[Transcriber's Note: The following three chapters were added to the
second edition text in 1960.]
Four years have passed since the first seventeen chapters of this
book were written. During this period hundreds of unidentified flying
objects have been seen and reported to the Air Force. Pilots, with
thousands of hours of flying time are still reporting them; radar
operators, experts in their field, are still tracking them; and
crews on the missile test ranges are photographing them.
UFO's are not just a fad.
The Air Force's Project Blue Book is still very active. Not a week
passes that one of the many teams of its nation wide investigation
net is not in the field investigating a new UFO report.
To pick up the history of the UFO the best place to start is
Cincinnati, Ohio, in the late summer of 1955. For some unknown
reason, one of those mysterious factors of the UFO, reports from this
Hamilton County city suddenly began to pick up. Mass hysteria, the
old crutch, wasn't a factor because neither the press, the radio nor
TV was even mentioning the words "flying saucer."
The reports weren't much in terms of quality. Some lady would see a
"bobbing white light"; or a man, putting his car away, would see a
"star jump." These reports, usually passed on to the Air Force
through the Air Defense Command's Ground Observer Corps, merely went
on the UFO plotting board as a statistic.
But before long, in a matter of a week or two, the mass of reports
began to draw some official attention because the Ground Observer
Corps spotters themselves began to make UFO reports. At times during
the middle of August the telephone lines from the GOC observation
posts in Hamilton County (greater Cincinnati) to the filter center in
Columbus would be jammed. Now, even the most cynical Air Force types
were be-grudgingly raising their eyebrows. These GOC observers were
about as close to "experts" as you can get. Many had spent hundreds
of hours scanning the skies since the GOC went into the operation in
1952 to close the gaps in our radar net. Many held awards for
meritorious service. They weren't crackpots.
But still the cynics held out. This was really nothing new. The
Project Blue Book files were full of similar incidents. In 1947 there
had been a rash of reports from the Pacific Northwest; in 1948 there
had been a similar outbreak at Edwards Air Force Base, the
supersecret test center in the Mojave Desert of California; in 1949
the sightings centered in the midwest. None had panned out to be
anything.
Then came the clincher.
On the night of August 23rd, shortly before midnight, reports of a
UFO began to come in from the Mt. Healthy GOC observation post
northwest of Cincinnati. Almost simultaneously, Air Defense Command
radar picked up a target in that area. A minute or two later the
Forestville and Loveland GOC posts, also in Hamilton County, made
sightings. Now, three UFO's, described as brilliant white spheres,
swinging in a pendulum-like motion, were on the ADC plotting boards-
confirmed by radar. All pretext of ignoring the UFO's was dropped and
at 11:58P.M., F-84's of the Ohio Air National Guard were scrambled.
They were over Cincinnati at 12:10A.M. and made contact. Boring in at
20,000 feet, at 100% power, they closed but the UFO's left them as if
they were standing still.
The battle in the Cincinnati sector was on.
Almost every night more UFO's were reported by the GOC. Attempts
were made to scramble interceptors but there were no more radar
contacts and a jet interceptor without ground guidance is worthless.
At the height of this activity it was decided that more information
was needed by the Air Defense Command. Maybe from a mass of data
something, some kind of clue, could be sifted out. The answer:
establish a special UFO reporting post. The man to operate this post
was tailor-made.
On September 9, Major Hugh McKenzie of the Columbus Filter Center
contacted Leonard H. Stringfield in Cincinnati. Stringfield, besides
being a very public minded citizen, was also known as a level-headed
"saucer expert." Sooner or later, usually sooner, he heard about
every UFO sighting in Hamilton County. He was given a code, "Foxtrot
Kilo 3-0 Blue," which provided him with an open telephone line to the
ADC Filter Center in Columbus. He was in business but he didn't have
to build up a clientele--it was there.
For the next few months Stringfield did yeoman duty as Cincinnati's
one-man UFO center by sifting out the wheat from the chaff and
passing the wheat on to the Air Force. As he told me the other day,
half his nights were spent in his backyard clad in shorts and
binoculars. Fortunately his neighbors were broad-minded and the UFO's
picked relatively warm nights to appear.
Most of the reports Stringfield received were duds. He lost track of
the number. The green, red, blue, gold and white; discs, triangles,
squares and footballs which hovered, streaked, zigzagged and jerked,
turned out to be Venus, Jupiter, Arcturus and an occasional jet. A
fiery orange satellite which hovered for hours turned out to be the
North Star viewed through a cheap telescope, and the "whole formation
of space ships" were the Pleiades.
Then it happened again.
On the evening of March 23rd Stringfield's telephone rang. It was
Charles Deininger at the Mt. Healthy GOC post. They had a UFO in
sight off to the east. Could Stringfield see it? He grabbed his
extension phone and ran outdoors. There, off to the east, were two,
large, low flying lights. One of the lights was a glowing green and
the other yellow. They were moving north.
"Airplane!"
This was Stringfield's first reaction but during World War II he had
made the long trek up the Pacific with the famous Fifth Air Force and
he immediately realized that if it was an airplane it would have to
be very close because of the large distance between the lights. And,
as a clincher, no sound came through the still night.
He dialed the long distance operator and said the magic words, "This
is Foxtrot Kilo Three Dash Zero Blue." Seconds later he was talking
to the duty sergeant at the Columbus Filter Center. A few more
seconds and the sergeant had his story.
