of known light on the night of the twenty-fifth, it is my opinion
that the light on the night of the twenty-fourth was a balloon, with
its accompanying light, which had been released from the Naval Air
Station.”[III-2]
_The Wallops Island UFO_
Perhaps the most spectacular (and short-lived) UFO in history appeared
at 6:55 P.M. E.S.T. on April 1, 1960, along the east coast. A
bright-yellow streak of fire shot up from the horizon into the eastern
sky and slowly changed into a huge zigzag pattern. With the streak of
fire appeared a large reddish sphere, reported by some observers to
be as large as the full moon and many times brighter than a planet.
Visible along the entire eastern seaboard, the brilliant object slowly
moved eastward, followed by a trail of greenish sparks. While still at
high altitude out over the Atlantic Ocean, it suddenly vanished--as
though it had simply taken off into outer space. Switchboards
in eastern cities were jammed as witnesses called newspapers,
universities, and nearby observatories to report a comet, a fireball,
or a flying saucer.
Newspapers immediately printed a full explanation of this April
Fool’s Day apparition: a scheduled but unannounced rocket launching
from Wallops Island, Virginia. The yellow fire was debris from the
rocket, reflecting the rays of the setting sun; contrary winds in the
upper atmosphere produced the zigzag form. The luminous globe was a
full-scale model of the Echo satellite--an inflated balloon 100 feet
in diameter, carried aloft by the rocket. Dry powder escaping through
holes in the balloon produced the greenish tail. The object had
“vanished” when the balloon fell back into the earth’s shadow and was
thus no longer visible.
Although the newspapers published a full explanation within a day or
two, some saucer enthusiasts continued to treat the apparition as a
mystery. In its _Special Bulletin_ for May the National Investigations
Committee on Aerial Phenomena (see _Chapter_ XIII) included the
incident under “Recent UFO Sightings.” Three months after the launching
the organization conceded (_UFO Investigator_, July-August, 1960) that
the UFO of April 1 was probably the giant balloon sent up from Wallops
Island.
On August 12, 1960, the counterpart of this balloon went into orbit and
became the satellite Echo, which is still circling the earth, shining
like a star of the first magnitude near dawn or sunset.
_Weather Balloons and Saucers_
In the early years of the saucer era balloons accounted for some 25 per
cent of the unidentified flying objects reported to ATIC. The pattern
of these sightings is unmistakable, and the identity of balloon and UFO
is often certain--as certain as any evidence can be. Nevertheless many
such identifications are resolutely rejected by the saucer enthusiasts.
It would be pointless to discuss all the UFO reports of this class, but
we can summarize a few of the most famous.
In the winter of 1953, a flying saucer was reported to have circled
around a B-36 bomber and blinked a light as though signaling.
Investigators from ATIC determined the following facts:
At 1:13 A.M. on February 6, 1953, the pilot of a B-36 plane bound for
Spokane, Washington, was near Rosalia when he sighted a round white
light below him, circling and rising at a speed estimated at 150 to
200 knots as it proceeded on a southeast course. The B-36 made a sharp
descending turn toward the light, which was in view for a period of
three to five minutes, but the pilot could not identify it.
At 1 A.M., thirteen minutes before the sighting, the United States
Weather Bureau station at Fairchild Air Force Base had released a
pibal balloon. Winds aloft at altitudes of 7000 to 10,000 feet were
from the northwest with a speed of about fifty knots. Computations
showed that the existing winds would have carried the balloon to the
southeast, and it would have been over Rosalia, which is 12.5 nautical
miles southeast of Fairchild Air Force Base, in about fifteen minutes.
The plane sighted the unknown near Rosalia thirteen minutes after the
launching. The balloon carried white running lights which accounted for
the blinking described, and the circling climb of the UFO is typical of
a balloon’s course. Thus all the evidence supports ATIC’s conclusion
that the UFO was a weather balloon[III-2].
A similar sighting had occurred near Hamilton Air Force Base,
California, on the afternoon of August 3, 1952--toward the end of the
summer’s saucer scare (_Chapter_ VII)--when several pairs of saucers
supposedly engaged in dramatic duels in full view of the base. Ample
evidence supports the Air Force conclusion that the UFOs were balloons.
