFO Evidence” it was found that 746 of the 4500 (16.6%) cases examined could not be explained.1
Overlooking the fact that Friedman got the numbers wrong (it was a total of over 5000 cases), I responded that there were many problems with using
this document as a statistical study of any kind. To further check this, I chose to go through the case files and see how good the evidence in them really was.
Insufficient information
One of the first thing I noticed when examining this document was the number of cases that did not have enough information or predated the UFO era of June 1947. These need to be weeded out of the totals simply
because they classify not as “unkown” but “insufficient information”. Out of the cases that are listed in the chronology, I counted 51 individual cases that had no date. Eleven more cases predated 1947 and two were “waves” (airship and ghost rocket) and not specific. That makes 64 cases out of the 746, that have no meaning or specific information that can be evaluated.
Questionable photographic cases
Another thing about the document that bothered me were the claims of photographs that were taken of UFOs but never examined. Out of the sixty-four photographic cases listed, eighteen are listed as “incomplete information” and fourteen are listed as “dubious or negative information”. Another six of these cases are “reported photographs/films” that are said to exist but never have been examined for various reasons. This brings the total to 38 cases that should not qualify as evidence. If one couples this with the “insufficient information” cases previously described, we have a total of 102 cases out of 746 that can be removed from the list. This brings the percentage of “unexplained cases” down to 12.9%.
Reviewing some of the cases
What follows is a review of ten cases that appeared to be IFOs, where there should be enough information in the historical record to discover their source. Some of the results revealed some interesting issues concerning the document itself and how NICAP dropped the ball on some of their investigations.
Case #1 - The bobbing UFO
The first case that jumped out at me was an obscure one from central Florida:
April 3, 1959 - Ocoee, Florida. Treasury enforcement officer saw UFO ascending and descending. 2
Section VII of the document does not give much in the way of additional information other than the name of the witness:
Large greenish-yellow light ascending, reflecting on lake; faded, re-appeared descending, hovered...finally ascended out of sight.3
The footnote states the report comes from the NICAP files. Looking at the archive of NICAP UFO investigator newsletters, I found a bit more information like time and direction:
April 3 - Central Florida - A greenish-yellow UFO which ascended and descended several times at about 7:30 P.M. was reported by John F. Wilmeth, a Treasury Enforcement Law Officer for 28 years. He said the object dimmed as it rose and brightened as it came down again, returning to the same spot in the eastern sky three times. Wilmeth could see light from the object reflected
in a lake. The moon was not visible at the time.4
The location of Ocoee is on the west side of Orlando and I am somewhat familiar with the area. If one looks towards the east, as Mr. Wilmeth was doing, one is looking towards Cape Canaveral. This results in the possibility that he had seen a rocket launch. The web site Astronautix has a chronology
of all rocket launches, which contains this applicable entry:
1959 April 4 - . 00:34 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC26B. LV Family: Jupiter. Launch Vehicle: Jupiter. LV Configuration: Jupiter IRBM CM-22A.5
The date/time of April 4, 1959 at 0034 GMT converted to local time is 7:34 PM EST on April 3, 1959. The coincidence of the Jupiter rocket launch at the same approximate time Mr. Wilmeth observed his UFO rising and falling is hard to ignore. What he probably saw was the rocket rise in the east and then change its brightness and direction as the rocket arced over downrange. The three times rising and falling probably can be attributed to the witness being misinterpreted or their misperception of what exactly was seen. The bottom line is that there is a solution to this “mystery” and it should be removed from the “UFO evidence” list.
Case #2 - The half-crescent with the pulsing light
After seeing a rocket launch produced a UFO report in this document, I began to wonder if there were others. It did not take me long to discover another UFO report that might have been caused by a rocket launch:
September 26, 1963--Sunnyvale Calif. Police officer, many others, observed a gray disc with central bright spot, moving on a westerly course at high speed.6
This item references section VII, so I went there to see if there is anything more I could learn about this case. This description stated:
During the early morning hours of September 26, 1963, a UFO was sighted by people in scattered locations around the San Francisco bay area. Paul Cerny, Chairman of the Bay Area NICAP Subcommittee, conducted an investigation and located nine witnesses. (The sighting was reported September 26 in the San Jose Mercury News, Los Altos Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.) A particularly detailed report was obtained from Officer Galen Anderson of the Sunnyvale Police Department, who observed the UFO for 45 seconds.
