UFO FYI: June 24, 1947- Kenneth Arnold Sees Something

Kenneth A. Arnold (March 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minnesota – January 16, 1984 in Bellevue, Washington)
From WIKIPEDIA (abridged)

Kenneth A. Arnold was an American businessman and pilot. He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to see nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. Arnold described the objects' shape as resembling a flat saucer or disc (see quotes below), and also described their erratic motion as resembling a saucer skipped across water; from this, the press quickly coined the new terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc" to describe such objects, many of which were reported within days after Arnold's sighting. Later Arnold would add that the objects resembled a crescent or flying wing.

The U.S. Air Force formally listed the Arnold case as a mirage; this is one of many explanations that have been rebutted by critics, and researchers Jerome Clark and Ronald Story both argue that there has never been an entirely persuasive conventional explanation of the Arnold sighting.

On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying from Chehalis, Washington to Yakima, Washington in a CallAir A-2 on a business trip. He made a brief detour after learning of a $5000 reward for the discovery of a U.S. Marine Corps C-46 transport airplane that had crashed near Mt. Rainer. The skies were completely clear and there was a mild wind. A few minutes before 3:00 p.m. at about 9,200 feet (2,800 m) in altitude and near Mineral, Washington, he gave up his search and started heading eastward towards Yakima. He saw a bright flashing light, similar to sunlight reflecting from a mirror. Afraid he might be dangerously close to another aircraft, Arnold scanned the skies around him, but all he could see was a DC-4 to his left and back of him, about 15 miles (24 km) away.

About 30 seconds after seeing the first flash of light, Arnold saw a series of bright flashes in the distance off to his left, or north of Mt. Rainier, which was then 20 to 25 miles (40 km) away. He thought they might be reflections on his airplane's windows, but a few quick tests (rocking his airplane from side to side, removing his eyeglasses, later rolling down his side window) ruled this out. The reflections came from flying objects.

They flew in a long chain, and Arnold for a moment considered they might be a flock of geese, but quickly ruled this out for a number of reasons, including the altitude, bright glint, and obviously very fast speed. He then thought they might be a new type of jet and started looking intently for a tail and was surprised that he couldn't find any.

They quickly approached Rainier and then passed in front, usually appearing dark in profile against the bright white snowfield covering Rainier, but occasionally still giving off bright light flashes as they flipped around erratically. Sometimes he said he could see them on edge, when they seemed so thin and flat they were practically invisible. According to Clark, Arnold said that one of the objects was rather crescent shaped, while the other eight objects were more circular, but initially Arnold's descriptions were only of the latter disk-like shape.

At one point Arnold said they flew behind a subpeak of Rainier and briefly disappeared. Knowing his position and the position of the (unspecified) subpeak, Arnold placed their distance as they flew past Rainier at about 23 miles (37 km).

Using a dzus cowling fastener as a gauge to compare the nine objects to the distant DC-4, Arnold estimated their angular size as slightly smaller than the DC-4, about the width between the outer engines (about 60 feet). Arnold also said he realized that the objects would have to be quite large to see any details at that distance and later, after comparing notes with a United Airlines crew that had a similar sighting 10 days later (see below), placed the absolute size as larger than a DC-4 airliner (or greater than 100 feet (30 m) in length). Army Air Force analysts would later estimate 140 to 280 feet (85 m), based on analysis of human visual acuity and other sighting details (such as estimated distance).

Arnold said the objects were grouped together, as Ted Bloecher writes, "in a diagonally stepped-down, echelon formation, stretched out over a distance that he later calculated to be five miles". Though moving on a more or less level horizontal plane, Arnold said the objects weaved from side to side ("like the tail of a Chinese kite" as he later stated), darting through the valleys and around the smaller mountain peaks.

As the objects passed Mt Rainer, Arnold turned his plane southward on a more or less parallel course. It was at this point that he opened his side window and began observing the objects unobstructed by any glass that might have produced reflections. The objects did not disappear and continued to move very rapidly southward, continuously moving forward of his position. Curious about their speed, he began to time their rate of passage: he said they moved from Mt. Rainer to Mt. Adams where they faded from view, a distance of about 50 miles (80 km), in one minute and forty-two seconds, according to the clock on his instrument panel. When he later had time to do the calculation, the speed was over 1,700 miles per hour (2,700 km/h). This was about three times faster than any manned aircraft in 1947. Not knowing exactly the distance where the objects faded from view, Arnold conservatively and arbitrarily rounded this down to 1,200 miles (1,900 km) an hour, still faster than any known aircraft, which had yet to break the sound barrier. It was this supersonic speed in addition to the unusual saucer or disk description that seemed to capture people's attention.

Arnold landed in Yakima at about 4.00 p.m., and quickly told friend and airport general manager Al Baxter the amazing story, and before long, the entire airport staff knew of Arnold's claims. He discussed the story with the staff, and later wrote that Baxter didn't believe him.

He also wrote that some former Army pilots told him that they had been briefed before going into combat "that they might see objects of similar shape and design as I described and assured me that I wasn't dreaming or going crazy." Arnold wasn't interviewed by reporters until the next day (June 25) when he went to the office of the East Oregonian in Pendleton. Any skepticism the reporters might have harbored evaporated when they interviewed Arnold at length; as historian Mike Dash records:

Arnold had the makings of a reliable witness. He was a respected businessman and experienced pilot ... and seemed to be neither exaggerating what he had seen, nor adding sensational details to his report. He also gave the impression of being a careful observer ... These details impressed the newspapermen who interviewed him and lent credibility to his report.

Arnold would soon complain about the effects of the publicity on his life. On June 28 he was reported saying, "I haven't had a moment of peace since I first told the story." He then said a preacher had called and told him that the objects he saw were "harbingers of doomsday" and that the preacher was preparing his congregation "for the end of the world." But that wasn't half as bad as an encounter he had with a woman in a Pendleton cafe who looked at him and dashed out shrieking, "There's the man who saw the men from Mars." She ran out "sobbing she would have to do something for the children" Arnold was reported saying "with a shudder".He then added that, "This whole thing has gotten out of hand. I want to talk to the FBI or someone. Half the people look at me as a combination of Einstein, Flash Gordon and screwball. I wonder what my wife back in Idaho thinks."