The two objects were first seen at 4:15 P.M. Ground observers at the
Air Force base, with the aid of binoculars, described them as silver
in color, circular in shape, 60 to 100 feet in diameter, and traveling
from east to west at an estimated speed of 400 to 450 miles an hour.
One object was at about 12,000 feet, the other at about 18,000 feet;
as they moved to the west a distance of about fifteen miles, passing
over the heads of the observers (but not circling the base), the higher
object dived to about the level of the lower, and they bobbed about
each other for about an hour and a quarter. Toward the end of this
period they were visible only intermittently because they were seen
against the sun. Three additional pairs of objects (a total of eight)
came into view fifteen to twenty miles west of the observers and,
buffeted by the winds, appeared to carry on a dogfight; momentarily
they appeared in a “diamond” formation extending over an area of about
four miles. Since the witnesses were looking into the sun at objects
fifteen or twenty miles away, they found it difficult to follow the
course of any one for any length of time.
The objects looked like balloons, behaved like balloons, and weather
balloons had been released in the area that day. Conclusion: the
saucers were weather balloons[III-2].
A number of other publicized cases listed as “Unknown” were in all
probability balloons. Since a probability, however good, is not the
same as an established fact, these sightings remain in the Unknown
category even though their actual explanation is reasonably certain.
Such a case was that near Hermanas, New Mexico, which, like that a few
weeks earlier at Hamilton Air Force Base, may have been stimulated by
the 1952 saucer panic in Washington (_Chapter_ VII).
On August 24, 1952, an Air Force colonel was flying from California
to Georgia in an F-84-G plane at an air speed of about 290 miles an
hour. At 10:15 A.M. M.S.T., when near Hermanas, New Mexico, he observed
two round, silvery objects about six feet in diameter some two miles
north of him and traveling east at high speed; they showed no trail
or exhaust. During the three minutes they were in view, one object
suddenly began a right turn while the second accelerated rapidly;
they changed in shape and in color, became elongated and gray, and
then disappeared. A few minutes later over El Paso, Texas, he saw two
similar silvery objects, also traveling east. During the ten minutes
they were in view, one object seemed to climb straight up for 2000 or
3000 feet, followed immediately by the second one. Assuming that the
same pair of objects was involved in both sightings, the observer
concluded that they were going much faster than any plane, and reported
the incident to ATIC.
The behavior described is typical of that of balloons. Rising into a
new wind stream, they may move rapidly and change their orientation
so that they look sausage-shaped instead of round; reflecting
the sun at a different angle, they look gray rather than silver.
Investigators checked with Biggs Air Force Base, White Sands, and El
Paso International Airport; both White Sands and El Paso had released
weather balloons at 8:00 that morning which had traveled southeast
and burst some time before the sighting at Hermanas. Since no single
recorded balloon could account for the sighting, it was listed as
Unknown[III-2].
This inquiry can scarcely be called thorough. No check seems to
have been made at Holloman Air Force Base or at more distant bases
whose weather balloons might well have traveled into the area. The
investigators apparently accepted the pilot’s assumption that the
objects in the two sightings were identical and were therefore
traveling at incredible speeds; yet there was no evidence to support
the assumption. It is far more probable that he was observing two sets
of objects, not one. The estimates of size, distance, and speed are all
uncertain because no fixed reference point existed. The report does not
state whether the objects seemed to be above or below the plane, and
does not give the exact heading of the objects.
The objects looked and behaved like balloons. Another possibility is
that they were fragments from the balloons that had burst earlier. But
the explanation of this incident remains unknown because too few facts
were determined.
_Plastic UFOs and the “Stack of Coins”_
A burst balloon has caused many a saucer scare, but the invasion of
Farmington, New Mexico, on Saint Patrick’s Day 1950 was one of the
most dramatic. The “saucers” began to fly about 10:15 A.M. M.S.T., and
soon filled the air. In numbers estimated from 500 to thousands, for
the next hour the gleaming saucer-shaped objects soared over the town,
moving erratically at incredible speeds, darting in and out among
each other in what one writer has called “the greatest exhibition of
magnetic flight that has ever happened in this universe.”[III-6] (See
_Chapter_ IX.)