About 4:20 a.m., Officer Anderson was patrolling the streets in a squad car. A radio call from other officers alerted him, and he stopped to watch the UFO. The object was traveling from the east to west at an elevation angle of about 45 degrees, at about the speed of a propeller-driven aircraft. The leading edge was brightly illuminated, the main body grayish in color, with a small point of light visible in it. (See sketches and description prepared by Bay Area Subcomittee). The UFO then made a turn towards the northwest, was momentarily visible edge-on, then quickly disappeared from view.
In nearby Monta Vista about 4:15 a.m., George W. Scott was on the job as a supervisor at the Permanente Cement Company. One of the work crew called his attention to a strange object in the sky, and he watched its flight for about a minute. To him, it appeared that the UFO stopped briefly each time the small body light pulsed, then moved 3 to 4 degrees between pulses. The UFO continued on a westerly course, disappearing behind the coastal mountains. 7
The document also contained a sketch that looked vaguely familiar to me. I grew up in Florida and was also stationed there several times. I had seen my share of night rocket launches from around the state. I recall observing one rocket launch in the summer of 1976 from my parent’s home in Jacksonville. After the solid boosters were ejected, I was able to follow the remaining stage with my 3-inch refractor for a short period of time. My recollections were that it looked something like the head of a bright comet with a red nucleus, which is similar to this sketch. With that in mind, I began to look into the possibility of this being a rocket launch from Vandenberg.
The astronautix chronology listed a Minuteman I launch on the 26th of September but gave no time. The media reports for this launch were not very helpful because the USAF only stated (as was their policy at the time) that it was a routine launch of a missile/rocket with no specific time given. One newspaper did indicate it was launched late in the day and this was confirmed when I talked to space expert Jonathan McDowell, who has a complete listing of all launches on his web site. That seemed to eliminate the possibility this was a rocket launch until I looked closely at the sources of information. According to the NICAP document, the event occurred around 4AM on the 26th of September and then appeared in the newspapers the same day. Unless these were evening editions, it seemed unlikely that a morning paper could have the story. A little bit of searching produced an article in the September 26th Oakland tribune giving the correct date of the event in question. The article states that events occurred on Wednesday morning, which was the 25th (lower left).8 Further confirmation occurred when I checked the APRO bulletin of November 1963 (lower right)9, which also listed the date as the 25th.
With this in mind, I now went to the date of September 25th to see if a rocket launch produced this UFO. Thanks to Jonathan McDowell’s database, I discovered that an Atlas
E was launched at 4:04 AM PDT (11:04 GMT - DST in effect for California until October 27, 1963) . This rocket failed shortly after the booster package separated. According
to McDowell:
The detailed launch report says “Missile failed to reach target area due to in flight malfunction of sustainer hydraulics...normal until booster jettison at T+127.4 seconds .. followed immediately by loss of sustainer engine control and resultant loss of missile control”.10
The Astronautix web site states it reached only 100Km altitude but McDowell states that this is just a guess based on the time of 127.4 seconds. He suggested it may have been as high as 200KM. With a flight duration of more than 127 seconds before failure (we don’t know if the rocket was destroyed at that instant or it was allowed to continue), it should have been visible to the witnesses. If it were not destroyed instantly, the subsequent unstable missile with sustainer engine firing probably produced a “pulsing” effect to observers.
While the times do not exactly match, I would not consider a difference of 10-15 minutes that significant. The same can be said for some of the witness’ descriptions of direction. The rocket was probably to the south-southwest and not to the west.
The distance from these locations to the launch site was about 200 miles but it was not unusual for these locations to see rocket launches and report them as a UFO. The following year, the September 22, 1964 launch of an Atlas rocket (codename “Buzzing Bee”) produced UFO reports as far away as Sacramento and Stead AFB, Nevada (over 270 miles away). In that incident, two of the witnesses described the UFO as an arc that turned into a hazy oval with a bright object in the center. Does this sound familiar?
