The Oklahoma Space Craft Conventions: Along Route 66a northeast of Sapulpa

In 1959 and 1960 "Space Craft Conventions" featuring "contactee" speakers were held at the Indian Christian Camp and Mission, on the old H.L. Land place, northeast of Sapulpa. The conventions were the brainchild of a local minister, Chief Frank Buckeye Standing Horse, an Ohio born Ottawa Native American who, under both the label of "Bishop" and "Reverend", served as pastor of the Holy Church of God Church located on the campgrounds.  

Special speakers the first year included Buck Nelson from Missouri, Truman Bethrum from California and Wayne S. Aho from Oklahoma City/Washington. The next year a "second annual" event was held at the end of July in 1960.

Chief Frank B. Standing Horse was born in Ohio in 1892 and died in 1977 in Riverside County, California. In 1956 near Sapulpa, he had a sighting of a cigar shaped object,  and in 1959 he had the first of his "contactee" visitations , July 12, 1959, where he was taken on rides to other worlds on a series of space craft.  He claimed trips to the Moon, Mars, Venus, "Clarion" and the distant edge of the galaxy world of "Orion."

The object used in that trip was 250 feet in diameter and 28 feet high, with a crew of three beings aboard who very "just like us."

https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1494036/m1/1/zoom/?q=Chief Standing Horse&resolution=4&lat=5043.435207751487&lon=1720.7967585463202

To date, the next unidentified flying object "conventions" or "conference" would not be until 1973 when Hayden Hewes and his organization the IIUFOB hosted "serious" speakers to address the scientific aspects of sightings as well as the experiences of people. Guest speakers then will include nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman in Oklahoma City. 

From research by Marilyn A. Hudson for her sequel to SOONER SAUCERS : OKLAHOMA UFO'S 1947 to 1969 (2020) to be called SOONER SAUCERS, VOL. 2.   

When The UFO's Harried the Air Force: Wyoming and Nebraska August 1965

 The copy is printed overlarge and in a file of over three hundred pages. Command post records of communications during a fast-paced time the Air Force will later struggle to hide under sightings of stars and planets and mirages from temperature inversions. The truth was far stranger...

"8. Warren Command Post. Sighting seems to be a blob approximately 20 feet in diameter orange in color. No sound. About as tall as one-story building. Descending. Observed for 2 minutes. No
sighting aids used. Report by Staff Sgt. Boast."

In early August the Army Ammunition Depot at Sidney, Nebraska and the Missile Silos at Warren AFB near Cheyenne, Wyoming burned up the communication lines to Wright Patterson, NORAD, and other locations. It was not merely the high number of civilian sightings of things in the skies, the military itself was experiencing dozens of men seeing things with their own eyes. Men trained to guard missile silos and protect the nation were reporting in official communications "formations of objects", "circular in shape", depending on vantage points, the size of "a dime" or "a quarter". Some were size of peas seen in the distant sky blinking red, green, white.  They were "stacked" and they moved to the west, to the south, to the north and all different directions from both locations

[Note these will be similar to sightings in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and elsewhere.]

The duty officer reports are filled with scrawls as someone attempted to label a sighting as a natural astronomical event with a hasty "Jupiter" in heavy thick pencil or grease-pen. Yet there were so many of the same or similar in all positions in the skies that excuse was flimsy and uninformed. 

"No.10: 2 GI's at Golf 1 Warren missile site...0600. Extremely bright moving very fast. No sound or propulsion. 10 to 20,000 feet north to south. Approx. 30 minutes to cross sky horizon to horizon.... Appeared size of a quarter at arm's length."

The massive file containing these is labeled "Bunkie, Louisiana."  The contents reveal the harried atmosphere of the Air Force in the 31 July to August 1-6, 1965.  The time of the "Midwest Flap", the "Summer of the Saucers" and other designations.

Hot off the press Monday, Aug.2, newspapers had a press release where the Air Force said the sightings were the result of people seeing stars and planets. They even named them. 