The explanation is more prosaic. A Skyhook balloon had been launched
that morning from Holloman Air Force Base near White Sands, New Mexico.
Near Farmington, in the cold atmosphere at 60,000 feet the balloon had
become brittle, burst, and disintegrated into hundreds of tiny pieces
of plastic. Light as feathers, shining in the sunlight, they floated
over the town and away[III-1, p. 106].
A similar episode occurred on July 27, 1952, the day after the second
Washington “invasion.” The dramatically named “stack of coins” sighting
at Manhattan Beach, California, was reported by an aircraft engineer,
formerly a Navy pilot, and was confirmed by seven other witnesses.
At 6:35 P.M. P.S.T., just before sunset, a bright silvery object
appeared high in the sky, elliptical in shape and apparently solid. The
size was estimated to be about that of a dime held at arm’s length.
As the observers watched, it turned to the south and gracefully broke
apart into seven smaller objects, as smoothly as a stack of coins
separating. The three lead objects assumed a V position, the others
followed in two pairs, and the whole formation then turned northeast
and quickly disappeared. ATIC investigators, still buried in a mass of
equally spectacular reports, could provide no solution to the mystery,
and another fleet of saucers had apparently been added to the summer’s
list.
Immediately concluding that the objects were from outer space,
UFO-philes pondered the meaning of the incident. One author suggested
that the disks might have been seven different ships that, when first
observed, had been stacked like coins and attached to each other by
some magnetic force, so that all could be directed as one[III-5].
This sighting has remained technically an unknown chiefly because the
descriptions fail to give the necessary information. What direction
did the object come from? How long was it in sight? What balloons had
been released in the area that day? At what time? What were the winds
at high altitudes? The winds at low levels were from the west, and at
altitudes from 20,000 to 50,000 feet they were from the east; but what
were they in the region above 70,000 feet, the probable location of
the object? Even without these facts, a reasonable explanation can be
offered: the unknown was a radiosonde balloon that burst at a high
altitude.
The sun was low on the western horizon. A balloon at a great height
reflects the sun brilliantly from its rubber or plastic skin and
gleams like a giant metallic sphere. These balloons usually soar to
70,000 to 90,000 feet before they burst from the cold. The fragments
then disperse in an impressively uniform pattern, and may disappear
quickly. The radiosonde package and attached parachute fall rapidly at
such heights. They are not noticed by the witnesses because the chute
usually does not open fully until after the package has fallen some
distance into the beginning twilight near the earth’s surface.
This explanation of the “stack of coins” cannot be proved, of course,
but every detail of the incident is consistent with the behavior of a
bursting balloon[III-2].
_Jets and Contrails_
Weather balloons are not the only air-borne objects that have been
mistaken for interplanetary craft. Flying saucers reported over
Durango, Colorado, early in August 1952 turned out to be four T-33 Air
Force jets flying at 30,000 feet, so high that no sound reached the
ground.
A low-flying jet, enveloped in an aura of cloud made by the jet itself,
can look like a strange object. This condensation phenomenon, called
a contrail, occurs when areas of low pressure develop on the wing
surface; the air cools by expansion in the slowly moving boundary layer
in contact with the wing. Both the depth of the boundary layer and the
drop in pressure increase with increasing air speed, but each depends
very closely on the aerodynamic qualities of the wing. An excellent
photograph of one such disk produced by a Canberra jet was taken on
February 4, 1956, along the coast of Africa near Accra on a morning
when the condensation phenomenon occurred several times during air
maneuvers. The weather was fine, the sky cloudless with a few patches
of haze over the sea, and visibility was more than eight miles. During
the display the air speed of the jets was usually too low or the
air too dry for the aura to form. “But over the cliff edge where the
sea-breeze was just beginning to break through in patches the air would
be moist enough to condense about 1½ gm. of water droplets in each
cubic metre of air, quite sufficient to produce the observed effect.