Another jet was scrambled and this time Stringfield, via a
radiotelephone hookup to the airplane, gave the pilot a vector.
Stringfield heard the jet closing in but since it was a one-way
circuit he couldn't hear the pilot's comments.
Once again the UFO took off.
This was a fitting climax for the Cincinnati flap. As suddenly as it
began it quit and from the mass of data that was collected the Air
Force got zero information.
In the mystery league the UFO's were still ahead.
Although the majority of the UFO activity during the last half of
1955 and early 1956 centered in the Cincinnati area there were other
good reports.
Near Banning, California, on November 25, 1955, Gene Miller, manager
of the Banning Municipal Airport and Dr. Leslie Ward, a physician,
were paced by a "globe of white light which suddenly backed up in
midair," while in Miller's airplane. It was the same old story:
Miller was an experienced pilot, a former Air Force instructor and
air freight pilot with several thousand hours flying time.
Commercial pilots came in for more than their share of the sightings
in 1956.
On January 22, UFO investigators talked to the crew of a Pan
American airliner. That night, at 8:30P.M., the Houston to Miami DC-
7B had been "abeam" of New Orleans, out over the Gulf of Mexico.
There was a partial moon shining through small wisps of high cirrus
clouds but generally it was a clear night. The captain of the flight
was back in the cabin chatting with the passengers; the co-pilot and
engineer were alone on the flight deck. The engineer had moved up
from his control panel and was sitting beside the co-pilot.
At 8:30 it was time for a radio position report and the co-pilot,
Tom Tompkins, leaned down to set up a new frequency on the radio
controls. Robert Mueller, the engineer, was on watch for other
aircraft. It was ten, maybe twenty seconds after Tompkins leaned down
that Mueller just barely perceived a pinpoint of moving light off to
his right. Even before his thought processes could tell him it might
be another airplane the light began to grow in size. Within a short
six seconds it streaked across the nose of the airliner, coming out
of the Gulf and disappearing inland over Mississippi or Alabama.
Tompkins, the co-pilot, never saw it because Mueller was too
astounded to even utter a sound.
But Mueller had a good look. The body of the object was shaped like
a bullet and gave off a "pale, luminescent blue glow." The stubby
tail, or exhaust, was marked by "spurts of yellow flame or light."
The size? Mueller, like any experienced observer, had no idea since
he didn't know how far away it was. But, it was big!
One sentence, dangling at the bottom of the report was one I'd seen
many, many times before: "Mr. Mueller _was_ a complete skeptic
regarding UFO reports."
During 1956 there was a rumor--I heard it many times--that the Air
Force had entered into a grand conspiracy with the U.S. news media to
"stamp out the UFO." The common people of the world, the rumor had
it, were not yet psychologically conditioned to learn that we had
been visited by superior beings. By not ever mentioning the words
"unidentified flying object" the public would forget and go on their
merry, stupid way. I heard this rumor so often, in fact, that I began
to wonder myself. But a few dollars invested in Martinis for old
buddies in the Kittyhawk Room of the Biltmore Hotel in Dayton, or the
Men's bar in the Statler Hotel in Washington, produces a lot of
straight and reliable information--much better than you get through
official channels. There was no "silence" order I learned, only the
same old routine. If the files at ATIC were opened to the public it
would take a staff of a dozen people to handle all the inquiries.
Secondly, many of the inquiries come from saucer screwballs and
these people are like a hypochondriac at the doctor's; nothing will
make them believe the diagnosis unless it is what they came in to
hear. And there are plenty of saucer screwballs.
One officer summed it up neatly when he told me, "It isn't the UFO's
that give us the trouble, it's the people."
As a double check I called several newspaper editors the other day
and asked, "Why don't you print more UFO stories?" The answers were
simple, it's the old "dog bites man" bit--ninety-nine per cent have
no news value any more.
On May 10, 1956, the man bit the dog.
A string of UFO sightings in Pueblo, Colorado, hit the front pages
of newspapers across the United States. Starting on the night of May
5th, for six nights, the citizens of Pueblo, including the Ground
Observer Corps, saw UFO's zip over their community. As usual there
were various descriptions but everyone agreed "they'd never seen
anything like it before."
On the sixth night, the Air Force sent in an investigator and he saw
them. Between the hours of 9:00P.M. and midnight he saw six groups of
triangular shaped objects that glowed "with a dull fluorescence,
faint but bright enough to see." They passed from horizon to horizon
in six seconds.
The next day this investigator was called back to Colorado Springs,
his base, and a fresh team was sent to Pueblo.
The man _really_ chomped down on the dog in July and the UFO
_really_ made headlines.
Maybe it was because a fellow newspaper editor was involved, along
with the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Navy and the Air Force. Or, maybe
it was simply because it was a good UFO sighting.
About the time Miss Iowa was being judged Miss USA in the 1956 Miss
Universe Pageant at Long Beach, the city editor of _Arkansas_ _City_
_Daily_ _Traveler_, and a trooper of the Kansas State Highway Patrol
were sitting in a patrol cruiser in Arkansas City. It was a hot and
muggy night. Occasionally the radio in the cruiser would come to
life. An accident near Salina. A drunk driving south from Topeka.