Meanwhile, down in Oklahoma, where July31- August 4 the state and regions would report hundreds of sightings of lights and object moving in formation and in various directions, even landing briefly in Oklahoma and Texas, the scientists shook their heads. Astronomers at two public planetariums quickly questioned where the Air Force was getting its information. The stars and planets offered as explanations where not even visible at that time of the year to account for the sightings. As nimble as an elephant on skates, the Air Force switched its words  and were quoted in an Oklahoma newspaper (Chickasaw Daily Express, Tues, Aug. 3, 1965):

"The "Blue Book" spokesman at Wright-Patterson  Air Force Base said Monday's statement mentioning certain stars was intended as an explanation of UFO sightings in Wyoming not in Oklahoma."

The problem with that statement was the stars and planets in the sky for Oklahoma would be the same for Wyoming. If they were not visible in Oklahoma then they were not visible in Wyoming. I checked a historical star chart that showed that the stars and planets offered in the press release were indeed not visible during the hours of the sightings and reports either in Oklahoma or in Wyoming. 

PRE-JUNE 1947 UFO's OR 'FLYING DISC AND SAUCER' SIGHTINGS.

 From "Sooner Saucers: Oklahoma UFO's 1947 to 1969" (2020):

1947 image - Phoenix, AZ

"What follows is an annotated Index of Sightings for Oklahoma, most drawn from the pages and files of Project Blue Book, or its predecessors, newspapers, and other files (such as NICAP, etc.). Events do not occur within a vacuum, so some preliminary background was important before looking at the reports from the Sooner State.

The summer of 1947 is often cited as the start of the ‘saucer craze’ but in truth the year started off with a high degree of odd things seen flitting around in the skies – everywhere.

SIGHTINGS OF 1947

What follows is a collection of sightings garnered from newspapers, books, and records for the sightings prior to the summer of 1947 and the Arnold and Roswell cases.

Jan 16, 1947 – Norfolk, England, Project Sign Incident # 54 [will be classed as an aircraft]

April – France. Disk with cupola

April – Richmond, VA. Silver disc with dome

May 5 – Washington State. Silvery object fell from sky & disintegrated

May 17 – Oklahoma City, 8:30-9:00 pm Field Engineer Savage saw a frosty white, round and flat object, with diameter/thickness ration of 10:1; size of a B-29 (140 ft.), traveling N at 350 degrees at 10,000-18,000 ft.; 3x jet speed (or 1,800 mph); slight ‘swishing sound’ (Source was NICAP)

May 18 – Richmond, VA –flat white object cigar shaped moved N-W

May 19 – Manitou Springs, Colorado, Silvery object halted, danced, flew against the wind

June 10 – Douglas, AZ, a spherical light rose up to disappear into the sky 11 p.m.

June 10 – Hungary, silver balls

June 12- Weiser, ID, ‘chain of lights/UFO’s’

June 14- Over Bakersfield, CA at 2 pm triangular formation of saucer shapes (10 of them) (in plane)

June 21 – 11:50 am, 8 discs near Spokane, Washington. Fell with a ‘falling leaf motion” [note this term appears elsewhere in some reports as late as 1965].

June 21 – Yukon, OK. 6 objects like upside down wash tubs (domed silver shape) high and moving fast

June24 – Arnold sighting in Washington State (Project Sign Incident # 17); Fred John sighting in Cascade Mountains of 6 discs; 3) light blue and purple lights performed aerobatics over Seattle. [Note the purple lights – very rare and seen in 1965 Damon, TX]

June 27- Formation of discs, wavering, and changing formation over Cascade Mts.

June 28- Lake Mead, NV, 5-6 white discs seen 2 p.m. [Will be classed as a balloon]

June 28 – Rockfield, IA 3:45 p.m.

June28 – Montgomery Al, Maxwell AFB, 9:30 p.m. object observed and made a 90 degree turn

June 29- White Sands – Silver disk

June 29 – Des Moines, IA, 4:45 5 UFOs white, oval, N-W direction

June 30 – Portland, OR, 5 shiny silver disks like a hubcap

June 30 – White Sands, NM, Navy pilot, 9:10 a.m.,  2 gray spheres appeared to land south of Grand Canyon.