The effect is increased by higher speeds at the end of a dive (when the
angle of incidence of the aerofoil is least) ... but it is likely that
the patchy onset of the sea-breeze was the most important contributing
factor.”[III-7]
A flying saucer reported from Johannesburg, South Africa, on April
11, 1958, belongs in this category. Hundreds of witnesses reported
a mysterious starlike object maneuvering in the northern sky on
three successive nights at speeds in excess of 2000 miles an hour.
Most observers agreed that “The Thing” could not have been any known
aircraft because its speed was too great; it sometimes hovered
stationary in the air, and repeatedly changed color from white to red
to deep scarlet. One member of an Interplanetary Club who watched it
through binoculars described the UFO as saucer-shaped, with a rim like
a soup plate around the edge.
Members of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Minitrack Station, near Johannesburg, were amused by the variety of
reports on “The Thing.” The mysterious object in the night skies was
in fact a South African Air Force Dakota aircraft, flying back and
forth so that the Minitrack Station could test the calibration of its
tracking instruments. In addition to the usual navigation lights, the
aircraft had carried a bright, flashing light so that it could be
photographed[III-7a].
A flight of bombers refueling in mid-air at night can be a startling
spectacle and more than once has been reported as a gathering of flying
saucers.
Such an incident occurred in Florida on October 31, 1955, when a disk
jockey at Gainesville broke into his radio program about ten o’clock in
the evening to announce that flying saucers were over the station. Many
of his listeners hurried out of their houses to look at the Halloween
visitors, clearly visible in the night sky. One reporter stated that
he had seen four to six objects, oblong in shape, brilliantly glowing,
red and orange, traveling soundlessly in a straight-line formation that
later changed to a V[III-8]. Both the radio station and the police
station were swamped with telephone calls from frightened citizens,
most of whom calmed down when they learned the explanation: a flight of
bombers had been refueling at an altitude of 32,000 feet.
_The Killian Case_
The most famous UFO sighting of this type is the Killian case. On the
evening of February 24, 1959, an American Airlines plane was flying
from Newark to Detroit. At about 8:45 P.M., when the plane was near
Bradford, Pennsylvania, the pilot, Captain Killian, noticed some
puzzling lights above and to the left of his plane. There seemed to
be three, their colors changing from yellow to light orange, dimming
and brightening in intensity and shifting their relative positions.
At first he supposed he was looking at the constellation Orion, for
the lights had the same configuration as the stars in Orion’s “belt,”
but when the lights changed position and he could see Orion itself in
addition to the lights, he discarded his first theory. He considered
the possibility of a jet tanker refueling operation, but decided the
lights were moving too slowly. He couldn’t think of any ordinary
explanation--but he had long wondered what truth there was in the idea
of flying saucers and had thought there must be something to it.
Over the loud speaker he remarked to the passengers that American
Airlines had a special treat for them which they could see by looking
out of the left windows. He continued to watch the lights as he flew
west toward Detroit, and radioed two other American Airlines planes in
the area. Learning that their pilots were also watching the unusual
spectacle, he notified Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Detroit. The lights
remained in view for about forty minutes, all the way to Detroit, and
the pilot lost sight of them only when he began to let down through the
haze for a landing.
Reporters and photographers were waiting to interview him, and next
day’s Detroit _Times_ carried a banner headline, “Mystery Discs Trail
Plane Here,” over a picture of Captain Killian flanked by the plane’s
two pretty hostesses, all three smiling as they held up to the camera
three ordinary kitchen saucers[III-9]. After checking with the Detroit
ATC, who did not know of any scheduled refueling operation, the pilot
reported his experience to officials of American Airlines, and next
day returned to New York where again he was besieged by reporters
and photographers. Meanwhile, following standard CIRVIS procedure
(Communication Instruction for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sighting
from Aircraft), the manager of operations of American Airlines reported
the incident to ATIC at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
In New York the day after the sighting Captain Killian gave a telephone
interview to Radio Station WCHS, Charleston, West Virginia, describing
his experience. Following the customary procedure, intelligence
officers from Mitchell Air Force Base questioned him and filled out the
usual report form[III-2]. In the radio interview and in the talk with
intelligence officers Captain Killian made the same statements he had
made to American Airlines officials: he didn’t know what the lights
were, and he couldn’t tell how far away they had been because he didn’t
know their size or their altitude[III-10].