What I learned from this little investigation was that the NICAP document had a major error in the date even though it was investigated by their NICAP subcomittee. I also learned that this investigation was less than thorough as it seems they did not pursue all potential explanations (or dismissed this one without good reason). In my opinion, this case is solved and can no longer be considered UFO evidence.
Case #3 - A titanic radio shutdown
The next case on the list was explained long ago by the USAF and involved another rocket launch. The NICAP document describes it as:
November 14, 1963 -- Carson City, Nevada. A huge bluish green disc was seen hovering in the northwest sky about 4:45 a.m. Mrs. Blanche Pritchett said she was listening to her radio when a bright light shining through her drapes caused her to look outdoors. As she watched the hovering object, her radio went off. A brilliant shaft of light from the UFO illuminated a hilltop. Suddenly the UFO blacked out and disappeared, after which the radio resumed playing. Other residents reported odd glows in the sky that morning. 11
The source for this appears to be the Carson City news paper, which may or may not have gotten the details correct. Again, there appears to be no investigation.
On November 14, 1963, a Titan I was launched from Vandenberg AFB (310 miles away) at 1342Z (5:42 PST). It was reported in the Blue Book files as a UFO by a weather observer at Stead AFB near Reno, Nevada (about 330 miles away). The file also includes this clipping from Saucer news (March 1964). Note that some of the details in the NICAP report are different and potentially wrong. The NICAP report states the object was to the Northwest but the Saucer news report was towards the Southwest.12
While the time seems to be off by one hour, it seems that this might be explained by an error in recording the time. The witness may have gotten the time wrong or it may have been recorded wrong. The coincidence of the rocket launch is hard to ignore. The case is very likely explained as a Titan rocket launch from Vandenberg.
Case #4 - UFO says “Aloha”
The next case is a “mass sighting” event in Hawaii on March 11, 1963:
March 11, 1963--Oahu, Hawaii. Brilliant light headed west and leaving a trail observed by many people just after 8:00 p.m. Two National Guard pilots flying jets about 40 miles west of Honolulu reported UFO was “much higher” than their altitude of 40,000 feet and moving “very fast”. Possibly an observation of the recently announced A-11. 13
The first thing I checked was the launch database. According to Astronautix, an Atlas D was launched on the 12th of March at 0521 GMT (0521 GMT is 7:21PM HST) making it a good candidate for this UFO. A check of the Blue Book files also identified it as this ICBM test and provided additional information.
The National Guard pilots were Captain Jon Parish and Lt. George Joy. Captain Parish was quoted as stating that it was “possibly a rocket or some sort of space object flying a predetermined course”. 14 The time listed in the bluebook files was 1940 HST (0540 GMT), which is a reasonable match to the launch time of the Atlas D. Rocket launches from Vandenberg take about 30-40 minutes to go from Vandenberg to Kwajalein and Hawaii is about half-way. The rocket was probably readily visible because of the fact that this was about 1 hour after sunset and the sun was able to illuminate the trail of the rocket.
Once again, we discover that the NICAP document missed the potential explanation here. Blue Book got this one right and NICAP got it wrong. It no longer deserves to be listed in the NICAP UFO evidence document.
Case #5 - Air Defense Command cover-up
I was shocked and confused when I read this entry:
June 16, 1955 -- Eastern U.S. UFOs observed over wide area, jets scrambled. 15
This sounded really serious and one would think it would have made the news and would be part of the Blue Book record. Strangely, there is no mention in the Project Blue Book files of this massive incident. Additionally, I could find no mention of it in the newspaper archive. One would think that some news outlet would report interceptors scrambling up and down the east coast. Where did NICAP get their information?
NICAP lists the source of this information as coming from “Dozens of interceptor pilots” 16 and is footnoted as being recorded in Donald Keyhoe’s, Flying Saucer Conspiracy. Curious, I asked for a copy of the appropriate section of the book from others. Isaac Koi promptly gave me the appropriate section of the book, which read more like pulp fiction than an objective UFO report:
In one of these officially hidden cases, on the night of 16th June, scores of UFO’s reconnoitered the area from the Mississippi to the Atlantic.
At 11 O’clock, U.S. Central Standard Time, a Flying Tiger Airlines plane was on a routine flight, forty miles north-east of Springfield, Missouri.
Suddenly a blue-white disc, moving at tremendous speed, shot in toward the plane. After circling around it in a tight turn, the saucer tilted up steeply and streaked out of sight.