July 2 – Roswell, NM area – objects observed, oval, inverted saucer shapes [dating from UFO Crash at Roswell, 1991 by Randle and Schmitt]

July – Tempe, AZ (case file missing) ‘insufficient data’

July 4 – Emmett, Idaho, United Airlines Capt. reported 9 circular objects, merged, split and disappeared. Classed as Unidentified.

July 4 – Twin Falls, ID 35 discs, afternoon

July 4 – 800 sightings, by 400 people in 24 states. ½ single objects; ½ in formation; 2/3 daylight sighting; shapes round, spherical, disc.

July 6 – Clay Center, Ks. Later explained as a solar flare.

July 7 – Brighton, Sussex, UK

July 7 – Phoenix, AZ (Project Blue Book Incident # 40 in 1947-07-9669017). Gray, elliptical 20-30 ft. moving NE to West, speed about 400-600 mph, altitudes Est. at 2000-5000 ft. sound like a jet approaching. The file is 55 pgs. “Probably a hoax” is penciled in but the file contained a photo of the object (Declassified photos Program No. 6-109) 12 June 1952; photos turned over to 4th AF Intelligence July of 1947. Note in the file includes leads to investigate the photograph and a letter indicating the photos had not been returned to the person.

July 7 – Del Salton Observatory, Chile

July 7 – Naples, Italy

July 7 – Japan

July 7 – Holland

July 8 – Murdoc Field (now Edwards), 3 silver colored UFO’s heading West. At 9:20 am armed a Republic XP-84 Thunder- jet when a yellow-white sphere was seen moving against the wind. Unidentified.

July 8 – White Sands, NM 11:50 a.m. white, clear, alum object

July 8 – South of Muroc, California 3:50 p.m. piloted sighted a wingless, light reflecting, object too high for his Mustang to close the gap and moving into the distance

July 8 – Ft. Worth photos with “Roswell Saucer”

July 23 – NJ, strange craft observed

July 23 – Brazil

Aug 4 – Bethel, Alaska (Northwest of there) (Incident # 68) Notation ‘no astronomical explanation. Similarity to Incident # 10, in which several objects silhouetted against the sunset, is striking.”

Aug 13 – Twin Falls, ID, sky blue plate object

Aug 13 – Ravello, Italy, a disc and beings 3 feet tall with large heads, large eyes, and 8 taper like fingers.

Note, by September – the Air Force was “forced to take official cognizance of the “flying discs…increasing demand from the public for an explanation”; begin using term “Unidentified Aerial Objects “or UAO. [From Project Blue Book report documents]. General Nathan Twining will write his communication of the situation, common descriptions, etc.  Ultimately, this report (along with others possibly) will be largely dismissed by General Hoyt Vanderburgh, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He publicly minimized the import of the subject and numerous times publicly minimize the subject matter and those reporting recommendation of September 23, 1947, categorically stating “the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious."  A tug-of-war, of sorts, was going on in the Air Force (and other military units) as to the strange objects being manmade or “interplanetary craft.” The Air Force as the agency charged with knowing what was in the skies felt especially pressured. Twinging’s superior General George Schulgen will repeat his comments in his own report and send it out as general them.

Everybody had a theory..."

 

Classic VINTAGE UFO FILM

 

Little Issues :Roswell Report Case Closed?

Scanning through my books I happened on my copy of this "Case Closed" book on Roswell. I thumbed through, stopping to read notes made, and reminding myself of previous research. 

Page 40, "High Altitude Polyethylene Research Balloons"

The author for the Air Force was Captain James McAndrew, and in this section he writes that in 1946, Charles B. Moore was "a graduate student working under contract for the U.S. Army Air Force."

Since Moore's biography states he graduated with a B.A. in 1947, I was interested in how he could be a graduate student the year before.

The author then also states "Polyethylene balloons, first produced in 1947 for Project Mogul..." with the inference they were used on the alleged "lost flight # 4" that allegedly landed on a ranch north of Roswell.