Not for months had such a good flying-saucer story appeared, and the
newspapers made the most of it. Among the first to assert that the
unknown lights had been flying saucers was the UFO Research Committee
of Akron, Ohio (see _Chapter_ XIII). Members of the committee had
received the news by telephone, even before Captain Killian’s plane
landed at Detroit, from the pilot of a United Airlines plane who
had watched the lights on his flight to Akron. During the days
following, Captain Killian’s copilot gave an interview on Long John
Nebel’s after-midnight radio program in New York. Captain Killian
himself described the UFOs to members of a New York UFO organization,
Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI), and appeared on several radio
and TV programs. Both saucer addicts and newsmen besieged Air Force
representatives, demanding an immediate explanation of the sighting.
Finally, on February 28, only two days after receiving the report from
American Airlines, ATIC yielded to public pressure and produced a
tentative theory: it was possible that the pilots might have sighted
the stars of Orion, as Captain Killian had first suggested. However,
the release added, no definite conclusion could be reached until all
the facts had been studied.
Promptly rejecting the possibility that he might have been looking at
Orion, Captain Killian stated in an interview with the New York _Herald
Tribune_, “I am sure there are people on other planets and that they
have solved the problem of space travel.... I sincerely believe that
their vehicles are coming close to earth.”
While the saucer believers were keeping the story alive, applauding
Captain Killian and denouncing the Air Force, the experts at ATIC had
been collecting facts and trying to analyze them. The basic piece
of evidence was Captain Killian’s own report to American Airlines,
made a few hours after the incident took place. After describing the
circumstances of the sighting, the appearance and behavior of the
lights, the statement continues:
“The only possible explanation other than flying saucers could be
a jet-tanker refueling operation. Never having witnessed refueling
operations at night, I am not aware of the lighting of the jet tanker.
“My air speed during this complete flight was 250 knots indicated. I
also do not know the air speed of tankers during operation if this
could be so. I contacted ATC to find out if they had any airplanes on a
clearance and no three airplanes were given.
“In summary, it was difficult for me to believe they were jets because
of low speed and configuration. If they weren’t jets I still don’t know
any more than I did before even though I watched them for forty minutes
before. Due to the dark and strong lights I was not able to ascertain
any size or shape. The altitude of the objects was 30 degrees above my
horizon. Distance away is unknown.”[III-2]
Almost equally important was the evidence of other witnesses. During
the forty-minute period of observation, the crews of five other planes,
all flying west in the Pennsylvania-Ohio region, had watched the lights
for varying lengths of time. Several persons on the ground in and near
Akron had seen them between 9:15 and 9:30.
Air Force investigators methodically gathered the facts and made their
analysis and on March 16, only twenty days after the sighting, they
released a summary to the press. The mysterious lights belonged to
normal terrestrial aircraft. Although ATC at Detroit had apparently
not had the information when first asked, three B-47 bombers of
the Strategic Air Command had been carrying out a night refueling
operation from KC-97 tankers at the time and place reported. The tanker
has several groups of lights which, from a distance, can seem to be one
or more lights, and would have looked very much like the three objects
described by Captain Killian. Such a refueling operation takes from
about forty minutes to more than an hour.
Captain Killian had been flying at an altitude of 8500 feet, and he had
given the location of the unknowns as 30 degrees above his horizon;
this agreed with the position of the tankers, which were operating at
an altitude of 17,000 feet. Captain Killian had been flying west at an
indicated air speed of 250 knots; the refueling tankers had also been
flying west at a true air speed of 230 knots (ca. 270 mph). Since the
courses of plane and tankers were roughly parallel, the tankers had
remained in view and would have arrived over Akron at about 9:15, the
time that ground observers reported the lights.