Arnold's sighting was partly corroborated by a prospector named Fred Johnson on Mt. Adams, who wrote AAF intelligence that he saw six of the objects on June 24 at about the same time as Arnold, which he viewed through a small telescope. He said they were "round" and tapered "sharply to a point in the head and in an oval shape." He also noted that the objects seemed to disturb his compass.

The Portland Oregon Journal reported on July 4 receiving a letter from an L. G. Bernier of Richland, Washington (about 110 miles (180 km) east of Mt. Adams and 140 miles (230 km) southeast of Mt. Rainier). Bernier wrote that he saw three of the strange objects over Richland flying "almost edgewise" toward Mt. Rainier about one half hour before Arnold. Bernier thought the three were part of a larger formation. He indicated they were traveling at high speed: "I have seen a P-38 appear seemingly on one horizon and then gone to the opposite horizon in no time at all, but these disks certainly were traveling faster than any P-38. [Maximum speed of a P-38 was about 440 miles an hour.] No doubt Mr. Arnold saw them just a few minutes or seconds later, according to their speed."[9] The previous day, Bernier had also spoken to his local newspaper, the Richland Washington Villager, and was among the first witnesses to suggest extraterrestrial origins: "I believe it may be a visitor from another planet."

About 60 miles (97 km) west-northwest of Richland in Yakima, Washington, Mrs. Ethel Wheelhouse likewise reported sighting several flying discs moving at fantastic speeds at around the same time as Arnold's sighting.

When military intelligence began investigating Arnold's sighting, they found yet another witness from the area. A member of the Washington State forest service, who had been on fire watch at a tower in Diamond Gap, about 20 miles (32 km) south of Yakima, reported seeing "flashes" at 3:00 p.m. on the 24th over Mount Rainier (or the exact same time as Arnold's sighting), that appeared to move in a straight line. Similarly, at 3:00 p.m. Sidney B. Gallagher in Washington State (exact position unspecified) reported seeing nine shiny discs flash by to the north. A Seattle newspaper also mentioned a woman near Tacoma who said she saw a chain of nine, bright objects flying at high speed near Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately this short news item wasn't precise as to time or date, but indicated it was around the same date as Arnold's sighting.

However, a pilot of a DC-4 some 10 to 15 miles (24 km) north of Arnold en route to Seattle reported seeing nothing unusual. (This was the same DC-4 seen by Arnold and which he used for size comparison.)

The primary corroborative sighting, however, occurred ten days later (July 4) when a United Airlines crew over Idaho en route to Seattle also spotted five to nine disk-like objects that paced their plane for 10 to 15 minutes before suddenly disappearing. The next day in Seattle, Arnold met with the pilot, Cpt. E. J. Smith, and copilot and compared sighting details. The main difference in shape was that the United crew thought the objects appeared rough on top. This was one of the few sightings that Arnold felt was reliable, most of the rest he thought were the public seeing other things and letting their imaginations run wild. Arnold and Cpt. Smith became friends, met again with Army Air Force intelligence officers on July 12 and filed sighting reports, then teamed up again at the end of July in investigating the strange Maury Island incident.

A similar sighting of eight objects also occurred over Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 12, 1947. In this instance, a photo (left) was taken and published in the Tulsa Daily World the following day (photo at right). Interestingly, the photographer, Enlo Gilmore, said that in blowups of the photo, the objects resembled baseball catcher's mitts or flying wings. He was of the opinion that the military had a secret fleet of flying wing airplanes. He had been a gunnery officer in the Navy during the war, and using information from another witness, also a veteran, he performed a triangulation and arrived at an estimation of speed of 1,700 miles per hour (2,700 km/h), or essentially the same estimate as Arnold's. One of the objects, he said, seemed to have a hole in the middle.

Two or three photos of a similar, solitary object were taken by William Rhodes over Phoenix, Arizona on July 7, 1947, and appeared in a local Phoenix newspaper and some other newspapers. The object was rounded in front with a crescent back. These photos also seem to show something resembling a hole in the middle, though Rhodes thought it was a canopy.

Publicity and origins of term "flying saucer"

Starting June 27, newspapers first began using the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" to describe the sighted objects. Thus the Arnold sighting is credited with giving rise to these popular terms. The actual origin of the terms is somewhat controversial and complicated. Jerome Clark cites a 1970 study by Herbert Strentz, who reviewed U.S. newspaper accounts of the Arnold UFO sighting, and concluded that the term was probably due to an editor or headline writer: the body of the early Arnold news stories did not use the term "flying saucer" or "flying disc."

Years later, Arnold claimed he told Bill Bequette that "they flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water." Arnold felt that he had been misquoted since the description referred to the objects' motion rather than their shape. Thus Bequette has often been credited with first using "flying saucer" and supposedly misquoting Arnold, but the term does not appear in Bequette's early articles. Instead, his first article of June 25 says only, "He said he sighted nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation..."

The next day in a much more detailed article, Bequette wrote, "He clung to his story of shiny, flat objects racing over the Cascade mountains with a peculiar weaving motion ‘like the tail of a Chinese kite.' ...He also described the objects as 'saucer-like' and their motion 'like fish flipping in the sun.' ...[Arnold] described the objects as 'flat like a pie-pan and somewhat bat-shaped'." It wasn't until June 28 that Bequette first used the term "flying disc" (but not "flying saucer").

A review of early newspaper stories indicates that immediately after his sighting, Arnold generally described the objects’ shape as thin and flat, rounded in the front but chopped in the back and coming to a point, i.e., more or less saucer- or disk-like. He also specifically used terms like "saucer" or "saucer-like", "disk", and "pie pan" or "pie plate" in describing the shape. The motion he generally described as weaving like the tail of a kite and erratic flipping.

For example, in a surviving recorded radio interview from June 25, Arnold described them as looking "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." His motion descriptions were: "I noticed to the left of me a chain which looked to me like the tail of a Chinese kite, kind of weaving... they seemed to flip and flash in the sun, just like a mirror... they seemed to kind of weave in and out right above the mountaintops..."

The first investigation of Arnold's claims came from Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. William Davidson of Hamilton Field in California, who interviewed Arnold on July 12. Arnold also submitted a written report at that time. Regarding the reliability of Arnold's sighting, they concluded:

"It is the present opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold actually saw what he stated he saw. It is difficult to believe that a man of [his] character and apparent integrity would state that he saw objects and write up a report to the extent that he did if he did not see them."

