The audio was made public only after some researchers slogged through FOIA requests and did some deep searching. The initial conclusion was - no surprise - astro (stars, planets) after which someone penciled in "balloon".
As an isolated incident it can be simple and easy to blame people seeing stars or balloons (even when they have trouble finding any in use for a region). Seen in totality of all of 1965 - there is a commonality of "lights" seen flashing red and white with a touch of green, behaving in atypical ways. Remember, the AF did send up a jet but by that time the "lights" were high and - according to some witnesses - heading higher. Scanning across the year (which I have been doing in reference to some projects of research) there is a sameness: red glowing objects, faster than jets, coming alongside vehicles, crossing or stopping on roadways, moving in formations, sometimes displaying combinations of red, green, white, and even some purple. Repeated incidents of electromagnetic interference with electronic transmissions or automotive systems. A seeming targeting of military weapons, nuclear, or military sites and chemical locations (raw and manufactured). Witnesses of objects that rose out of large bodies of water and oceans. They were stories - so similar - coming often on the same day hundreds of miles apart. Often from the other side of the globe.
Given the crucial importance to national security of having optimum quality radar equipment, given the fact that this was an excuse used in 1952, and was still brought out in 1965 causes some major questions of defense spending priorities. Were we really guarding our air space with "crappy radar" in the middle of a "Cold War"? If so, why????? Talk about reckless endangerment....
Hear the Air Force Audio from Oct. 7, 1965 - 1965 UFO Over Edwards AFB : United States. Air Force : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Read transcripts here : transcript (nicap.org)
and summary here Edwards AFB Incident, Oct. 7, 1965 (nicap.org)
Retrospectively, some authors (such as What the 1965 UFO Sighting at Edwards Air Force Base Means 50 Years Later (inverse.com)) fall back on the idea that the Cold War was making everyone jittery (including skilled and trained observers such as those at Edwards' that day) and "crappy radar systems" that tend to ignore the visual sightings that rode tandem with the equipment sightings.
That was a technique perfected by those in charge of Project Blue Book as early as 1952 when bad radar (radar angels) and temperature inversions were first widely used to discredit major sighting events (many witnesses and locations).
In 1965, the Cold War was shoved to the background with an ongoing situation in Southeast Asia. Some attempted to pound the patriotic drum about fighting the surge of Communism into free lands, but for many of that day it rang a little hollow. There was such a large counter movement at work that familiar refrain failed to capture the larger part of the imagination and heart of the American people.
It was a crucial time in American history - one that periodically comes to every land when the younger demographic is gaining control and the old guard is decreasing. The new generation had some different ideas, not necessarily better, but definitely different. This conflict was fought beneath a dozen banners in the form of sub-cultures, counter-cultures, social movements, and anti-everything movements.
Caught in the middle was a generation of brothers, sons, and husbands who donned the uniforms and sought to serve their country.
To dismiss the nuances of change at work and to label it all "Cold War jitters" in this "Edwards Incident" is to dismiss the training, integrity, and seriousness of professionals in the prime of their lives doing a highly technical and important national work. There is an old saying that "Victors write the history" and the same can be applied to these early reports of sightings found in government records. We assume they are truth; we can really only know they were one vision of the truth of an episode. Most reports were not even investigated. They were looked into via phone calls, some wired or mailed in reports, and maybe looking at some select photographs, radar images, or reports of physical specimens. Yet, the inconsistency of those very records begs to argue there was no true investigation going on but merely the public relations work so many have claimed. In essence, the Fox was guarding the hen house and if a few turned up missing.... who was there to question the Fox?
To suggest the men in the tower in this instance were witnessing some 'need to know' new technology opens a can of worms about the integrity of the U.S. Government and the Military at large. It is possible given that with twenty years a lot of dirty laundry will be exposed as being SOP for military and security agencies. Those included tests without consent, deliberate exposure to chemical and nuclear weapons or fallout, and much more. This is pulled out so often but in reality, there were only few great leaps matching witness statements and official claims of secret projects to verify the claims from 1947 to 1965.
To suggest that the witnesses were jumpy - well, one need only listen to the audio. These were men trained in calm. They described in detail objects, noted similarities and differences to known aircraft and more.
To suggest that, although they notified NORAD and or the Pentagon, the apparent lack of response from them labels the event an non-issue, means little. Like a telephone conversation, the audio only shares events going on in one tower on one occasion; what would be more interesting - and enlightening - would be the tapes of conversations in NORAD, the Pentagon, and the White House for the times designated. What was going on we still - after more than close to sixty years later - do not know the total truth about? I suspect the people really getting nervous were in those chambers of clandestine power.
An "Unexplained Mysteries" episode. Although they make something of a "UFO Officer" - nearly every major base or installation had one in the days of Project Blue Book - it is an interesting visual to the whole. Those base officers who served as on-site contacts to the Wright Patterson offices were sometimes very detailed and determined to do an admirable job.
Closing quote: "Lunar Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell was at Edwards the night the UFO chase occurred. The 6th person to walk on the moon said, "The night it happened I investigated it myself and this was a real event." link
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