Another accident near Wichita. But generally South Central Kansas was
dead. The newspaper editor was about ready to go home--it was 10
o'clock--when the small talk he and the trooper had been making was
brought to an abrupt finale by three high pitched beeps from the
cruiser's radio. An important "all cars bulletin" was coming. Twenty-
five years as a newspaperman had trained the editor to always be on
the alert for a story so he reached down and turned up the volume.
Within seconds he had his story.
"The Hutchinson Naval Air Station is picking up an unidentified
target on their radar," the voice of the dispatcher said, with as
much of an excited tone as a police dispatcher can have. "Take a look."
Then the dispatcher went on to say that the target was moving in a
semi-circular area that reached out from 50 to 75 miles east of
Hutchinson. A B-47 from McConnell AFB at Wichita was in the area,
searching. The last fix on the object showed it to be near Emporia,
in Marion County.
The two men in the patrol cruiser looked at each other for a second
or two. Like all newspaper editors, this man had had his bellyful of
flying saucer reports--but this was a little different.
"Let's go out and look," he said, fully doubting that they would see
anything.
They drove to a hill in the north part of the city where they could
get a good view of the sky and parked. In a few minutes an Arkansas
City police car joined them.
It was a clear night except for a few wispy clouds scattered across
the north sky.
They waited, they looked and they saw.
Shortly before midnight, off to the north, appeared "a brilliantly
lighted, teardrop shaped, blob of light." "Prongs, or streams of
bright light, sprayed downward from the blob toward the earth." It
was big, about the size of a 200 watt light bulb.
As the group of men silently watched, the weird light continued to
drift and for many minutes it moved vertically and horizontally over
a wide area of the sky. Then it faded away.
As one of the men later told me, "I was glad to see it go; I was
pooped."
The next morning literally hundreds of people spent hours
conjecturing and describing. After all these years of talk they'd
actually seen one. Several photos, showing the big blob of light,
were shown around, and two fishermen readily admitted they'd packed
up their poles and tackle boxes and headed home when they saw it.
Editor Coyne summed up the feeling of hundreds of Kansans when he
said: "I have tended to discount the stories about flying objects,
but, brother, I am now a believer."
What was it? First of all it was confusion. Early the next morning
Air Force investigators flooded the area asking _the_ questions:
"What size was it in comparison to a key or a dime?" "Would it
compare in size to a light bulb?" "Was there any noise?"
As soon as they left, the military tersely announced that no radar
had picked up any target and no B-47's had been sent out. Then they
pulled the plugs on the incoming phone lines. The confusion mounted
when newsmen tapped their private sources and learned that a B-47
_had_ been sent into the area.
A few days later the Air Force told the Kansans what they'd seen:
The reflection from burning waste gas torches in a local oil field.
This was greeted with the Kansan version of the Bronx Cheer.
Nineteen hundred fifty-six was a big year for Project Blue Book.
According to an old friend, Captain George Gregory, who was then
Chief of Blue Book, they received 778 reports. And through a lot of
sleepless nights they were able to "solve" 97.8% of them. Only 17
remained "unknowns."
Digging through the reports for 1956, outside of the ones already
mentioned, there were few real good ones.
In Banning, California, Ground Observer Corps spotters watched a
"balloon-like object make three rectangular circuits around the
town." In Plymouth, New Hampshire, two GOC spotters reported "a
bright yellow object which left a trail, similar to a jet, moving
slowly at a very high altitude." At Rosebury, Oregon, State Police
received many reports of "funny green and red lights" moving slowly
around a television transmitter tower. And in Hartford, Connecticut,
two amateur astronomers, looking at Saturn through a 4-inch
telescope, were distracted by a bright light. Turning their telescope
on it they observed a "large, whitish yellow light, shaped like a ten
gallon hat." Many other people evidently saw the same UFO because the
local newspaper said, "reports have been pouring in."
In Miami, a Pan American Airlines radar operator tracked a UFO at
speeds up to 4000 miles an hour. Five of his skeptical fellow radar
operators watched and were confirmed.
At Moneymore, Northern Ireland, a "level-headed and God fearing"
citizen and his wife captured an 18-inch saucer by putting a headlock
on it. They started to the local police station, but put the saucer
down to climb over a hedge, and it went whirling off to the
hinterlands of space.
The 27th Air Defense Division that guards the vast aircraft and
missile centers of Southern California was alerted on the night of
September 9. In rapid succession, a Western Airlines pilot making an
approach to Los Angeles International Airport, the Ground Observer
Corps, and numerous Los Angeles citizens called in a white light
moving slowly across the Los Angeles basin. When the big defense
radars on San Clemente Island picked up an unknown target in the same
area that the light was being reported two F-89 jet interceptors were
scrambled but saw nothing.
A few days later investigators learned that a $27.65 weather balloon
had caused the many thousand dollars' worth of excitement.
The matter of scrambling interceptors has been a sore point with the
UFO business for a long time. Many people believe that the mere fact
the Air Force will send up two, three, or even four aircraft that
cost $2000 an hour to fly is proof positive that the Air Force
doesn't believe its own story that UFO's don't exist.
The official answer you'll get, if you ask the Air Force, is that
they scramble against _any_ unknown target as a matter of defense.
But over coffee you get a different answer. They write the UFO
scrambles off as training cost. Each pilot has to get so much flying
time and simulating intercepts against an unidentified light is more
interesting than merely "burning holes in the air."
If appropriations are ever cut to the point where training must be
curtailed, and Heaven forbid, there will be no more scrambles after
flying saucers.