Hurriedly the captain of the plane radioed the nearest CAA tower. Unknown to him, his was only one of dozens of sightings reported by pilots within the last few minutes. Before midnight Air Force Intelligence was swamped, with CAA and GOC messages pouring into Air Filter Centres from Chicago to Baltimore.
By midnight all Air Defense Commands east of the Mississippi were on a full alert, as scores of armed jet night-fighters pursued the low-flying objects.
Though I had learned of this important sighting early the next morning, my first hint of widespread alert did not come until the day after that, when Lou Corbin called me from Baltimore.
“Did you hear about the uproar over hear?” he asked. “It was on the night of the 16th.”
“No,” I answered. “But I heard of one report.”
Then I told him about the Flying Tigers Airlines case.
“The Air Force was almost wild that night,” said Corbin. “At the Baltimore Filter Center reports came in from GOC posts all over Maryland and up and down the coast. They said the saucers were over Washington too.”
“The Pentagon certainly put a clamp on it,” I told him. “Usually I get a tip on any sightings around the area”
“Yes,” Corbin replied. “They’ve tightened up so much that I don’t know how much longer I can get information.” 17
A check of the Blue Book records found some references to what Keyhoe might be referring. The Tiger airlines incident occurred on 15th and was part of a series of sightings that night.18 On the same night there was a bright fireball, which was seen over the midwest
around 9:15 pm CDT.19 The bluebook record card lists the time of this specific incident as being at 0508Z20 (1108 CST), which does not quite match the time of the fireball recorded two hours previously. They originally gave an insufficient data evaluation but would later change it to “possibly astronomical” since it coincided on the same night as all the other fireball reports. It seems unlikely that this case was the same fireball as the 9:15 PM event if the information
listed were accurate. This does not mean it was not a fireball as there may have been a second bright meteor that night that was not as widely observed as the previous one.
Meanwhile, there were some sightings on the 16th of June in Baltimore. The Blue Book summary initially labeled it as insufficient data but later identified it as a balloon. That case seems to have been something very small and would not warrant a wide spread alert of jet fighters.
As far as I can tell, there are no records indicating a major scramble of jet fighters or Air Defense units being on alert. What Keyhoe was reporting here is more rumor than fact. Keyhoe provides no details of significance that can be verified and it seems he got the date and some of the details wrong regarding the Tiger Airlines case. As far as the UFO cases are concerned, I am willing to let them remain “unidentified” even though both were possibly what Blue Book determined them to be. However, the entry about fighter jets and alerts in the NICAP document is based mostly on a belief in a conspiracy. That part should be removed from the UFO evidence because there is very little data that confirms that this occurred.
Case #6 - The great white whale breaches in Oregon
This case caught my eye because it was recorded on multiple nights:
September 11-13, 1953--Chiloquin, Ore. Police Chief, others, watched top-like UFOs three consecutive nights.21
Looking further in the document, the source of this information was revealed to be the Los Angeles Daily News of September 15, 1963. Beyond this source, there is little information or documentation. Apparently, there was no investigation either.
Anytime I see a repeating event, I immediately suspect the object is probably astronomical. However, when I scanned the newspaper archive and found the Nevada State Journal description of events, I began to look at another possibility based on the shapes and lighting reported.22
According to that article, the events were seen on the 11th through the 13th. There was great emphasis on the shape as being top-like and that the UFOs had flashing lights and a bright light suspended beneath them. It appeared on the 11th around 7:30 PM and was visible for about an hour. The night of the 12th seemed to have been very similar. On the evening of the 13th, two UFOs were observed and they came from opposite directions. While details about the case are very sketchy, I believe there is a probable solution.
During the 1950s, there were hundreds of research balloon launches every year. Many of these were under the program called “Moby Dick”. They were launched from multiple locations around the country, with one of these locations being the Naval Air Station at Tillamook, Oregon. Many of these balloons had special lighting (like flashing lights) to prevent collisions with aircraft at night.