Yet according to the interview with Moore in the government report - those polyethylene balloons did not arrive until the last week of June 1947 - too late to fit the alleged flight # 4 scenario. Indeed, on arrival Moore and  his team had to use regular neoprene metrological balloons that were no different than the balloons regularly sent up from Air field and military bases regularly all over the country.  When Irving Newton was called into the offices in Ft. Worth to identify the debris they had spread out there he had no trouble identifying any of it. He said it was a balloon and a RAWIN target. There was nothing top secret or classified or innovative in any manner. Thus, the puzzled look on the face of Marcel in some of the images. 

Later definition would infer that the "black box" component would have been the only odd and classified element of the entire configuration. Nothing on the floor was anything not already seen and sent aloft from Roswell and nearly every other military base or weather station.

Of course, the whole acceptance of the Test # 4 flight being the "Roswell Incident" source ignores the fact that a team member, Albert Crary, indicated the flight never lifted. The next one was found and that could not be it nor others all accounted for. (See previous entry on Roswell and the interviews in Fact vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert).

The whole question of the RAWIN (Radar Wind) target device is also a little sketchy and contradictory. Its presence and public identity is made plain in photos from the time of Roswell (see the young woman holding one in the photo from Ohio. It had a reward attached to it as well.). On the one hand the military wanted to convey the idea the target was the unusual aspect, at another the balloon, and at another some other element entirely. It was if the story was - evolving.  A January 1947 scholarly article in Engineering and Science Monthly by Patrick J. Harney clearly defines "RAWIN" as a term designated by the services to define information about winds aloft by electronic means. He further stated it referenced a balloon borne target with or without a radiosonde attachment. So, clearly, the term was in common weather worth use in January of 1947 and infers its use earlier.  The use of weather balloons - even the plastic coating or material of such - was common fodder of small news filler pieces from 1941 and forward.

Oddly, for such a top secret project coming out of Alamogordo. Local New Mexico newspapers were soon flooded with claims that they were responsible for the rash of "flying saucer" sightings across the country. When in truth a map of weather stations and air currents seems to contradict that claim too. See some fascinating images that did not seem to get picked up and carried as widely as one might have thought they would have been (Alamogordo_July9a (roswellproof.com)).  A widespread move by the military to debunk the flying saucers as weather balloons meant many bases and posts held demonstrations (in Oklahoma one such event was held in August of 1947 at Tinker Air Field) "militarydebunk (roswellproof.com).

------

See this article for the common view. Note the inference that the Roswell balloon was poly or mylar coated. Roswell UFO ‘Strange Metal’ Mystery | Skeptical Inquirer

Link to copy of Fact Vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert is here - /tardir/mig/a326148.tiff (dtic.mil)

UFO'S 101: Contactees

Throughout human history at times when society faced some upheaval that threatened the way things had always been, there were mystics and messengers who arise. People fear the unknown, the new, and all things spell change. Change brings chaos, change brings new ideas, and old ways fall aside. Morals and behaviors shift. New ideas replace old ones and people seek answers outside - and above - themselves. 

As a result, across cultures and through time there have been the "little people", the "fairies", "angels", "saints", chosen leaders, and even "space brothers." 

In the late 1940's these people first emerge with warnings against waging war, cries for peace and brotherhood, and changing our evil ways. Semi-evangelical, quasi-spiritualist, and often pure sociopathic con-art - these early "Contactees" ran the gamut of people and motives.

Into the 1950's when they have their peak period - numerous individuals have "encounters" from beings from Mars, Venus, and the planet "Clarion", and more distant places in the heavens and in other dimensions.

This metaphysical aspect groups the Contactee with those who saw saints, holy images, and sought to speak with the dead. Their goals were similar, the message reformed to a modern concern or fear, and sought to provide spiritual guidance to achieve a specific goal.

Theirs is a non-scientific experience, set among a familiar framework of social responses to changing times and ways.