Despite this, the Army Air Force's formal public conclusion was that Arnold had seen a mirage.

In addition, on July 9 AAF intelligence, with help from the FBI, secretly began an investigation of the best sightings, mostly from pilots and military personnel. Arnold's sighting, as well as that of the United Airline's crew, were included in the list of best sightings. Three weeks later they came to the conclusion that the saucer reports were not imaginary or adequately explained by natural phenomena; something real was flying around. This laid the groundwork for another intelligence estimate in September 1947 by Gen. Nathan Twining, commanding officer of the Air Materiel Command, which likewise concluded the saucers were real and urged a formal investigation by multiple government agencies. This in turn resulted in the formation of Project Sign at the end of 1947, the first publicly acknowledged USAF UFO investigation. Project Sign eventually evolved into Project Grudge, and then the better known Project Blue Book.

In a 1950 interview with journalist Edward R. Murrow, Arnold reported seeing similar objects on three other occasions, and said other pilots flying in the northwestern U.S. had sighted such objects as many as eight times. The pilots initially felt a duty reporting the objects despite the ridicule, he said, because they thought the U.S. government didn't know what they were. Arnold did not assert that the objects were alien spacecraft, although he did say: "being a natural-born American, if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extraterrestrial origin." Then he added that he thought everybody should be concerned, but "I don't think it's anything for people to get hysterical about." The first issue of Fate (1948) featured the article The Truth About The Flying Saucers by Arnold. In 1952 he described his experiences in the book The Coming of the Saucers, which he and a publisher friend named Raymond A. Palmer.

Recently in news, a team from the Northrop Grumman defense-contracting corporation used original Nazi blueprints (see re-created blueprints of Hitler's stealth fighter) and the only surviving Ho 2-29, which has been stored in a U.S. government facility for more than 50 years. This plane looks similar to the drawing made by Arnold. Its possible what Arnold actually saw was this secret German prototype which the US Army recovered after world War II.

The all-wing Ho 2-29 looked more like todays U.S. B-2 bomber (B-2 bomber picture)—or something from a Star Wars prequel—than like any other World War II aircraft. Made primarily of wood and powered by jet engines, the plane was designed for speeds of up to 600 miles an hour (970 kilometers an hour).

Armed with four 30mm cannons and two 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bombs, the planned production model was also meant to pack a punch.

A Ho 2-29 prototype made a successful test flight just before Christmas 1944. But by then time was running out for the Nazis, and they were never able to perfect the design or produce more than a handful of prototype planes.

Determining the Horten's stealth capabilities could help reveal what might have happened if the Ho 2-29 had been unleashed in force.

FOR MUCH MORE INFO ON KENNETH ARNOLD, VISIT WIKIPEDIA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold

(UFO Casebook) Although the history of UFOs can be traced back to early cave drawings, pictures, and folklore, the modern era of the study of UFOs is usually believed to be the 1947 sighting report of nine "flying saucers" made by pilot Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947. Arnold was aiding in the search for a missing plane when the sighting occurred. He did not believe his story would be believed, but swore that it was true. Arnold related his sighting to the Chicago Daily Tribune: "The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a mirror was reflecting sunlight at me..."

"I saw the flashes were coming from a series of objects that were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate...What startled me most at this point was...that I could not find any tails on them."

Arnold estimated that the objects were flying at an altitude between 9,500 and 10,000 feet, and at a great speed. After clocking them from Mt. Ranier to Mt. Adams, he arrived at an estimated speed of 1,200 miles per hour. "It seemed impossible," he said, "but there it is...I must believe my eyes." The term "flying saucer" was coined, not by Arnold, but a reporter. Arnold made the statement that the objects moved, "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." East Orengonian newspaper reporter Bill Bequette paraphrased Arnold's statement when he placed the story on the AP news wire. Arnold's term "saucer-like" became "flying saucers." The US military attempted to ignore the press reports of Arnold's sighting, but as the story grew, they felt compelled to take action. A meeting to discuss a course of action was held at the Pentagon on July 7, 1947, only a few days after the Roswell crash. Taking charge was Chief of the Army Air Force Air Intelligence Requirements Division, General Schulgen. The group made the decision to follow up on "qualified" observers' reports of flying discs. Three days later, Arnold received a request from Continental Air Command to appear for an interview, regarding his report. Two Counter Intelligence Corps investigators would carry out the investigation. The results of this session were included in Project Blue Book.

Arnold's report was one of the first of 850 different UFO reports to make US media by the end of July, 1947. More than anything else, Arnold was in the right place at the right time to forever be an important part of the history of UFOs.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/kennetharnold.html

Pilot Reports Seeing Mystery 'Aircraft' Over Coast Range
Sacramento Bee June 26, 1947

PENDELTON (Ore) June 26.-(AP)-Nine shiny objects flying at 1200 miles per hour over the Coast Range of Western Washington-that is what pilot Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Ida., reported he saw while on a routine flight over the mountains. He stuck to his story while fellow pilots openly scoffed at his report and experts said they had no explanation as to what the "objects" could be.
"It seems impossible, but there it is," Arnold insisted.

Calls Them Aircraft

He said they were bright, saucer like objects-he called them "aircraft"-flying at 10,00 feet altitude. A flash of reflected sunshine brought them to his attention, he asserted, and for a second he was stunned by their "incredible" speed.

He said he rolled down the window of his plane, thinking it might have caused the reflection, but he still saw them with the window down.

They flew with a peculiar dipping motion, "like a fish flipping in the sun," he said, and "they were extremely shiny, and when they caught the sun right it nearly blinded me."

Figures Speed

He reported they were about 25 to 30 miles away when first sighted flying north. He glanced at his instrument clock and timed them between Mount Adams and Mount Rainier, a distance of 47 miles.

It took 1:42 minutes, Arnold reported, added that after he landed, he got out a map and by triangulation figured the speed of the "objects" at 1200 miles per hour.

"I might have missed a second or two in my timing, but the speed still would be near 1,200 miles per hour," he asserted.

In Portland, the state senior Civil Aeronautics Administration Inspector, Edward Leach, said he doubted "that anything would be traveling that fast."

Size of Transport Plane

Arnold also said a DC4 was flying in the vicinity and he estimated that the "objects" were about the same size as the four engined passenger ships, although the "objects" did not have wings.