And the colonel who told me this was emphatic.
The year 1957 was heralded in by a startling announcement which
ended a long dry spell of UFO news.
At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Retired Admiral Delmer S.
Fahrney made a statement. Newspapers across the country carried it
complete, or in part, and people read the statement with interest
because Admiral Fahrney is well known as a sensible and knowledgeable
man. He had fought for and built up the Navy's guided missile program
back in the days when people who talked of ballistic missiles and
satellites _had_ to fight for their beliefs.
First, Admiral Fahrney announced that a non-profit organization, the
National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) had
been established to investigate UFO reports. He would be chairman of
the board of governors and his board would consist of such potent
names as:
Retired Vice Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, for two years the director
of the supersecret Central Intelligence Agency.
Retired Lieutenant General P. A. del Valle, ex-commanding general of
the famous First Marine Division.
Retired Rear Admiral Herbert B. Knowles, noted submariner of World
War II.
Then Admiral Fahrney read a statement regarding the policies of
NICAP. It was as follows:
"Reliable reports indicate that there are objects coming into our
atmosphere at very high speeds . . . No agency in this country or
Russia is able to duplicate at this time the speeds and accelerations
which radars and observers indicate these flying objects are able to
achieve.
"There are signs that an intelligence directs these objects because
of the way they fly. The way they change position in formations would
indicate that their motion is directed. The Air Force is collecting
factual data on which to base an opinion, but time is required to
sift and correlate the material.
"As long as such unidentified objects continue to navigate through
the earth's atmosphere, there is an urgent need to know the facts.
Many observers have ceased to report their findings to the Air Force
because of the seeming frustration--that is, all information going
in, and none coming out. It is in this area that NICAP may find its
greatest mission.
"We are in a position to screen independently all UFO information
coming in from our filter groups.
"General Albert C. Wedemeyer will serve the Committee as Evaluations
Adviser and complete analyses will be arranged through leading
scientists. After careful evaluation, we shall release our findings
to the public."
Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps Major, and author of three top
seller UFO books, was appointed director. The mere fact that another
civilian UFO investigative group was being born was neither news nor
UFO history because since 1947 well over a hundred such organizations
had been formed. Many still exist; many flopped. But none deserve the
niche in UFO history that does NICAP. NICAP had power and it raised a
storm that took months to calm down.
NICAP got off to a fast start. Dues were pegged at $7.50 a year,
which included a subscription to the very interesting magazine _The_
_UFO_ _Investigator_, and the operation went into high gear.
With such names as Fahrney, Wedemeyer, Hillenkoetter, Del Valle and
Knowles for prestige, and Keyhoe for intrigue, saucer fans all over
the United States packaged up their seven-fifty and mailed it to
headquarters. Each, in turn, became a "listening post" and an
"investigator."
Keyhoe set up a Panel of Special Advisors, all saucer fans, to
"impartially evaluate" the UFO reports ferreted out by the "listening
posts," based on facts uncovered by the "investigators."
Even though the "leading scientists" Fahrney mentioned in his
statement never materialized NICAP was cocked, primed, and ready.
To get things off to a gala start Keyhoe, as director of NICAP,
wrote to the Air Force and set out NICAP's Eight Point Plan. In
essence this plan suggested (some say demanded) that the Air Force
let NICAP ride herd on Project Blue Book.
First of all, NICAP wanted its Panel of Special Advisors to review
and concur with all of the conclusions on the thousands of UFO
reports that the Air Force had in its files.
This went over like a worm in the punch bowl.
First of all, the Air Force didn't feel it was necessary to review
its files. Secondly, they knew NICAP. If every balloon, planet,
airplane, and bird that caused a UFO report hadn't been captured and
a signed confession wrung out, the UFO would be a visitor from outer
space.
The Air Force decided to ignore NICAP.
But NICAP wouldn't be ignored. They bombarded everyone from the
Secretary of the Air Force on down with telephone calls, telegrams
and letters.
Still the Air Force remained silent.
Then NICAP headquarters called in the troops and members from all
corners of the nation cut loose. The barrage of mail broke the log
jam and just enough information to constitute an answer dribbled out
of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
But this didn't satisfy Keyhoe or his UFO hungry NICAPions. They
wanted blood and that blood had to taste like spaceships or they
wouldn't be happy. The cudgel they picked up next was powerful.
The Air Force had said that there was nothing classified about
Project Blue Book yet NICAP hadn't seen every blessed scrap of paper
in the Air Force UFO files. This was unwarranted censorship!
While Congress was right in the middle of such important and crucial
problems as foreign policy, atomic disarmament, racketeering,
integration and a dozen and one other problems, NICAP began to
bedevil every senator and representative who was polite enough to
listen.
It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease and in November 1957,
the United States Senate Committee on Government Operations began an
inquiry concerning UFO's.
I gave my testimony and so did others who had been associated with
Project Blue Book.
A few weeks later the inquiry was dropped.
But NICAP had made its name. Of all of the thorns that have been
pounded into the UFO side of the Air Force, NICAP drove theirs the
deepest.
In the midst of all this mess Admiral Fahrney, General Wedemeyer and
General del Valle, politely, and quietly, resigned from NICAP's board
of governors.
Neither the loss of these famous names nor the defeat at the hands
of the Air Force has stopped NICAP. They continue to forge ahead,
undaunted.
