What People See, part 2

1952 - A Map of the track of weather / test balloons sent up in a narrow window of time.

 1951 - this communications balloon may have been mis identified as a silver, cigar shaped object moving silently and slowly.  Unfortunately, it is harder to locate records of where, when, and what regarding these babies. One source indicated they were basically stationary and served as a means to extend radio signals in pre satellite years.

U.S. Navy was just one entity that utilized huge weather balloons for tracking currents. collecting samples and tracking activities. The famous weather balloon debunking of Roswell often ignores the fact they were sending up balloons almost weekly. It SOP for anyplace planes were flying.  As the rubber was replaced by plastics and new materials, the 'loons got bigger and by the late 1960's they were be lofted into space as 'sate-loons' for use in communications.

The early investigators and debunkers of witnesses of aerial unidentified phenomena loved to present the majority of  "slack-jawed yokels"...those tipplers scorned by General Ramey in 1947...but the larger percentage of witnesses were trained military personnel, pilots, professionals, educators, amateur astronomers, scientists, police, and intelligent people who knew enough about the world, the sky, flight and the like, to recognize when something was different. So, the slack jawed yokel may remain  - as it does for anyone in the maligned 'flyover' lands - the truth is tipped more in the lines of qualified observers reporting things to the proper authorities. The sign could also read that anything can be debunked when you discard all the evidence, statements, and selectively design your tools to record preestablished results.

THE 1947 MEMO

September 23, 1947
SUBJECT: AMC Opinion Concerning “Flying Discs”
TO: Commanding General
Army Air Force
Washington 25, D.C.

ATTENTION: Brig. General George Schulgen
AC/AS-2
1. As requested by AC/AS-2 there is presented below the considered opinion of this command concerning the so-called “Flying Discs.” This opinion is based on interrogation report data furnished by AC/AS-2 and preliminary studies by personnel of T-2 and Aircraft Laboratory, Engineering Division T-3. This opinion was arrived at in a conference between personnel from the Air Institute of Technology, Intelligence T-2, Office, Chief of Engineering Division, and the Aircraft, Power Plant and Propeller Laboratories of Engineering Division T-3.

2. It is the opinion that:
a. The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
b. There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft.
c. There is a possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.
d. The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and motion which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled manually, automatically or remotely.
e. The apparent common description is as follows:-
(1) Metallic or light reflecting surface.
(2) Absence of trail, except in a few instances where the object apparently was operating under high performance conditions.
(3) Circular or elliptical in shape, flat on bottom and domed on top.
(4) Several reports of well kept formation flights varying from three to nine objects.
(5) Normally no associated sound, except in three instances a substantial rumbling roar was noted.
(6) Level flight speeds normally above 300 knots are estimated.
f. It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge — provided extensive detailed development is undertaken — to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description of the object in sub- paragraph (e) above which would be capable of an approximate range of 7000 miles at subsonic speeds.
g. Any development in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive, time consuming and at the considerable expense of current projects and therefore, if directed, should be set up independently of existing projects.
h. Due consideration must be given the following:-
(1) The possibility that these objects are of domestic origin – the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command.
(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these subjects.
(3) The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of propulsion possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge.

3. It is recommended that:-
a. Headquarters, Army Air Forces issue a directive assigning a priority, security classification and Code name for a detailed study of this matter to include the preparation of complete sets of all available and pertinent data which will then be made available to the Army, Navy, Atomic Energy Commission, JRDB, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Group, NACA, and the RAND and NEPA projects for comments and recommendations, with a preliminary report to be forwarded within 15 days of receipt of the data and a detailed report thereafter every 30 days as the investigation develops. A complete interchange of data should be affected.

4. Awaiting a specific directive AMC will continue the investigation within its current resources in order to more closely define the nature of the phenomenon. Detailed Essential Elements of Information will be formulated immediately for transmittal thru channels.

Note: Lt. General Nathan Twining headed the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1947, when Twining was asked to study UFO reports; he recommended that a formal study of the phenomenon take place; Project Sign was the result. He was selected Air Force Chief of Staff (1953–1957); President Eisenhower named him Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff (1957–1961 the Nation’s highest military position.

'WE NEVER SAID THAT!'

Several books, reports and news pieces have someone from the Air Force asserting vigorously that they NEVER said 'Flying saucers' came from another planet!   That may be true, however, it seemed just about everybody else was saying it.

Early in 1950 (February) a Navy researcher stated "Saucers Are Interplanetary."  Commander Robert B. McLaughlin, skipper of the destroyer Bristol and in charge of a research unit on missiles said that although officially debunked, they are really "spaceships from another planet."  He said they frequently zoomed over the White Sands proving grounds in New Mexico. There a group of Navy experts and scientists were testing secret weapons.  In May 1949 a group of five trained observers using precision instruments were tracking a strange object "about 105 feet in diameter."

In a March issue of True magazine he stressed they were space ships from another planet, operated by...intelligent beings.  A former classmate of McLaughlin at Annapolis, Cmdr H.H. (Swede) Larson, executive officer of the Navy's experimental guided missile ship made the statement that, although McLaughlin was "in all respects a very capable and reputable officer not given to wild statements", he still thought his friend's statement needed further verification. [Story carried widely. Appeared in Sapulpa Daily Herald, Feb.23, 1950, pg. 1]

Summer of 1952 - the time of the famous Washington D.C. "Flap" and the emergence of mirages and temperature inversions as rationalizations - R.L. Farnsworth then President of the U.S. Rocket Society, was quoted across the nation for his assertion that "there is a possibility they are interplanetary space ships...interplanetary travel is possible." [Story carried widely. Appeared in Sweetwater Reporter (TX), July 28, 1952, pg. 1, 8]


General Hoyt S. Vandengberg, 2nd Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force (1948-1953) would several times in the 1952 window appear to verbally remind other branches that it was the Air Force that  investigated and researched the skies.  The Air Force...so step back the Navy and all others.