"One thing that struck me," he said, "was that they were flying so low. Ten thousand feet is very low for anything going at that speed."

He reported that they appeared to fly almost as if they were fastened together-if one dipped the others did too.

Maury Island "hoax": an early Men-In-Black incident three days before the Arnold sighting, in which a "donut-shaped object" dropped slag on a boat near Tacoma, Washington; the next day an MIB visited Harold Dahl, who was piloting the boat, and warned him not to discuss the sighting; the boat's owner, Fred Crisman, was suspected of being a CIA employee and was later called to give secret testimony at the trial of Clay Shaw in New Orleans; pilot Dahl disappeared and UFOlogist Arnold, who investigated the case, reported unexplained failure of his own plane's engine soon after two Air Force investigators were killed taking off from Tacoma's airport.

From About Dot Com
http://ufos.about.com/od/bestufocasefiles/p/arnold.htm

There have been UFO sightings ever since man roamed the Earth. There exist many paintings of centuries past that depict unusual flying objects in the sky. Folklore of many early peoples are filled with stories of strange objects flying through the skies. However, most Ufologists credit pilot Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting of 1947 as the beginning of the modern UFO age.

On June 24, 1947, businessman Arnold was using his plane to help search for a missing aircraft. He was flying over the Cascade mountains. As he scanned the landscape below him, he would notice some flashes in his eyes, like reflecting sunlight. He told the Chicago Daily Tribune, "The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a mirror was reflecting sunlight at me... "

Arnold soon found the source of the flashes - a series of fast moving objects. He described them as silvery and shiny. The most startling aspect of the object was a lack of a tail. The objects appeared to be shaped like a pie plate. This description almost certainly meant that the objects had a raised top, or cupola on them. This description very closely fit that of the large UFO photographed during The Battle of Los Angeles.

The stunned pilot was seeing something that he had never seen before in his many years of flying. He estimated the objects' altitude as between 9,500 and 10,000 feet. He began to clock their flight from Mt. Ranier to Mt. Adams. This information would be used to estimate the objects' speed at 1,200 mph, an unbelievable speed for the era.

"It seemed impossible," he said, "but there it is... I must believe my eyes."Although the term saucer was used in a 1930 UFO report in Texas, it was meant to show the relative size of the object from arm's length. Arnold told a newspaper reporter that the objects moved "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." Arnold was indicating how the objects bounced across the atmosphere, not the shape of the object, Yet, newspaper reporter Bill Bequette's report on the AP news wire used the term "flying saucer" to describe the objects' shape. A phrase was coined.

As was the custom of the day, the U.S. military, though aware of the Arnold report, at first tried to simply ignore the matter. But, the story broke big across the nation, and the military had to make some statement on the sighting. On July 7, a meeting was held to determine how to respond to the report.

Chief of the Army Air Force Air Intelligence Requirements Division, General Schulgen would head the group. Under pressure to give the public some reassurance, the decision was made to hear from "qualified" reporters of UFO sightings. In a couple of days, Arnold was called in for an interview. The results of this interview would earn a place in Project Blue Book.

Place in History: Although there had already occurred several excellent UFO cases before the Arnold sighting, his account will always have a place in UFO history. Over 800 reports would make U.S. media by the end of July, 1947 alone, and Arnold's was one of the most important.

FROM ANSWERS DOT COM:
http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-arnold

Skeptical explanations

One skeptical objection raised is that Arnold was suspiciously precise in his descriptions (for example, "approaching Mt. Rainier at about 107 degrees" and "passed almost directly in front of me, but at a distance of about 23 miles"), perhaps calling into question Arnold's reliability as a witness. However, Arnold's "about 107 degrees" was clearly not meant to be exact but an estimate, based on judging flight bearings from thousands of hours of flying experience. Arnold was also explicit from the beginning that his 23-mile (37 km) distance figure was based on seeing the objects momentarily disappear behind a sub-peak of Rainier of a known distance.

Skeptic Steuart Campbell has argued that the objects Arnold reported could have been mirages of several snow-capped peaks in Cascade Range. Campbell's calculation of the objects' speed determined that they were travelling at roughly the same speed as Arnold's plane, indicating that the objects were in fact stationary. Mirages could have been caused by temperature inversions over several deep valleys in the line of sight.[17] It is true that when Arnold had turned the plane so as to fly parallel to the apparent N-S course of the objects the relative bearing to very distant mountains would change at a much slower angular rate than the bearings to nearby peaks, i.e. as nearby landmarks fell aft of the left wing parallax would cause distant landmarks to be relatively displaced in the opposite direction. Because mirage affects visual elevation but preserves visual bearing, detached mirage images of distant peaks could appear to pace the plane. However, Arnold said that he first saw the objects crossing the nose of the plane at speed from N - S before he turned S in order to watch them through the open side canopy. Parallax does not explain this. He also said he saw the objects fly in front of Mt. Rainier; they could be seen in profile and also flashing brightly against the snowfields of Rainier. That would be impossible for mirages of mountain peaks dozens of miles away to the south. UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass[18] cited an article by Keay Davidson of the San Francisco Examiner in arguing that Arnold might have misidentified meteors on June 24, 1947. In rebuttal, optical physicist Bruce Maccabee pointed out a meteor theory would require impossibly slow speeds and durations for brightly glowing meteors on a horizontal trajectory.

James Easton was the first of several skeptics to suggest that Arnold may have misidentified pelicans: the birds live in the Washington region, are rather large (wingspans of over three meters are not uncommon), have a pale underside that can reflect light, can fly at rather high altitudes, and can appear to have a somewhat crescent-shaped profile when flying.

Similarly, Richard Carrier recently claimed to have seen the same UFOs as Arnold described, "ovoid objects flying in formation" "rotating along their axis of motion, like footballs, with one side black and one bright white, so they alternated in color while they spun." Then he realized it was an optical illusion and a flock of seagulls of which he misgauged the speed. He further claimed that Arnold's account showed that Arnold was incorrectly estimating his height, believing himself level to mountains four thousand feet below him giving him erroneous estimates of the level, distance, and speed of the objects. Birds unable to meet these erroneous estimates are ruled out by the minds eye as a possible explanations for the object and aren't recognized.