As a library professional I was often called upon to explain to classes and readers the difference between a science -fiction book and a regular fiction book. Science-fiction had to have its basis in scientific fact or logical development from known science laws. A fiction book might dress up in space suits and tell a story filled with fiction but use the science as mere backdrop to a nuts and bolts fiction tale of one of the seven formal fictional plots. One is science that drives the fiction; the other is fiction that uses science as stage props. One is integral to the story and actions while the other is incidental and could be acted out on a pirate ship or farm with equal ease. 

The "Contactees" were this latter. They used the stage dressing of blond strangers bearing messages of peace and took them for rides in flying machines, and used the science and the phenomena as mere window dressing. They would speak of vibrational levels, of ether planes of existence, and vague messages of peace and harmony.

Those who view things in the skies or on the ground that science was unable to define or understand and who sought to use science to understand what they saw or experienced are a different category.

To entangle and confuse the two does a dis-service to the science waiting to be discovered that will explain objects seen by countless people who could only shake their heads and wonder what they had seen. 

DAMON AND EXETER: TWO IMPORTANT UFO CASES (SEPT.3, 1965)

A UFO Double-hitter?

CASE NO.1

Location: Exeter, New Hampshire, September 3, 1965.  Late evening; Just before midnight; and approx. 1:40 a.m.

Object: Unidentified object with several very bright red lights, flew low (about 100 ft), erratic at times, silent, and no vibration.

 On September 3, 1965, in states geographically distant from one another two extraordinary sets of incidences occurred.  Many people are aware of the "Incident at Exeter" due to a bestselling book on the subject and many skeptics and true believers have promoted it as evidence of confusion or proof of alien presence.

The stories are similar also in that both have law officers playing primary roles in the events. As witnesses they are the guys in the "white hats" and hard to ignore. In Exeter, there are also two women driving on the road, a woman in a local farmhouse and a young man hitchhiking to get home.  Each one of these people would have significant testimony and a lot to say.  

The Air Force would try its hardest to prove they had seen (1) only the lights of Pease Air Base (they were embarrassingly shown to be invisible from the locations), then it was a desperate attempt to claim that (2) refueling aircraft on maneuvers were in the area, (3) a night infra-red photographic practice run, but then  (2) and (3) were categorically proven unable to account because thet exercise ended much earlier and too far away to be involved and all requests for proof of the infra-red flight proved "inconclusive." 

In more recent days, skeptics have taken one piece of evidence and made it fit a refueling scenario while ignoring other, and very blatant facts, such as the low elevation of the object seen was too low for a refueling maneuver (about 100 feet above a tree). They ignore the witness statements that the lights came very close, there was no sound and no vibrations associated with the lights. Also ignored, the frank admittance that there was nothing in the area at the time to account for the described objects.

From the PBB file: Project Big Blast had a/c in the area but the times they were there did "NOT correspond to the times of the observation. Since no aircraft can be placed in the area at 0200 hours the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force."  Also, same file, "no refueling in NE area for Big Blast. No refueling on nights 2-3 & 6 of September." Yet, recent skeptics select to ignore the inconvenient facts that argue against their answers.

After being ignored, insulted, and accused of all types of fabrications, the Air Force finally had to say the case was an "unknown." The cover sheet of the Project Blue Book states that but hurriedly added the non-fact that a refueling exercise was going on in the area. In not noting the time conflict it is clear the desire of the Air Force was to read it as "we are calling it unknown but we really think it was this but can't prove it." Once again, ignoring witness testimony that contradicts the presumptive answer. 

A timeline based on testimony indicates--

3:30 p.m. There were many sightings in southern New Hampshire of somethings. Details are sketchy; this may be sightings of Operation Big Blast as it seems to conform to some information as to their activities.

10:00 p.m. A M/M Clyde Russell, Kensington, New Hampshire said they saw a large, mysterious object that looked like a large red ball with flashing lights.

12:30 Exeter Policeman Bertrand encounters two women in a car who have been very frightened by a large red object that followed them and hovered over their car. If this was "refueling" tanker, there was reckless endangerment involved to fly that large a aircraft low enough to appear to be following and hovering over an automobile along a road.

