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701 Club: Case 2692 August 27, 1953
Don Berlinner’s description is rather brief:
Aug. 27, 1953; Greenville, Mississippi. 9:45 p.m. Witnesses: USAF pilot, M/Sgt., others, all on the ground. One meandering light was observed for 50 minutes. No further details in file.1
While he states there are no further details in the file, the file actually contains fourteen pages of information including a few maps and sketches of how the object moved over the time period by two of the principle witnesses.
Blue Book’s summary card states the following about the case:
Circular object emitted red, green, and white alternate flashes of light for approx 3-4 seconds, then a steady red flash light diminishing as increasing in distance. Object was traveling from SW to West. Observers stated the object appeared to be rotating. Manner of disap- pearance, obscured by clouds.2
The summary card stated the object was visible for 50 minutes starting around 0315Z (2145 PM CST). Out of the fourteen remaining pages, the most important is the collection of statements by three of the witnesses.
The first came from a Master Sergeant Cooper, who saw the UFO from his home. Master Sergeant Cooper’s observations, which he made out his bedroom window, included a sighting map for his UFO and a sketch of the UFO’s path against the sky. The map indicates the azimuth was roughly 315 degrees. His description included the following comments:
The unidentified object was similar to a large star, but seemed to be rotating and emitting alternate green and red flashes, and moving slowly north and downward on the horizon...I first sighted the object at 2145 hours Central Standard Time on 27 August 1953. Obscured by clouds and it was lost from sight at 2235 hours Central Standard Time.3
Cooper, mystified by what he was seeing, called the Greenville AFB duty officer, who then chose to go to the control tower with Air- man MacDonnell and Arceneaux. There is no statement by MacDonnell but Arceneaux did file a report:
It didn’t appear very large from our view point. Its color was sort of green, red and slight yellow....it moved very slowly from my vantage point. Its movement were but moving westward movement at approximately the same altitude, it just seemed to fade away into the night. It moved about ten (10) to fifteen (15) degrees from southwest to the west....I sighted the object from the control tower at 2230 hours until 2300 hours in the southwest with westward movement. At 2310 hours, I notified Memphis Control, and they stated no aircraft were in the area at 2312 hours. At 2300 hours it disappeared. 4
Captain Lehman’s brief report stated:
The unidentified object emitted red and white flashing light diminishing as if increasing in distance...I first sighted the object at 2230 after receiving a call from M/Sgt T. O. Cooper. We observed the object from 2230 hours until 2300 hours hovering on the horizon...object seemed to move very slowly.5
This is how the file ends. The investigating officer simply put it all together and sent it to Blue Book, who filed it away as unidentified because they did not bother to look much further than that.
Possible solution
There are two different sightings in this case. Blue Book felt they were of the same object but I think they actually involved two different astronomical objects.
The first sighting was by Master Sergeant Cooper. He observed his object from 2145 to 2235. According to his sketch, he was look- ing northwest out his bedroom window. However, there are some issues with his description that indicate this direction was not correct.
In his sketch, the address of his location was blotted out in the Fold 3 site.6 However, the Blue Book archive web site has the unre- dacted copies. They give his address as “353 Thomas Road” in Greenville.7 We can now possibly visit his location using Google Earth. If one uses the ground level view, we can determine that Cooper was on the west side of the road, which means he was looking outside the rear of his house.
The view of the neighborhood from the historical aerials web site was taken from the air in 1967.8 It is not a direct representation of what it looked like in 1953 but it is closer than the google images from the present era.9 There is a noticeable lack of trees in the neighborhood compared to more recent imagery. This may be due to the resolution or time of year but it appears to indicate that Cooper had a relatively unobstructed view of the horizon. The only exception was an electrical power pole he could see from his window that he would use for a reference point in his observations.
It is interesting to point out that behind his home was a south to north dirt road where, today, there are power poles with electrical lines running along the road. These probably existed back in 1953 as well. There is one power pole behind his house that, depend- ing on what end of the house his bedroom window was, lies at an azimuth of 275-300 degrees. He estimated the distance to the pole as being 120 feet, which is pretty close to the distance from the rear of the house to this power pole circled in Yellow in the Google Earth image on the previous page. Assuming this was his reference point, this indicates he was not looking towards the
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northwest but more towards the west or west-northwest.
The UFO moved behind this pole over the period of fifty minutes outside his window.10 When I first saw this sketch, the amateur astronomer in me saw an apparent diurnal motion of a setting astronomical object.
What astronomical object was visible between 2145 and 2235 in that range of azimuths? The answer to that question was the bright star Arcturus (see Stellarium image for 2235 CST below), which was setting between azimuths 285 and 291 be- tween 2145 and 2235 CST. This is a good solution for this part of the UFO sighting.
The second part of the sighting were the observations by the tower at Greenville AFB to the north. Because Cooper report- ed he was looking northwest, they apparently chose to look south or southwest. There they saw their UFO. Their sketch indicates they were observing at an azimuth between 235 and 245 degrees. According to Airman Arceneaux, it moved about 5-10 degrees between 2230 and 2300.
His sketch can be confusing because North is to the left, I decided to rotate it to give the proper orientation11:
The summary report filed by Greenville AFB’s investigating officer in- correctly stated it was visible until 2330 but both witness statements clearly state it was gone by 2300. Was there an astronomical object in that location? The most likely candidate was the star Antares (see Stel- larium image above).
Twice on the Blue Book record card the star Antares was mentioned. In the conclusions section, the card identified that Antares was low on the horizon at the time of the sighting but then added it was not suf- ficiently bright enough to cause the sighting. I am not sure why the entry states this because Antares is just above magnitude +1 and is a very prominent star (17th on the list of 26 brightest stars). The card also has on the bottom “Antares?” as if it was thought that it might have been the source of the event.
Antares was at an azimuth of 235 and 238 degrees low on the horizon
between 2230 and 2251, when it had set. Does the fact that it set before 2300 mean that Antares was not the source? In my opin- ion, there can be room for latitude on the time of the sighting. It is possible they picked up a nearby star with the 7X50 binoculars they were using an started to track it once Antares had set. They also may have been wrong about the exact time the object disap- peared. Other than the time of setting not coinciding exactly with the end of the sighting, the rest of the sighting sounds a lot like the star Antares scintillating low in the sky. This is a probable solution to this part of the sighting.
Why wasn’t this explained in 1953?
There can be many reasons why this case remain “unexplained”. However, the most likely reason appears to be that this is another case of “we don’t have the time or man power.” This was before the 4602nd AISS became involved in investigating UFO reports and the amount of resources allocated to investigating this case seems to have been minimal.
Solved?
While we can not conclusively prove that these sightings were caused by Arcturus and Antares, there is good reason to suspect that this was the case. I consider this event reclassified as “probably Arcturus and Antares” and taken off the Blue Book “Un- identifieds” list.
Quelle: SUNlite 4/2014
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