Rebutting the various bird explanations, Maccabee, argues it is physically impossible for a bird to be blindingly bright as reported by Arnold—the objects; brilliant brightness being what initially attracted Arnold's attention. Further, Arnold was flying at roughly 110 miles (180 km) an hour on a parallel course to the objects. Arnold reported the objects rapidly moving forward of his position as he observed them flying southward on a parallel course between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams. However, no bird could possibly fly faster than Arnold's plane; instead birds would have steadily moved backward, not forwards, relative to his position.

Donald Menzel's explanations

Donald Menzel was a Harvard astronomer and one of the earliest UFO debunkers. Over the years, he offered several mutually exclusive explanations for the Arnold's 1947 UFO sighting. Bruce Maccabee rebutted Menzel's explanations in a 1986 monograph, arguing that Menzel often left out data that conflicted with a given 'explanation'.

1. In 1953, Menzel argued that Arnold had seen clouds of snow blown from the mountains south of Mt. Rainier. Maccabee noted that such snow clouds have hazy light, not the mirror-like brilliance reported by Arnold. Further, such clouds could not be in the rapid motion reported by Arnold, nor would they account for Arnold first seeing the bright objects north of Rainier.
2. In 1963, Menzel argued that Arnold had seen orographic clouds or wave clouds; Maccabee noted that this conflicted with testimony from Arnold and others that the sky was clear, and again can't account for the brightness of the objects or their rapid motion over a very large angular region.
3. In 1971, Menzel argued that Arnold had merely seen spots of water on his airplane's windows; Maccabee notes that this contradicts Arnold's testiomony that he had specifically ruled out water spots or reflections shortly after seeing the nine UFOs. For example, the early Bill Bequette article of June 26 in the Pendleton East Oregonian has Arnold saying he at first thought that maybe he was seeing reflections off his window, but "he still saw the objects after rolling it down."
   

UFOs One Year at a Time: 1968

CLUJ, ROMANIA- 1968In the morning of August 18, 1968, Emil Barnea, a 45 year old construction technician, which had been an officer in the army, known for his integrity, and his girlfriend Zamfira Mattea, aged 34, employee in a charity organization, were taking a walk and went towards the wood of Hoia-Baciu, near the city of Cluj in Romania. They were accompanied by two other people, a man and a woman, who remained anonymous becasue they wanted their privacy respected.

The weather was splendid, and the four decided to stop and have lunch under the sun in a small clearing of the wood, close of the road from Cluj to Bucharest.

Emil Barnea went to seek seasoned wood for a campfire. There was no wind, and the only sounds were the birds singing.

He then heard his girlfriend calling to invite it to come see something which intrigued her. It was 01:23 p.m.

Barnea came back from the clearing and looked at what her girlfriend indicated to him: above the clearing where they were, there was a round craft in the sky, rather large, of metallic appearance, which reflected the sunlight as if it were silver plated. The machine slowly flew above the wood, without any noise.

Barnea then rushed towards his bag of which he extracted his camera, he estimated the lighting and the distance and took a first photography. As the machine went always rather slowly, it had more than enough time to take a second shot.

He noticed variations of luminosity of the craft, and its fluctuating flight.

At this time, the craft suddenly accelerated, going up, and Barnea had just the time to take two more photographs before the machine was too far away to be seen. His fourth photograph was never publicly published because the other couple appeared on it, and they really did not want to be identified. This fourth photography was nevertheless shown by Emil Barnea to ufologists Florin Gheorghita and Ion Hobana later, it shows the machine who had become very small in relative size and as lost in a sort of cloud.

The four witnesses had followed all the maneuvers of the machine, which had lasted approximately two minutes, and then stood quite some time in awe and not knowing what to say. At the end of a few days, the shock which this incident had caused them had dissipated. At the end of one week or two, the film roll in Emil Barnea's camera was finished, and he developed it and made some prints. he was hesitant as of what to do about the observation and of the photographs, knowing that people talking of flying saucers were generally ridiculed.

(From UFO Phenomenon at Close Sight)

FEBRUARY 28, 1968

At 7:45 p.m., February 28, the three-man crew of an Eastern Air Lines ferry flight from St. Louis to Miami saw a string of unknown lights that caused the pilot "to take evasive action." Traveling at 18,000 feet, Captain Robert F. Reilman, Flight Officer A. J. Farmer and Safety Officer Rick Morrison first noticed "a red flashing light" at their altitude. In his report to NICAP, the pilot said the light was at their 11:30 position about halfway between Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida. "Who's this at our 11:30 position?" Capt. Reilman asked a nearby control center. The center replied that they had been in communication with a plane 15 miles away. "Well, this guy isn't 15 miles away," the pilot replied.

"He's at 11:30, has one flashing red light and three - now four red lights strung out - one red light turned to green." At this point, Capt. Reilman "prepared to take evasive action." The center radioed back that they had spotted no targets on their radar scope. "Come on," Reilman responded, "he's going right by us at our 9:00 position." The center still replied that they had no targets and that no balloons were in the vicinity. "I dropped the subject and proceeded to Miami," the Captain concluded. Pacings of ground vehicles have often badly frightened the witnesses, showing that official debunking and denials have not abated fears of UFOs. If anything, they have increased such fears, since many citizens believe the facts are kept from them.

source: http://www.nicap.org/newlook/section_III.htm

Plaine des Caffres, La Réunion, France-- July 31, 1968:

http://ufologie.net/htm/plainedescafres1968.htm

On July 31, 1968, at approximately 9 hours in the morning, Luce Fontaine, a creole, a "drunk cowboy" according to sources making fun of the event and a farmer married to a shcoolteacher according to other sources, 22 years old, was gathering grass for his rabbits in a small clearing, at the center of an acacias wood at the location"Le Tampon" in the Plain of Cafres, Reunion island.

He said to have seen there, during about fifteen seconds, an object of oval shape, with a translucent center and dark blue ends, stationed four or five meters above him at a distance of 25 meters. The machine measured some 5 meters broad and 2 meters 50 height.

Of blue and white color, the object emitted a raw whitish light compared with that of an welder. Sorts of large feet of metal were above and below the machine:

Drawing in J.P. Lavilgrand's report.

In the center of the craft, behind the translucent part, Luce Fontaine saw two characters of the humanoid type, of approximately 90 centimetres in height, dressed from the feet to the head of a kind of bumpy cosmonaut suit, which he called the "Michelin babas" since they resembled the famous mascot of the tires manufacturer. The two beings carried sorts of helmets which partially masked their face.