Looking at the Stratocat database for Tillamook23, we discover that balloons were launched on the 11th (1708 local or GMT - it is not clear which from the table at the web site) and 12th (1740 local or GMT). The balloons ended up in Colorado and Texas with average speeds of around 60 and 20 mph respectively. In both cases, the general direction of flight from Tillamook was towards the ESE. Chiloquin was located roughly 225 miles to the SSE of Tillamook. Without a complete flight path, one can not positively determine if these balloons were the cause of these sightings. However, one can suggest that it was likely that on the nights of the 11th and 12th, the UFOs were caused by these research balloons drifting towards the southeast. The key observations were the shape, the idea that a light was suspended below it, and that a flashing light was visible on the UFO.
Only the events of the 13th remain unexplained. However, were there actual observations on the 13th or was it just a confused news report where the details were added? It is also possible that a balloon was launched but not recorded (Statocat states their database is incomplete). A final possibility is that on the third night, observers were expecting to see these UFOs and confused something mundane (aircraft or astronomical objects) as being the same type of UFOs. While I would classify these all as insufficient evidence, It certainly appears there is a possible and plausible explanation for two of the three sightings in this case. This case should be removed from the list.
Case #7 - And resurfaces again in England
A Moby Dick balloon also seems to have been the source of this UFO report in England:
November 3, 1953--London, England. A huge apparently metallic UFO, “Completely circular” and white, was tracked on radar and observed visually through a telescope by the 256th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment.24
Bernard Gildenberg revealed the source in his article about the Skyhook program and UFOs:
Alamogordo Air Force Base was renamed Holloman AFB in 1953. On October 27 of that year, we launched an unclassified payload. It failed to terminate at the scheduled twelve-hour flight duration, and, six days later, it was detected by the Royal Air Force over the Atlantic headed for London!25
The Stratocat database lists England as the landing spot for this balloon launch and that it was a flight under the “Moby Dick” program.26 The record for the flight I was able to obtain (which was labeled HAFB-175) stated the balloon lasted over 48 hours and was last tracked near Key West on the 29th of October.27 It seems probable that the balloon could have made it to England on the third if upper level winds sent it in that direction. A check of upper level winds for Florida and the Bahamas indicate winds at the 50, 000 foot level were blowing from the west and southwest during this time period (bearings of 270 to 225), which might support a trajectory towards England.
There is enough information to suspect that this UFO event was probably caused by the October 27th balloon launch from New Mexico. I would not consider this 100% explained without more conclusive evidence of the balloon actually making it to England. The records I saw seemed to suspect it was the Holloman balloon but did not give an actual positive ID. However, I still think this case should be removed from the list.
Case #8 - Keyhoe and Menzel fight over a lady
This case has me wondering how objective NICAP could be regarding any of their cases listed in this document. It involved an American Airlines crew that chased a UFO from Albany to Oswego, New York on April 8, 1956. The story presented in the UFO Evidence is based solely on what the airline captain reported in a television interview. However, what was reported in the Blue Book files and elsewhere seem to contradict some of that story.
The Chronology summarizes it as:
April 8, 1956--Nr. Schenectady, N. Y. American Airlines pilot followed UFO across state.28
The US Air Force explained this as the planet Venus but NICAP stated the explanation in the television interview refuted this:
In a taped description of his sighting, Capt. Ryan states that the UFO zoomed through a 90 degree arc from off his wing tip to dead ahead. Control tower operators reported seeing a silhouette of a UFO. 29
Missing in NICAP’s description are several important facts. The only person who reported seeing a “silhouette” was the tower at Griffiss AFB. Ryan only saw it as a bright light. The UFO appeared to go in 90 degree arc but this probably had to do with the plane’s movement and not the movement of the UFO. The pilot stated they took off to the north (the Albany runway runs roughly north-south) and then turned towards Schennectedy as they were flying towards Syracuse. This is when they saw the UFO ahead of them. However, they then turned towards the south to avoid the UFO before turning again towards the west. This is how Venus might have appeared to move from the wing tip to dead ahead. The time this all occurred was around 10:15PM. Venus would set after 10:30 PM at an azimuth of 305 degrees. This is the general time frame when the pilot lost sight of the UFO. According to the pilot, he deviated from his flight path to pursue the UFO, which he ceased following near Oswego, NY on Lake Ontario, about 30 miles northwest of Syracuse.