Wanted

This researcher is interested in hearing from anyone with experiences or family stories about sightings in the following locations:

Sumner County, Kansas - 1958 to 1968


Email and share your story with as many facts as recalled.

Of National Interest: Kansas UFO of 1956

Miss Iowa was being named winner in Long Beach about 10:00 p.m. Kansas time when an Arkansas City, Kansas news editor and highway patrol were listening to the radio band announce accidents and incidents from nearby Wichita, and other communities.

The Hutchinson Naval Air Station had a UFO on their radar screen that :hot and muggy night". The target was moving in semi-circular area reaching 50-75 miles east of Hutchinson.

A B-47 from McConnell AFB, Wichita, Ks was in the air searching. The last fix on the object showed it near Emporia, Kansas - 109 miles northeast of Hutchinson!  Then shortly before midnight it was in the north.

It was described as being brilliantly lighted, teardrop shaped, a blob of light. A strong light sprayed downward to earth from the object. It was big - about the size of a 200 watt light bulb and the light beam moved vertically and horizontally over a wide area of sky. Then the object just faded away.

Now, the Air Force checked all weather balloons launched from Dodge City and Wichita but were having trouble finding any. So they solution they shared was that people had seen a reflection from burning waste gas torches in a local oil field. How these burning torches moved from Hutchinson to Emporia was not discussed.

A pilot of a B-47 out of Forbes AFB in Topeka, Ks reported the gas torches and offered the suggestion of reflections. A witness - whose name was blacked out in the files- affirmed what he had seen had not been imagination.

Of interest in the file was a small note from an "Capt Gray-----" who said "This is of national interest" and "Put this in the case file "Arkansas File". 

The report below also notes "several" teardrop shaped  objects, tqo of which  had lighted dangling tentacles and all had metallic blue lights.  Objects were reported in Wichita, Hutchinson, El Dorado (An oil refinery town where one would expect oil burn offs to be commonly recognized) and Wellington (south of Wichita and west of Arkansas City).

Mention was made of private photos being taken but none are in the file from 19 July 1956 related to Arkansas City, Kansas.

It is possible that weather balloons account for some of this sighting, a few burnoff torches for other parts of  it. Until more details of reports in each location are found and compared it remains interesting, especially since it was labeled of "National Importance".  I cannot guess how a balloon or oil field waste burn off could achieve that level of interest.

UFO TRAINING SCHOOL, SHEPPERD FIELD, 1962

A 43 page file in project Blue Book titled, 'UFO TRAINING SCHOOL' has some interesting things in it on the topic of UFO investigations. It was a how-to for those who would be called upon to conduct such investigations.

Of particular note was one page that stated:
"United States Air Force interest in UFO's is three-fold:
1. To determine if UFO phenomena presents a threat to the security of the United States.
2. To determine if the UFO Phenomena exhibits any technology advances which could be channeled into research and development.
3. To explain and identify the stimulus which caused the observer to submit his report as an unidentified flying object."

Now, any researcher on the subject will recognize the first two as near verbatim statements drawn from the Air Force Regulations, 200-2. In AFR 200-2, however, the statement reads that the Air Force interest is 'two-fold."  The third element is not listed

Interesting...

In 1973 UPI columnist Dick West will comment in one of his columns, titled "Credibility Gap."  Noting that the public had been assured repeatedly flying saucers were mere figments, people "stopped seeing them."   But, he went on, "those were the days when the government enjoyed a relatively high level of credence...If the government would lie about Vietnam and Watergate maybe it also was playing fast and loose with the truth about UFO's."

In 1964 in Detroit, Michigan, hundreds of citizens saw and heard a strange object in their skies. One night it woke them from their sleep. The Air Force response was a complex explanation that attempted to cover sightings from May 1 to late June."  The Blue Book summary page, that first file page that provides date, location, summary of case and the conclusion the AF reached, said that most of the sightings were due to a low flying aircraft equipped for infra-red photography mission and carrying a generator for Ac & DC curent to run various allied equipment. This was "probably" the answer and the case "evaluated as an aircraft" becuase it was the "most likely cause."  Other sightings were evaluated to be meteors, other aircraft, Venus, reflections of headlights off of fog, swamp gas,.

Several long newspaper articles, a lot of police work, and a lot of Air Force time that could have been avoided with a simple PSA stating that the AF would be using a plane to do some special projects so just ignore any lights or sounds you hear. They would get some complaints for people being awakened at 3:00 a.m. but.....a lot less overall paper work.

If, that is, that explanation holds any water in the first place.

The original of the regulation was issued 29 April 1952, then 12 August 1954, 5 February 1958, 14 September 1959, 20 July 1962 and then 19 September 1966.

THE AIR FORCE DID NOT APPROVE: THE 1956 UFO MOVIE

One of the files in the declassified Blue Book files is one labeled , Reviews of UFO Movie, 1956. In it was a memo that the AF was not to even post promotional posters on the movie in case it might be misconstrued that the AF had given approval or support to the film.

Done in a documentary style it is a fascinating look at the times and how people thought about the topic.