At the end of a few seconds, the two beings seemed to realize the presence of Luce Fontaine, they turn their back to him and the machine disappears in a few seconds in a dazzling flash of light and a hot air blast.

Luce Fontaine, according to various local journalistic sources, is presented sometimes as "a farmer considered as sober and honest", or "a cowboy who was returning of a party where alcohol abunded." The accounts do not specify if it is him who spontaneously went to find the Gendarmes to report what he saw or if the gendarmes came to challenge the man about a spread story, in any event, the Gendarmes of the island noted his statement to them as:

"I saw during about fifteen seconds an object of ovoid shape stationed at four or five meters above the ground. The object emitted a light like that of an electric welder. It had four to five meters in diameter and approximately two meters and a half in hieght. It was blue and white in its upper and lower parts. I was incomodated by the powerful light, but I could nevertheless distinguish, behind a blue screen, two characters who seemed to me to measure approximately 90 centimetres. The two characters were in an astronaut's suit."

"They resembled two "Michelin Babas", one of them was showing his back whereas the other faced me. When these two kind of cosmonauts saw me, there was a white flash and the apparatus flew away."

His interrogation by the Gendarmerie, within the framework of the investigation directed by Gendarmerie Captain Maljean, of Saint-Pierre, did not end in the publication of a commonplace explanation nor in the exposure of a hoax and the reports are not classified.

After the investigation by the Gendarmerie, it was the director of the departmental service of fire and help, Captain Léopold Legros, who had some knowledge as regards nuclear power, chemistry and biology, who realized that Luce Fontaine's hat and trousers were radioactive in proportions higher than the natural rates. He had used the detection equipment of Gillot airfield to that effect.

Legros then inspected the sighting's premises and also detected an abnormal radioactivity there, on six specific points aligned three by three on the ground. In addition, Luce Fontaine had a bleeding nose during the eight days which followed his observation, but there was no other noted consequence on his health.

J.P. Lavilgrand, of Daint-Denis de la Reunion, was the first "civilian" ufologist to learn about the case and he published a report, followed by a report by Mr. Albany of the GEPA ufology group. Captain Legros told J.P. Lavilgrand about the radioactivity measured on the site:

"In a radius of five meters around the point flown over by the UFO, eight points of radioactivity caught our attention. On grass tufts, on stones, we detected up to 60 milliRöntgens."

These measurements are not alarming, but quite abnormal. J.P. Lavilgrand furthermore pointed out that the measurements were made 10 days after the events, and that the abundant seasonal rains might have washed up the ground. He also noted the statement of Luce Fontaine, as follows:

"I was at kilometer 21 in a small clearing in the center of a wood of acacias. Bent towards the ground, I collected grass for my rabbits that morning, when I suddenly saw in the clearing a kind of oval cabin 25 meters away of me, hovering at 4 or 5 meters of the ground. Its ends were dark blue, the center was clearer, more transparent, a little like the windshield of a 404 car. Above and below, there was like two feet of brilliant metal glass."

"In the center of the cabin, two individuals, stood with their backs turned towards. That of left turned the head and thus faced me. He was upright, small, 90 cm approximately, wrapped feet to head in a kind of suit like the Michelin man. The one at my right-hand side simply turned the head towards me, but I nevertheless had time to glimpse on his face, partly masked by a kind of helmet."

"Both then turned their backs at me, and there was a flash as violent as that of the electric spark of a welding machine. All became white around me, a strong heat came, then like a blow of air, and a few seconds later there was nothing any more."

"I then approached the place where the machine had been; there was no trace. This object measured 4 or 5 meters in diameter and 2 meters 50 of height approximately. It was of bluish color, white on the higher and lower parts. I told all that to my wife and to the gendarmes, all believed me immediately."

The story was published in the local press, under the heading: "Flying saucer in the Plain of Cafres? Radioactivity slightly higher than the normal noted on clothing of the single witness, a farmer named Luce Fontaine who claims: "Two Michelin men were in the apparatus"." It then came to the press in mainland France, with numerous articles in newspapers like "Centre-Matin", "Le Courier de l'Ouest", "l'Alsace", "Nice Matin", "Le Provençal", "L'Alsace ", "Nice Matin", "Le Provençal": obviously, the fact that the Gendarmerie had investigated, and the traces of radioactivity, made the journalists more comfortable on whether the event was worthy to be reported.

On the very spot of the observation, one of the most famous night clubs of La Reunion was later built, and called "The Flying saucer", and the story is now as much the subject of the gibes in the island as a minor classic of the ufologic literature:

The Flying Saucer: a discotheque in the outer limits It is the last house on the road of the Plains. In 1958, a named Luce Fontaine, cowboy, returning from a party where there was large amounts of alcohol, saw an unidentified flying object crash on its current site. The myth of the "Flying saucer" was born. Today and for forty years, inhabitants of the four corners of the island and all generations have perpetuated the myth while shaking their hips on java, tango and techno music. A dance hall not like any others, where couples form and split, and forget their daily concerns.

Several more times, and notably a few years later in 1975, the Michelin men and their flying saucer came back to visit the island of La Réunion.

ABOVE: Incident at Redlands, California (4 Feb 1968)
http://www.nicap.org/redlands.htm

 This case concerns the reported sighting by some
twenty observers of an object with seven lights on the bottom,
which appeared as jets, and a row of eight to ten lights on top
which were alternating in color.  The object was reported to have
proceeded at a low altitude (estimated about 300 feet) in a
northeasterly direction for about a mile, to have come to a stop
and to have hovered briefly, jerked forward, hovered again, then
to have shot straight upward, stopped, hovered again, then wavered
to the northwest, gained altitude, and then to have shot off to
the northwest with a strong burst of speed.  It was under
observation for about 5 minutes.  The object was estimated to have
been at least 50 feet in diameter.  The estimates of 300 feet
altitude and 50 feet must be considered jointly; only the apparent
diameter can be judged, of course, but on the assumption of a
given distance the estimate of 50 feet was arrived at.  Clearly,
if the object had been several miles away, the unchanged apparent
diameter would lead to an unbelievably large object.

Claremont, New Hampshire-Dome-Shaped Object Hovers 10 ft above Ground

source:
http://www.nicap.org/newlook/section_VI.htm

Early on the morning of July 30, 1968, a couple (names on file at NICAP) finished working on their new house in the Robert's Hill district of Claremont, New Hampshire and were preparing to retire. Some lights in the field back of the house, apparently about 200 feet away, attracted their attention and they went to the window to see what was going on.