In many UFO incidents they have actually uncovered additional, and
sometimes interesting, information.
NICAP Director Don Keyhoe has taken a beating, being accused of
profiteering, trying to make headlines, and other minor social
crimes. But personally I doubt this. Keyhoe is simply convinced that
UFO's are from outer space and he's a dedicated man.
While the big NICAP-Air Force battle was going on the UFO's were not
waiting to see who won. They were still flying.
At Ellington AFB, Texas, a Ground Observer Corps team spotted a UFO
and passed it on to a radar crew. Although the radar crew couldn't
pick it up on their sets they saw it visually. The lieutenant in
charge told investigators how it crossed from horizon to horizon in
45 seconds.
On March 9, several passengers on a New York to San Juan, Porto Rico
airliner were injured when the pilot pulled the big DC-6 up sharply
to miss a "large, greenish white, clearly circular-shaped object"
which was on a collision course with the plane. The pilots of several
other airliners in the same airway confirmed the sighting.
Two weeks later jet interceptors were scrambled over Los Angeles to
look for a UFO.
According to the records, the first report of the brilliant and
mysterious, flashing, red light came from a man in the east part of
Pasadena. But his report was quickly lost in the shuffle as more and
more calls began to come in. As the flashing light crossed the Los
Angeles Basin from southeast to northwest hundreds of people saw it.
Traffic was tied up on the Rose Parade famous Colorado Boulevard as
drivers stopped their cars to get out and look. As it neared the Air
Defense Command Filter Center in Pasadena the filter center
personnel, those that could be spared, went out and looked. They saw
it. Police switchboards lit up a solid red as it crossed the San
Gabriel Valley.
Near midnight a CAA radar picked up unidentified targets near the
Oxnard AFB, at Oxnard, California (northwest of Los Angeles), and at
almost that identical time people on the airbase saw the light
This did it, and two powerful jets, equipped with all weather radar,
came screaming into the area.
But it was the same old story--no contact--the UFO was gone.
The midwest was visited on the morning of May 23rd, when five
observers in Kansas City saw four silver, disc-shaped objects flying
in formation at extremely high speed. At one point during their
flight two of the objects broke formation and veered off but soon
rejoined. It took the objects only four minutes to cross the sky.
There were other reports during the first half of 1957, 250 of them
to be exact, and many could be classified as "good." But they were
nothing compared to those that were to come.
On November 3, 1957, a rash of sightings broke out in Texas and they
had a brand new twist. To do things up right the powers that guide
the UFO picked the town of Levelland only 27 miles west of Lubbock,
the home of the now traditional "Lubbock Lights."
It was with a tug of nostalgia that I read about these reports
because five years before, almost to the day, Lubbock had plunged the
Air Force, and me, into the UFO mystery on a grand scale.
According to the best interpretation of the maze of conflicting
stories, facts and rumors about these famous sightings the only
positive fact is that there were scattered storm clouds across West
Texas on the night of November 4, 1957. This was unusual for November
and everyone in the community was just a little edgy.
It was early in the evening, at least early for West Texas on a
Saturday night, when Pedro Saucedo, a farm worker, and his friend Joe
Salaz, started out in Saucedo's truck toward Pettit, ten miles
northwest of Level-land. They had just turned off State Highway 116
and were heading north on a country road when the two men saw a flash
of light in an adjacent field. Saucedo, a Korean War Veteran, and
Salaz didn't pay much attention to the light at first. They only
noticed that it was coming closer. "It seemed to be paralleling us
and edging a little closer all the time," Saucedo later recalled.
Still neither man paid any attention to the light. They drove on,
Saucedo watching the road and Salaz talking.
Then it hit.
The first signal of something wrong was when the truck's headlights
went out; then the engine stopped. Before Saucedo could hit the
starter again he glanced over his left shoulder. A huge ball of fire
was "rapidly drifting" toward the truck. Without a second's
hesitation Saucedo did what the Korean War had taught him to do when
in doubt, he shoved open the car door and hit the dirt.
Salaz just sat.
"The 'Thing' passed directly over my truck with a great sound and
rush of wind," Saucedo later told County Sheriff Weir Clem, after
he'd started his truck and had driven back to Levelland. "It sounded
like thunder and my truck rocked from the blast. I felt a lot of heat."
The "Thing," which disappeared across the prairie, looked like a
"fiery tornado."
Five years before and a little east of where Saucedo and Salaz were
"buzzed" I had talked to two women who described almost an identical
UFO. And it remains "unknown" to this day.
In Levelland, the two men's story would have been enough to keep
Sheriff Clem busy for the rest of the night but between the hours of
8:15P.M. and midnight on the 2nd the "Levelland Thing" struck five
more times.
James D. Long, a Waco truck driver, came upon "it" four miles west
of Levelland and fainted as it roared over his truck. Ronald Martin,
another truck driver, was stopped east of Levelland, as was Newell
Wright, a Texas Tech student. Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez and Frank
Williams added their stories to the melee.
All of those who had been attacked told Sheriff Clem a similar
story: "The 'Thing' was shaped something like an egg standing on end.
It was fiery red, more like a red neon light. It was about 200 feet
long and was about 200 feet in the air. When it came close to cars
the engines would stop and the lights would go out."
"Everyone," Sheriff Clem said, "seemed very excited."