1:00 a.m. - Young Muscarello, hitch-hiking home, was walking down HWY 150 was traumatized by a red object and lights that kept pace and he observed for about an hour. The weather was clear with no winds but the object(s) would appear erratic, would disappear behind trees and houses. It would then reappear in a position different than it had been previously. He noticed a motion he described as a "floating leaf" (note this is a term that appears in several other Project Blue Book cases.   See June 21, 1947 – 11:50 am, 8 discs seen near Spokane, Washington. Witnesses said they fell with a ‘falling leaf motion.”)  Air Force authorities will try to insist this was a fuel nozzle on a rank 'flopping' in the air; again, as it refuels at a low altitude over towns and farms.  

When the object finally departed it headed away at a 160-degree angle. Times vary through the report records and printed accounts. Generally, it can be said that around midnight Muscarello contacted the police. The NICAP report (NICAP often got the jump on the Air Force in both detail and speed of data gathering and witness locating) placed the time Bertrand found the two women at 12:30 a.m. Muscarello walking down the road at about 1 a.m. and his arrive at the Exeter Police Station at 1:45 a.m.

1:45 a.m. Muscarello reports to Police Station. Officers go out and encounter the red lights as well. 

All told witnesses in the area observed for about two hours the strange red lights that flew very low, barely skirting the tops of tree lines and rooftops of farms and barns (often at an altitude of no more than 100 feet). The red lights appeared to be a line of lights (red) with two a little forward of the others, The lights bathed the area in a red glow and were bright enough the basic shape of the silent object was merely a dark vague form.

Of note is that 15 October Pease AFB would see a high number of sightings reported. The two Police Officers had to write several letters to Air Force officials attempting to clear their names and reputations. No real communication was received by them for nearly a year and just with the notice the file was "unidentified."

CASE No. 2

Location: Damon, Brazoria County, Texas, Sept. 3, 1965, 11 p.m.

Object: Described as having one or more bright red lights, on one side. On the other was a vivid PURPLE light or lights.  Object a triangular dark mass, thicker in the middle and tapering off to "tips" with a canister type shape at the end. Details obscured by night and brightness of lights. One set of lights seen appeared to rotate in a sequence (off/on). All witnesses mentioned red lights and that they were low over treetops and roofs.

Less well known is the fact that on the very same night - in Brazoria County, Texas along HWY 36 linking Damon and West Columbia, north of Houston, strange lights were also seen. The witnesses were two Deputy Sheriff's and they saw not only lights but an odd craft sitting or hovering just above the ground as well. 

[Project Blue Book]

The men were traveling county roads on business when they saw some lights off the road and across a desert line field or pasture. Oil Wells were in the area and at first one officer assumed that was what they were seeing. Then they noticed the object with the lights was moving, swinging itself around, above the ground. When that happened, it was apparent that the lights were far brighter than any oil wells, and there was a distinct strangeness to the lights and the colors. Purple was an extremely odd color to see. Some experts have pointed out that witnesses might confuse the blue and red lights of a craft - at a great distance - with a purple tone but this was a definite purple. 

It should be noted that a dark and mysterious craft landed in a Kansas pasture northeast of Wichita in the early 1960's and one of the lights witnesses reported was a PURPLE light. The lights of the craft were so bright fire departments and police from several Kansas towns had searched the backroads trying to locate a fire to account for the bright lights.

To date - no craft with a Purple light system has been found in researching experimental craft of the 1960's. No record of the FAA approving such a color system has been found either. 

The officers had been traveling from Damon, Texas to West Columbia on HWY 36. The object was seen off the road on their left and was thought to be moving to the south, slowly.  

The next days both the Air Force and civilian investigators returned the men to the area, took photos, and had them retell their stories in great detail and at great length. In waning years, both men affirmed the truth of everything they had told officials at the time. 

Both cases were labeled "UNKNOWN."  Both occurred on the same night.  After the famous "summer of the saucers" of 1965 and prior to bigger things in 1966, these two cases stand out as eerie and meaningful. 

What was really going on?