To their astonishment, they saw a dome-shaped object hovering about 10 feet off the ground. The underside of the object was illuminated, and the light covered an area about 20 feet in diameter on the ground. Since they were in a fairly isolated area with no telephone (they had just moved into the house), the couple became frightened. They could hear a buzzing sound, like a transformer, coming from the object. The time was about 2:30 a.m.

Mr. and Mrs. John Meloney of the New Hampshire NICAP Subcommittee investigated the report in close cooperation with the Claremont police. In their interview with the couple, they learned that the UFO had remained over the field until about 4:30 a.m. Then the humming became very loud, the light grew to high intensity and the UFO moved away at a low angle upward to the west and disappeared. In the garage, the family dog whined loudly as the UFO departed. Two separate groups of witnesses have been located by the Subcommittee. The reports seem to indicate beyond a reasonable doubt that something unexplained was in the area.

UFOs One Year at a Time: 1956

Elizabeth Klarer (1910-1994)

(From Answers.com) Elizabeth Klarer was the most prominent flying saucer contactee of the 1950s from South Africa. She was born in 1910 in Mooi River, Natal, South Africa and rose out of obscurity in 1956 following an encounter with a spaceship reputedly from Alpha Centauri, of which she took a picture. She was received enthusiastically among South African UFO buffs who provided her with a platform to recount her encounters.

As Klarer's story unfolded, she claimed to have had an initial UFO sighting in 1917 and again in 1937. Finally, in 1954, while at her farm in Natal where she was born, she saw a saucer again. This time it flew close enough that she could see one of its occupants. Then on April 6, 1956, she was again at her farm in Natal when a saucer landed and she was taken aboard. The fair-haired and handsome person she had seen before introduced himself as Akon. The saucer took her to a large mothership, where she was shown pictures of Meton, Akon's home planet. She was given food, a vegetarian meal, and introduced to their culture. Two months later she saw the saucer again and took a picture of it as it flew above her farm.

She told this story at UFO gatherings in South Africa, and over the years reported additional contacts. The most important event in these later encounters was her developing romantic attachment to Akon, with whom she had a son. She claimed that at one point she stayed for four months on Meton and completed her pregnancy there. Her son could not live on Earth, but occasionally visited her. All of these events were discussed in her 1980 book, Beyond the Light Barrier. Although warmly received in South Africa, her story was not believed by North American and European UFO researchers. Except for the picture, weak evidence indeed, there was nothing to collaborate her story. She persisted in her claims, however, until her death in February of 1994.

Elizabeth Klarer

UFO Contactee and Space Traveler

Introduction and Interview by Stuart Bush ~ Transcribed and Edited by Noel Huntley, Los Angeles, California
http://www.esoteric-news.com/artman/publish/article_20.shtml
Copyright 2009 by Esoteric-News.com

Elizabeth Klarer was born in 1910 in Mooi River, Natal, where she grew up on a farm and soon learned to understand the Zulus very well. She was trained as a meteorologist at Cambridge, England. She later went to Trinity College, London, to study music, where she obtained a degree. She is also a pilot, and learned to fly the DeHaviland plane. During World War II she was employed by the South African Air Force Intelligence and during operations did work for the Royal Air Force decoding German communications. She was also trained to observe UFOs for the South African Air Force UFO Division. She has a son David, a daughter, Marilyn, who is now a medical specialist, and another son, Ayling ~ an astrophysicist living on another planet, which we will cover shortly.

Her fascinating story began at the age of seven when a flying saucer visited her near her home. Telepathic communication between Elizabeth and Akon, who was a crew member and scientist of the spacecraft, occurred several times. In April, 1956, on Flying Saucer Hill at Rosetta, Natal, the crew revealed themselves and Elizabeth Klarer was taken up into space and into the vintage mother ship. In November, 1957, on the high plateau of Cathkin Peak, in Drakensberg, Elizabeth Klarer entered the spacecraft to meet her new-found lover Akon.

During the next eight and a half months she endured harassment, especially from American intelligence forces, and on one occasion she was almost kidnapped by the Russians who wanted to capture the future space child. She was eventually taken by Akon to another solar system, our nearest neighbour, Alpha Centauri. There she stayed on the planet Meton for four months where she gave birth to and reared her space child, Ayling. Owing to the vibrations of the magnetic field being different on Meton, her heart was unable to adjust to the new pressures, and she was forced to return to Earth. Contact has been maintained and Akon and her son, Ayling, have both appeared to her visually in a projected holographic image.

In 1984 particular interest was shown in Elizabeth's experiences by the British Ministry of Defense and they announced that UFOs do exist and are now official. Elizabeth's story has attracted the attention of many countries, in particular, America, Britain and Russia. In 1975 she was given a standing ovation at the 11th International Congress for UFO Research in Germany. She was applauded by a group of scientists representing 22 nations where she gave a speech about the secrets of light. In 1983, she addressed the house of Lords in England, and her paper was also read at the United Nations. A few years ago she traveled to Switzerland to appear on a TV show. She has written a book entitled "Beyond the Light Barrier," and has now completed a second one, "The Gravity Files."

TO READ AN INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH KLARER, CLICK HERE

Movie Review UFO (1956) June 13, 1956
New York Times

Screen: 'Saucer' Story; Quasi-Documentary on 'Flying Objects' Bows

By A.H. WEILER Published: June 13, 1956

THE fact that truth can be more engrossing than fiction is quietly and effectively demonstrated in "Unidentified Flying Objects," which landed at the Mayfair yesterday.

Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse the producers, reportedly assembled their material over a period of two years. They have re-created in black-and-white and in heretofore classified color footage of "flying saucers" the astounding events that have perplexed and/or frightened civilians and the military alike since 1947.

If "Unidentified Flying Objects" is not as startling as an imaginary invasion by tiny, green men with pointed heads, it does, however, leave an impression of restrained documentation that is instructive and sobering.

Messrs. Greene and Rouse are concerned mainly with illustrating reports of unexplained aerial phenomena that have been seen and photographed, and showing that these observations have been verified by Air Force, Army and Navy experts. Specifically, their "story" is based on the experiences of Albert M. Chop, a Los Angeles newspaper man who was chief of the press section of the Air Material Command in Washington. He is played in an unadorned manner by Tom Towers.