However, Donald Menzel would write:
To the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Captain Ryan replied that he had observed an unidentified object, but that he had not altered the course of his flight. He repeated this explicit statement to officials of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and of American Airlines. Airline records provided independent confirmation. Since the scheduled time of the flight between Albany and Syracuse had been 49 minutes, and the actual time elapsed on the night in question had been 48 minutes.... 30
It is extremely possible that Captain Ryan, in the excitement of the television interview, really meant this was the direction that the UFO disappeared and not that he pursued the UFO to this location. The azimuth towards Oswego from Schennectedy is a bearing of 290 degrees. This value would increase on a plane with a heading of 270, the further west it flew. Venus was between 300-305 degrees during this time period. Considering the potential for error on his bearings, the 10-15 degrees is not significant.
Blue Book records indicated that four other aircraft saw the UFO and felt that it was a star or planet. Additionally, the UFO returned about the same time and location in the sky on the 10th of April. The report from ground observers indicated the UFO simply faded over the horizon to the northwest and they did not appear to perceive any significant motion other than thinking it was a plane approaching the airport. If the UFO had actually moved through 90 degrees as stated by the air crew, this motion should have been seen by the tower personnel. They did not report this. Most important to note is the pilot and control towers never reported seeing the planet Venus, which was in the same location of the sky. This is a clue that Venus was probably the culprit in all of this. NICAP dismissed this solution without good reason and this case should be removed from the document.
Case #9 - The selenites are coming!
The UFO evidence document reads the following:
November 24/25, 1956- -Nr. Pierre, South Dakota. (Wide spread UFO sightings for several days.) State police chased UFO, Air Force jets scrambled. 31
There is little else other than a brief mention of it in section VII, which references an AP report.
“Widespread sightings, rumors of radar contacts by Ellsworth AFB pilots; near Rapid City officers chased a UFO which had steady green light, flashing red light. UFO occasionally beamed a white light upwards.”32
The problem with this statement is that it is rather vague. They have lumped several sightings together. Checking the Blue Book
files, one of these sightings was identified as the planet Mars setting. There is no mention of any radar contacts or interceptors being sent out. They were just rumors. However, there is one case that deserves discussion and possible identification. That being the police pursuit of a UFO on the morning
of November 25th. One may recall that pursuit of a UFO by Dale Spaur in April 1966. Skeptics have suggested he chased the planet Venus. I was also aware of police officers chasing Venus in the Georgia 1967 case studied by the Colorado project. Could this have been Venus?
A quick check revealed that Venus, while visible in the morning sky, rose too late for the police officer’s pursuit, which occurred about 12:43 in the AP account Venus rose about 5 AM. Jupiter was in the morning sky as well but it rose at 2 AM. Both celestial objects were not in play. So, I read the news accounts of the police officers that performed the pursuit. They originally saw it as they crested a hill on route 34. The road runs pretty much from west to east and they indicated they were driving eastward. The object was described as being about a block away and the size of a car (or semi-trailer depending on the article). It was also described as, “...bowl-shaped - like an eggshell cut in half- and it gave off a red light which illuminated the highway.” 33 The police officers pursued the UFO for about seven miles but it maintained its distance away of about a mile and it rose in altitude. Since they could not catch it, they turned around. The UFO then seemed to follow them. What happened to the UFO is hard to say. One account said it disappeared, while another stated it disappeared in the west. However, before turning around, patrolman Peters took a few pictures of their UFO using a fence post to support his camera. The reproductions are not very good in The Huronite and daily plainsman but they do look very familiar (see image to upper left).34
What was never mentioned in all of this was the phase of the moon. It was last quarter (bowl-shaped as it rose) and would appear red when low on the horizon. See the stellarium image (middle image to the left) for 0040 on November 25. My images of a last quarter moon rising over Lake Michigan (bottom left image) is a good example of the moon as a reddish object low on the horizon.
It seems that these two policemen were possibly pursuing and being pursued by the moon. The only time the policemen mention the moon is in the photographs, when it is stated the moon is in the background. However, the moon in the background looks a lot like the photo on the left, which is supposed to be an enlargement of the UFO. If one questions how police could ever mistake the moon for a UFO, I point towards Alan Hendry’s UFO handbook, where he mentions in case # 100, that police chased the setting moon believing it was a UFO. So, it can happen under the right conditions. These conditions may have been met that morning. As hard is it is to believe, or accept, it seems probable that this specific case was caused by the moon.
