One Explanation for the 1965 "Flap"

Right now eyes around the globe have been spying the incredible COMET NEOWISE, first in the early dawn sky and then more recently in the evening sky.  Meteor Showers are also popular events that people look forward to and provide a good reason to go outside and enjoy nature with naked eyes, binoculars or telescopes. In 1965, portions of the "Great Midwestern Flap" cited a little known meteor shower to explain all the objects with red, green and white lights flying around towns, missile bases, and across open sky.

The Air Force offered up the excuses (depending on where you lived) witnesses were seeing the planet Jupiter, various stars, or the Delta Aquariids.

In that July 31-August 5 peak period for UFO's in this so called Midwestern flap - so called because the objects were being reported from Maine to Florida and Mexico to Minnesota - people in Oklahoma were told they had seen the planet Jupiter or a set of named stars.  Local astronomers from the planetarium in Oklahoma City directed scathing retorts. They questioned just where the Air Force was getting its information because at that time and in that place (up and down the central plains in fact) those were all day objects  and would have been impossible as sources of the sightings of zipping, hovering and glowing objects being seen.

Local newspapers in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma generally did not mention this unique meteor shower because it was a lesser one and usually only seen well south of the equator and at lower elevations in the southern United States.  In addition, they are a poor showing with much fewer meteors being observed.  Instead the newspapers did mention the Perseid and noted parties planned to celebrate the sky show this meteor shower provided regularly every August

.

When a reporter from Oklahoma City's Journal newspaper contacted someone from the Air Force to explain this issue of planets not visible as explanations for the UFO's reported, there was in the response (found in noted entries of daily phone calls by the Air Force) a little bit of fast footwork that attempted to explain away an obvious gaff.

The responding officer indicated that the explanation of the planet and stars was for sightings - at the exact same times and dates - around missile stations in Wyoming and ammo depots in Nebraska - because they were - supposedly visible there even if not visible in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas. 

One has to wonder, indeed, where this explanation came from.

 

To learn more on the Delta Aquariids -

To learn more on the Perseids