Others portrayed in this quasi-documentary are Capt. Edward Ruppelt, who headed "Project Bluebook," the Air Force's designation of its official inquiry into "U. F. O.", and Maj. Dewey Fournet, Pentagon liaison officer. Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, Navy photographer, and Nicholas Mariana, Utah businessman, both of whom photographed "saucers" in flight, and Capt. Willis Sperry, American Airlines pilot who sighted them, "play" themselves.

Naturally, the color clips taken in Utah on July 2, 1952, by Newhouse and those shot by Mariana on Aug. 15, 1950, in Montana are of short duration. But the "objects"—seemingly small, silvery dots against a brilliant blue sky—are attested as genuine in the commentary of the principals.

The film-makers' meticulous depiction of the military's documentation has a tendency to slow matters. But through their obviously sincere effort to show that a vast majority of the more than 2,000 reports checked were proved erroneous, a viewer also would he inclined to go along with the disclosure that about 15 per cent of the reports are still officially designated as inexplicable: that, in effect, unidentified flying objects have been sighted. It must be noted too that the reproduction of the sudden appearance of a flight of fourteen giant, saucer-like, fantastically speedy unidentified "objects" over Washington International Airport in July, 1952, is more exciting than the foregoing investigations. But the alleged flight, as it is picked up on the radarscopes and as it nearly makes contact with jets sent up to intercept, has a theatrical tension and a spurious quality not present in preceding scenes.

"Unidentified Plying Objects" is not a specially imaginative example of movie-making. But in avoiding sensationalism the producers have given dignity to the "credible observations of relatively incredible things."

The Cast
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS, written by Francis Martin; directed by Winston Jones; produced by Clarence Greene; presented by Mr. Greene and Russell Rouse and released through United Artists. At the Mayfair.
Albert M. Chop . . . . . Tom Towers
Capt. Edward Ruppelt . . . . . Lieut. Robert Phillips
Maj. Dewey Fournet . . . . . Lieut. Floyd Burton
Radar Expert . . . . . Wendell V. Swanson
Mrs. Chop . . . . . Marie Kenna
Scientist . . . . . William Solomon
Nicholas Mariana . . . . . Himself
Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse . . . . . Himself
Capt. Willis Sparry . . . . . Himself
Editor . . . . . Gene Coughlan

1956: RADAR/VISUAL JET CHASE OVER BENTWATER, UK
(UFOs AT CLOSE SIGHT)

On the night of August 13-14, 1956, radar operators at two military bases in the east of England repeatedly tracked single and multiple objects which displayed high speed, as well as rapid changes of speed and direction. Two jet interceptors were sent up, and were able to see and track them in a brief series of maneuvers. According to official U.S. Air Force reports, the sightings could not be explained by radar malfunction or by unusual weather.

It began at 9:30 p.m. when Airman 2nd Class John Vaccare, of the U.S. Air Force at RAF Bentwaters, tracked one UFO on his Ground Controlled Approach radar (type AN/MPN-11A) as it flew 40-50 miles (65 to 80 km.) in 30 seconds, i.e. 4,800 to 6,000 mph (7,500 to 9,500 km./hr.).

A few minutes later Vaccare reported to T/Sergeant L. Whenry that a group of 12 to 15 unidentified targets was tracked from 8 miles (13 km.) southwest of Bentwaters to 40 miles (65 km.) northeast, at which time they "appeared to converge into one very large object, according to the size of the blip on the radar scope, which seemed to be several times larger than a B-36 aircraft [the largest operational bomber in history, with a wingspan of 230 feet or 70 m.]." The single large blip stopped twice for several minutes while being tracked, before flying off the scope.

At 10 p.m., a single unidentified target was tracked from Bentwaters as it covered 55 miles (90 km.) in just 16 seconds. This works out to over 12,000 mph (19,000 km./hr.).

Then, at 10:55 p.m., the Bentwaters GCA radar picked up an unidentified target on the same east-to-west course as the previous one, at an apparent speed of "2,000 to 4,000 mph" (3,200 to 6,400 km./hr.). Someone in the Bentwaters control tower reported seeing "a bright light passing over the field from east to west at about 4,000 feet [1,200 m.]." At about the same time, the pilot of a C-47 twin-engine military transport plane over Bentwaters said, "a bright light streaked under my aircraft travelling east to west at terrific speed." All three reports coincided.

Soon after, radars at Bentwaters and RAF Lakenheath reported a stationary object 20-25 miles (32-40 km.) southwest of the latter base. It suddenly began moving north at 400 to 600 mph (650 to 1,000 km./hr.), but "there was no build-up to this speed - it was constant from the second it started to move until it stopped." It made several abrupt changes of direction without appearing to slow for its turns.

Around 11:30 p.m., the RAF launched a deHavilland Venom jet interceptor, from RAF Waterbeach. According to the U.S. Air Force UFO report:

"Pilot advised he had a bright white light in sight and would investigate. At 13 miles [20 km.] west he reported loss of target and white light. Lakenheath (radar) vectored him to a target 10 miles [16 km.] east of Lakenheath and pilot advised (that) target was on his radar and was 'locking on.' Pilot then reported he had lost target on his radar.

"Lakenheath GCA reports that as the Venom passed the target on radar, the target began a tail chase of the friendly fighter. Radar requested pilot acknowledge this chase. Pilot acknowledged and stated he would try to circle and get behind the target. Pilot advised he was unable to 'shake' the target off his tail and requested assistance.

"One additional Venom was scrambled from RAF station. Original pilot stated: 'Clearest target I have ever seen on radar."

The following conversation between the two Venom fighter pilots was heard by the Lakenheath watch supervisor:

"Did you see anything?" [Pilot #2]

"I saw something, but I'll be damned if I know what it was." [Pilot #1]

"What happened?" [Pilot #2]

"He - or it - got behind me and I did everything I could to get behind him and I couldn't. It's the damndest thing I've ever seen." [Pilot #1]

The 1969 report by the Air Force-funded study at the University of Colorado under Dr. Edward U. Condon concluded:

"In summary, this is the most puzzling and unusual case in the radar-visual files. The apparent rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation of this sighting. However, in view of the inevitable fallibility of witnesses, more conventional explanations of this report cannot be entirely ruled out."