Case #10 - How is the weather up there?
To me, the cases that are likely to have an explanation are the ones that involve multiple witnesses from multiple locations. If a reasonable amount of observational data is obtained, one can determine an approximate altitude and location. Such is the case of the September 18, 1962 UFO event:
September 18, 1962--Northeast, Ohio. Six policemen sighted UFOs about the same time. One hovering object, two maneuvering.35
On page 62, the details of the police sightings are revealed. All were in the northeast section of Ohio and saw the event about 5 a.m. They all indicated the sighting was towards the East or Northeast. A pair of the police officers described the two UFOs as “..cone-shaped, with a fiery exhaust, leaving a trail of smoke...” 36. Some stated that the object rapidly disappeared and others stated it just hovered and then disappeared.
However, there are a few other sightings in the UFO evidence that were also on the same date and time that were not mentioned. On the same page, in the “Northeast New Jersey concentration” section, we read:
September 18 -- 4 a.m. Two Westwood, N. J., policemen reported a 7-8 second observation of a huge object, round at the top and tapering to a cone.
4:45 a.m. ; Two Oradell policement reported a brilliant light in the sky. 37
One has to recognize that New Jersey did not recognize DST in 1962 but Ohio did. As a result, 4AM in New Jersey, would be the same as 5AM in Ohio. The 4:45 AM observation may or may not be related but the 4AM observation sounds a lot like the Ohio observations.
Blue Book also recorded this event. According to the record card, there were other reports involving pilots on different aircraft all over the northeast. There was even a report by two B-47s flying northwards in Tennessee. The general time frame was 0900Z (4AM EST/5AM EDT). All of this indicated the observations were widespread and at the same time.
There was also a blue book observation from Fort Bragg, South Carolina (Fort Bragg is actually in NC). This was determined to be flares. The time listed is 0855Z, which is about the same time all the other sightings were made. The witnesses saw the UFO initially in the eastern sky at a high elevation angle (estimated at 60 degrees) and it arced over towards the northeast horizon, where it disappeared at an elevation angle of 45 degrees. This certainly sounds very similar to the UFO the other witnesses reported.
The explanation in the Blue Book record card reads:
Report essentially one of bright light going out & leaving cloud which dissipated. Observed fm Ohio to Illinois & Michigan to Tennessee. Observation fm such a wide area indicates that obj at considerable altitude. Cases of this nature in the past have always turned out to be meteor observations. 38
Before seeing the Blue Book file, I was of the initial opinion it might have been stars or planets creating the report. However, the description of a cloud being produced eliminated that idea. After reading Blue Book’s explanation I felt it had some merit but I could not find any record of meteor observations in the news media or astronomical files. Such a bright meteor visible over a wide area should have been recorded somewhere as a meteor and not just a UFO. So, I decided to look a bit further. Being seen over a wide area indicates the UFO was at an extremely high altitude but what could cause something like this? I came up with several ideas after the fireball explanation.
The first thought was a research balloon. There were several launches in the United States preceding this data that might have fit the bill. However, to be seen over such an extremely large area would require an altitude that even research balloons probably could not reach. So I decided the event must have been in the upper regions of the Earth’s atmosphere. This led me to believe it might be a satellite re-entry. However, no such event was on the record. Another idea was that it might have been an explosion of a booster rocket in space similar to the Briz-M explosion back in 2007. There were several failed Soviet launches preceding the 18th but they re-entered before the date in question.
I then decided to look at rocket launches as a possibility. I figured that the object might have been something recently put into orbit. One launch caught my eye on the Astronautix chronology list:
1962 September 18 - . 08:53 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC17A. LV Family: Delta. Launch Vehicle: Thor Delta. LV Configuration: Thor Delta 318/D12. •Tiros 6 - . Payload: Tiros F2 (A-51). Mass: 127 kg (279 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Program: Tiros. Class: Earth. Type: Weather satellite. Spacecraft: Tiros. USAF Sat Cat: 397 . COSPAR: 1962-A-Psi-1. Apogee: 654 km (406 mi). Perigee: 631 km (392 mi). Inclination: 58.3000 deg. Period: 97.60 min. 39
The launch from Cape Canaveral had me doubt that it was the cause because the UFO was to the northeast. However, the time caught my eye because it was so close to the 0900 GMT sighting time. Further examination of the data revealed that the inclination of 58.3 degrees would have resulted in the rocket being launched up towards the northeast. Intrigued, I downloaded a document from NASA dated November 1962, which documented the flight of this Delta rocket.