That night everyone in West Texas saw UFO's. Sheriff Clem saw a
brilliant light in the distance. Highway patrolmen Lee Hargrove and
Floyd Cavin reported similar brilliant lights at the same time but
from a different location. The control tower operators at the
Amarillo Airport, to the north, saw a "blue, gaseous object which
moved swiftly and left an amber trail."
There were dozens more. It was a memorable Saturday night in
Levelland.
But unbeknown to Sheriff Clem or the residents of West Texas, they
weren't alone on the visitor's list.
At 2:30A.M. on Sunday morning, only a few hours after the "Thing"
raised havoc around Levelland, an army military police patrol was
cruising the supersecret White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico.
Here is their report as they gave it to Air Force UFO investigators:
"At approximately 0230, 3 November 1957, Source, together with PFC
------, were on a routine patrol of the up range area of the White
Sands Proving Ground when Source noticed a 'very bright' object high
in the sky. This object slowly descended to an altitude estimated to
be approximately 50 yards where it remained motionless for about 3
minutes, then it descended to the ground where the light went out.
The object was not blurred or fuzzy, emitted no vapor or smoke. The
object was in view for about 10 minutes, and Source estimated that it
was approximately 2 or 3 miles away. It was estimated to be between
75 and 100 yards in diameter and shaped like an egg. Source stated
that it was as large as a grapefruit held at arm's length. The
weather was cold, drizzling and windy, and Source stated no stars
were visible. After the light went out Source and PFC ------
continued north to the STALLION SITE CAMP and reported the incident
to the Sergeant of the Guard who returned to the area but failed to
find anything."
The flap was on.
On Monday, the 4th, the "Levelland Thing" struck again near the
White Sands Proving Ground. James Stokes, a 20-year Navy veteran, and
an electronics engineer, had the engine of his new Mercury stopped as
"a brilliant, egg-shaped" object made a pass at the highway. As it
went over, Stokes said, "it felt like the radiation of a giant sun
lamp."
Stokes said there were ten other carloads of people stopped but if
this is true no one ever found out who they were.
The Air Force wrote off Stokes' story as, "Hoax, presumably
suggested by the Levelland, Texas, reports."
Maybe the Air Force didn't believe James Stokes but when the Coast
Guard Cutter _Seabago_ radioed in their report from the Gulf of
Mexico wheels began to turn--fast.
On Tuesday morning, the 5th, the _Seabago_ was about 200 miles south
of the mouth of the Mississippi River on a northerly heading. At
5:10A.M. her radar picked up a target off to the left at a distance
of about 14 miles. This was really nothing unusual because they were
under heavily traveled air lanes.
The early morning watch is always rough and as the small group of
officers and men in the Combat Information Center quietly watched the
target, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, it moved south, made a
turn, and headed back to the north again. A few of the men noticed
that the turn looked "a little different," but this early in the
morning they didn't give it much thought.
At 5:14 the target went off the scope to the north.
At 5:16 it was back and the lassitude was instantly gone. Now the
target was 22 miles _south_ of the ship. No one in the CIC had to
draw a picture. Something, in two minutes, had disappeared off the
scope to the north, made a big swing around the ship, out of radar
range, and had swung in from the south!
Word went up to the lookouts. They tensed up and began to scan the
sky.
The radar contacts continued.
This second contact, south of the ship, was held for two full
minutes as the target moved out from 22 to 55 miles. Then it faded.
At 5:20 the target was back but now it was _north_ of the ship
again, and it was hovering!
Again the lookouts were called. Could they see anything now? Their
"No" answers didn't hold for long because seconds later their terse
reports began to come into the CIC. A "brilliant light, like a
planet" was streaking across the northwest sky about 30 degrees above
the horizon. Unfortunately the radar had lost contact for a moment
when the visual report came in.
At 5:37 the target disappeared from the scopes and was gone for good.
The _Seabago_ Case was ended but the UFO's continued to fly.
Reports continued to come into the Air Force and a lot of
investigators lost a lot of sleep.
The next day at 3:50P.M. the C.O. of an Air Force weather detachment
at Long Beach, California, and twelve airmen watched six saucer-
shaped UFO's streak along _under_ the bases of a 7000 foot high cloud
deck.
On the same day, also in Long Beach, officers and men at the Los
Alamitos Naval Air Station saw UFO's almost continuously between the
hours of 6:05 and 7:25P.M.
Long Beach police reported "well over a hundred calls" during this
same period.
During November and December of 1957 it was a situation of you name
the city and there was a UFO report from there. Trying to sift them
out and put them in a book would be like sorting out a plateful of
spaghetti. And if you succeeded you would have a document the size of
the New York City telephone directory.
Most of the reports were explained.
The Levelland, Texas, sightings were written off as "St. Elmo's
Fire." The military police at the White Sands Proving Ground saw the
moon through broken clouds and the crew of the Coast Guard ship
_Seabago_ were actually tracking several separate aircraft.
The 1957 flap was as great as the previous record breaking 1952
flap. During 1957 the Air Force received 1178 UFO reports. Of these,
only 20 were placed on the "unknown" list.
In comparison to 1957, the first months of 1958 were a doldrums.
Reports drifted in at a leisurely pace and the Air Force UFO
investigating teams, blooded during the avalanche of 1957, picked off
solutions like knocking off clay pipes in a shooting gallery.
In Los Angeles, a few clear nights drove the Air Defense Command
nuts. People could actually see the sky and the sight of so many
stars frightened them.
Unusual atmospherics in Georgia made stars jump and radars go crazy;
and a balloon, hanging over Chicago at dusk, cost the taxpayers
another several thousand dollars but the pilots made their flight pay.
A statement by Dr. Carl Jung, renowned Swiss psychologist, was
widely publicized in July 1958. Dr. Jung was quoted as saying, in a
letter to a U.S. saucer club, "UFO's are real." When Dr. Jung read
what he was supposed to have written the Alps rang with screams of
"misquote."
No one got excited until the early morning of September 29th.
Shortly before dawn on that day a confusing mess of reports began to
pour into the Air Force. Some came from the Washington, D.C., area.
People right in NICAP's backyard told of seeing a "large, round,
fiery object" shoot across the sky from southeast to northwest. A few
excited observers, all from the country northwest of Washington, "had
seen it land" and even as they telephoned in their reports they could
see it glowing behind a neighbor's barn.
Other reports, also of a "huge, round, fiery object," came in from
such places as Pittsburgh, Somerset, and Bedford, all in
Pennsylvania; and Hagerstown and Frederick in Maryland. To add to the
confusion, people in Pennsylvania reported seeing three objects
"flying in formation."
When the dust settled Air Force investigators took the first step in
the solution of any UFO report. They plotted the sightings on a map,
and collated the directions of flight, descriptions and times of
observation. It was obvious that the object had moved along a line
between Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh. It was traveling about 7000
miles an hour and everyone had obviously seen the same object. By the
time it had passed into Pennsylvania it had split into three objects.
But the hooker was the reported landings northeast of Washington.
Too many people had reported a glow on the ground to write this
factor off even though an investigator, dispatched to the scene
shortly after dawn, had found nothing in the way of evidence.
One possibility was that some unknown object had streaked across the
sky, landed and then took off again.
Could be, but it wasn't.
The next night the case broke. The glow from the landing was a
bright floodlight on a barn. No one had ever really noticed it before
until the object passed nearby.
A few days later the object itself was identified. From the many
identical descriptions Project Blue Book's astrophysicist pinned it
down as a large meteor. The meteor had broken up near the end of its
flight to produce the illusion of three objects flying in formation.
Of all the 590 UFO reports the Air Force received in 1958, probably
the weirdest was solved before it was ever reported.
About four o'clock on the afternoon of October 2, 1958, three men
were standing in a group, talking, outside a tungsten mill at Danby,
California, right in the heart of the Mojave Desert The men had been
talking for about five minutes when one of them, who happened to be
facing the northwest, stopped right in the middle of a sentence and
pointed. The other two men looked and to their astonishment saw a
brilliant glow of light. It was so close to the horizon that it was
difficult to tell if it was on the horizon or in the air just above it.
At first the men ignored the light but as it persisted they became
more interested. They'd all heard "flying saucer" stories and, they
later admitted, this possibility entered their minds.
As they watched they speculated. It could be something natural but
all of them had been around this area for months and they'd never
seen this light before. About the time they decided to get a
telescope and take a closer look the light suddenly faded.
All the next day the men kept glancing off toward the northwest as
they worked but the clear blue sky was blank. Then, at 4:00P.M., the
light was back. This time they had a telescope.
All the men took turns looking at the object and all agreed that it
was about 15 feet long, 5 feet high and solid. It looked like the sun
reflecting off shiny metal. It was about four miles away, they
estimated, and almost exactly on the horizon.
Now the men's curiosity was thoroughly whetted. Martian spaceship or
whatever, they were going after it. But a several-hour search of the
area produced nothing. And, as soon as they left the mill they lost
sight of the object.
Darkness brought the search to a halt.
The next day at 4:00P.M. a crowd had gathered and the UFO kept its
appointment. Again the men studied the object and tension ran high.
Someone had resurrected the stories of UFO's landing in the desert.
At the time they'd sounded absurd but now, standing there looking at
a UFO, it was different.
A party of men were all ready to jeep out into the desert to make
another search when one of them made a discovery. There were guy
wires coming out of the UFO and running down into the trees. Other
people looked. And then the solution hit like a fireball.
Exactly in line with the UFO, and ten miles away, not four, was a
set of antennas for the California State Highway Patrol radio. The
sun's rays were reflecting from these antennas. They'd never seen
this before because on only a few days during the year was the sun at
exactly the right angle to produce the reflection.
The men were right. In a few days the Danby UFO left and it never
came back.
Nineteen hundred fifty-eight was not a record year for UFO's. The
590 reports received didn't stack up to the 1178 for 1957, or the 778
for 1956, or the 918 for 1952. But a new record was set when the
percentage of unknowns was pared down to a new low. During 1958 only
9/10 of one per cent of the reports, or 5 reports, were classified as
"unknown."
More manpower, better techniques, and just plain old experience has
allowed the Air Force to continually lower the percentage of
"unknowns" from 20%, while I was in charge of Project Blue Book, to
less than 1%, today.
No story of the UFO would be complete without describing one of
these unknowns, so here's one exactly as it came out of the Project
Blue Book files:
"On 31 October 1958, this Center received a TWX reporting an UFO
near Lock Raven Dam. A request for a detailed investigation was sent
to the nearest Air Force Base. The following is a summary of the
incident and subsequent investigation:
"Two civilians were driving around near Lock Raven Dam on the
evening of 26 October 1958. When they rounded a curve about 200 to
300 yards from a bridge they saw what appeared to be a large, flat,
egg shaped object hovering about 100 to 150 feet above the bridge
superstructure. They slowed their car and when they got to within 75
or 80 feet of the bridge their engine quit and their lights went out.