I noticed that not only was there a first and second stage to this mission but a third stage as well. It was an Altair X248 solid fuel booster rocket. More importantly were the altitudes and locations for when the third stage fired. According to the report, the following are the parameters of third stage firing time, location and altitude: 40
This had the indication that it might be the source for several reasons:
The duration of 42 seconds was similar to what was reported in the Project Blue Book files (30 seconds).1.
The location of the burn was over Nova Scotia, which is to the east-northeast of all of the witnesses. By my measurement, the 2. bearings would have been between 55 and 75 degrees azimuth. This is the general direction most of the witnesses reported. They reported the object in the northeast (45 degrees azimuth) and heading towards the northeast or north-northeast.
The altitude of about 375 nautical miles would make it visible from great distances.3.
The burn probably would have created a trail of some kind visible to the observers. It was referred to as a “super contrail” in one 4. report. Others referred to it as “funnel” or “cone” shaped. This trail quickly disappeared after the ignition ended according to the Blue Book record card.
The time of the burn would have been at roughly 9:04 to 9:05 GMT, which is the time given in the Blue Book files.
The observers in North Carolina would have had an excellent viewing angle of the rocket’s trajectory up the coast. Their observations are consistent with the rocket’s flight path.
So how bright would this third stage appear? The description of this part of the rocket sounds like it does not seem very powerful.
The third stage, mounted to a spin table on top of the second stage, was an Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory (ABL) X-248 spin-stabilized “Altair” solid motor. Altair, a 1.83 meter long, 0.46 meter diameter fiberglass-case motor that only weighed 227 kg, could provide 1.27 tonnes of thrust for 38 seconds. 41
However, when a rocket is at an altitude of over 300 nautical miles, it does not take much to become visible from a long distance away. On May 3rd, 2002, I observed the Spot 5 satellite being launched from French Guiana. However, I was not in South America at the time. The path of this launch went towards the NNW and it passed east of Nova Scotia. It was easily visible from my house in Manchester, NH at an altitude of about 430 NM and distance of 600 NM (see image to the left, where the brightness was about magnitude +1). I even read an observation of the debris cloud from the rocket as far away as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (>800 NM). This was all after the main engine’s cutoff and was relying solely on the sun to reflect off the satellite and rocket body. So, I am of the opinion that the third stage of the Thor-Delta would have been visible from a large location especially with the time of day being before sunrise. The combination of the exhaust plume of the third stage and favorable sun conditions could have made it visible from a long distance away.
The coincidence of the timing of the third stage firing with the sighting and the direction
of observation being in the general direction of the satellite gives me good reason to suspect the third stage firing of the Tiros 6 weather satellite launch created these UFO reports. This was not a classified launch and the details were readily available for those investigating the case. I can understand why Blue Book did not see the solution because of their limited staff. However, NICAP, with all of its trained investigators, should have done their homework on this one and not allowed it to appear as “unexplained”.
Conclusions
I am sure there are a great many of people, who believe I am cherry-picking these ten cases in order to imply the NICAP document is completely worthless. That is not the case. What I am trying to point out is that using this document as a database of unexplained UFO cases is not correct. It is just a collection of raw UFO reports that may or may not have been adequately investigated. There are far too many cases that have insufficient data or were not properly investigated for it to provide valid statistics. What surprised me the most was the fact that several cases had the dates or times wrong. How many more had the incorrect dates, times, or locations, which would prevent identification? Doesn’t that information mean anything? For the NICAP document to mean something, the cases need to be accurately recorded and investigated. Each case in this document needs to be looked at closely and not blindly accepted as being “good” evidence. It certainly does not fit the lofty status of being a catalogue of UFO cases that have been investigated
to the point they represent evidence of, as the document states, “manifestations of extraterrestrial life”.42
Quelle: SUNlite 5/2012
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