The driver immediately stepped on the brakes and stopped the car.
Attempts were made to start the car and when this was unsuccessful
they became frightened and got out of the car. They put the car
between them and the object and watched for approximately 30 to 45
seconds. The object then seemed to flash a brilliant white light and
both men felt heat on their faces. Then there was heard a loud noise
and the object began rising vertically. The object became very bright
while rising and its shape could not be seen as it rose. It
disappeared in five to ten seconds.
"After the object disappeared, the car was started and they turned
it around and drove to where a phone was located and contacted the
Towson Police Department. Two patrolmen were sent to meet them. The
two men told the patrolmen of their experience. The witnesses then
noticed a burning sensation on their faces and became concerned about
possible radiation burns. They went to a Baltimore Hospital for an
examination. Both witnesses were advised by the doctor that they had
no reason for concern.
"An extensive investigation was made concerning this incident.
However, no valid conclusion could be made as to the possible nature
of the sighting and it remains unidentified."
So ended 1958 and in its final tally of sightings for the year
Project Blue Book added a new space age touch--earth satellites had
accounted for eleven UFO reports.
Nineteen hundred fifty-nine came in with a good one. We used to call
these reports "Ground-air-visual-radar" sightings and they make
interesting reading.
At Duluth, Minnesota, in March, it's dark by five o'clock in the
evening. It's cold. The temperature hovers around zero and it's so
clear you have a feeling you can almost reach up and touch the stars.
It was this kind of a night on March 13, 1959, and as the officers
and men of the Air Defense Command fighter squadron at the Duluth
Municipal Airport moved, they shuffled along slowly because the heavy
parkas and arctic clothing they wore were heavy.
Then came the UFO report and things speeded up.
At 5:20P.M., exactly, the operations officer noted the time, word
came in over the comm line that someone had sighted an unidentified
flying object off to the north. Word flashed around the squadron and
as people rushed out of buildings to look they were joined by those
already outside.
And there it was: big, round and bright, and it was moving at high
speed. Some observers thought it was "greenish," others "reddish,"
but it was something and it was there.
The bearing was 300 degrees from the base.
It was an awesome sight and it became even more awesome when a quick
call to an adjacent radar site brought back the word that they had
just picked up a target on a bearing of 300 degrees from the air
base. They were tracking it and taking scope photos.
In the alert hangar, the two pilots standing the alert had been
listening to a running account of the sighting so when the scramble
bell rang they took off for their airplanes like a couple of sprinters.
As the two big alert hangar doors swung up the whining screech of
the jet starters, followed by thunder of the engines, filled the
airfield. The atmosphere around the Duluth Municipal Airport was
closely akin to Santa Anita the instant the starting gates open.
I've been around when jet interceptors scramble and you can twang
the tension with your finger.
As the people on the ground watched they could first see the flame
of the jet's afterburner disappear into the night. Then the jet's
navigation lights faded out on a bearing of 300 degrees.
At the radar site they still had the target and there were many
excited people watching the big pale, orange scopes as two little
bright points of light began to close on a bigger blob of light.
Then the pilots gave the "Tally-ho"--they were in visual contact.
But the "Tally-ho" had no more been given than the big blob of light
on the target began to pull away from the fighters and was soon off
the scope.
The pilots kept visual contact, though, and the radio provided the
details of the chase to the now blind crew in the radar room.
The two jets bored north, with afterburner on, and the needles on
their machmeters passed the "1.0" mark. But still the UFO was just as
far away as it had ever been.
The chase went on for a few minutes more before the pilots pulled
their throttles back into the cruise position, turned, and came home.
Even before they landed, the people at the airbase saw the big,
round and bright UFO rapidly begin to fade and then it was gone.
So ended the glamour and the dog work began.
Each man who had seen the UFO visually was carefully interrogated.
Weather reports were collected. Radarscope photos were developed. The
two pilots received special attention. The exact bearing of the UFO
was measured and 300 degrees magnetic was correct.
The bundle of data was packed up and sent to Project Blue Book. The
panel of experts convened.
First, the radarscope photos were examined.
"Those targets could be interference from other radars," said the
radar expert, and he mentally ticked off a dozen and one other
similar cases of known interference. The weather data, and locations
and frequencies of other radars were checked out.
Beyond doubt it was interference from another radar that caused the
target.
Now, the visual sighting.
Balloon? No, the fighters could have caught a balloon in seconds.
Airplane? Same answer. These jets were the fastest things in the air.
Planet or star? Out came the almanacs and the puzzle went to the
astrophysicist. Venus was on a bearing of 300 degrees from the Duluth
Municipal Airport at 5:20P.M. on March 23rd. _But_ Venus was just
below the horizon at that time and the observers said the UFO was
"moving fast."
Once again the weather charts were studied. The atmospheric
conditions were such that it was very possible that due to refraction
Venus would have been visible just on the horizon. The fact that the
UFO faded so fast would bear this out because the conditions for such
refraction are critical and a slight change in atmospheric conditions
could easily have caused the planet to disappear.
The speed--a common illusion. Further interrogation of the observers
showed it had never moved.
So, the history of the UFO is almost brought up to date.