Part 5

Although the newspapers published a full explanation within a day or two, some saucer enthusiasts continued to treat the apparition as a mystery. In its _Special Bulletin_ for May the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (see _Chapter_ XIII) included the incident under “Recent UFO Sightings.” Three months after the launching the organization conceded (_UFO Investigator_, July-August, 1960) that the UFO of April 1 was probably the giant balloon sent up from Wallops Island.

On August 12, 1960, the counterpart of this balloon went into orbit and became the satellite Echo, which is still circling the earth, shining like a star of the first magnitude near dawn or sunset.

_Weather Balloons and Saucers_

In the early years of the saucer era balloons accounted for some 25 per cent of the unidentified flying objects reported to ATIC. The pattern of these sightings is unmistakable, and the identity of balloon and UFO is often certain--as certain as any evidence can be. Nevertheless many such identifications are resolutely rejected by the saucer enthusiasts. It would be pointless to discuss all the UFO reports of this class, but we can summarize a few of the most famous.

In the winter of 1953, a flying saucer was reported to have circled around a B-36 bomber and blinked a light as though signaling. Investigators from ATIC determined the following facts:

At 1:13 A.M. on February 6, 1953, the pilot of a B-36 plane bound for Spokane, Washington, was near Rosalia when he sighted a round white light below him, circling and rising at a speed estimated at 150 to 200 knots as it proceeded on a southeast course. The B-36 made a sharp descending turn toward the light, which was in view for a period of three to five minutes, but the pilot could not identify it.

At 1 A.M., thirteen minutes before the sighting, the United States Weather Bureau station at Fairchild Air Force Base had released a pibal balloon. Winds aloft at altitudes of 7000 to 10,000 feet were from the northwest with a speed of about fifty knots. Computations showed that the existing winds would have carried the balloon to the southeast, and it would have been over Rosalia, which is 12.5 nautical miles southeast of Fairchild Air Force Base, in about fifteen minutes. The plane sighted the unknown near Rosalia thirteen minutes after the launching. The balloon carried white running lights which accounted for the blinking described, and the circling climb of the UFO is typical of a balloon’s course. Thus all the evidence supports ATIC’s conclusion that the UFO was a weather balloon[III-2].

A similar sighting had occurred near Hamilton Air Force Base, California, on the afternoon of August 3, 1952--toward the end of the summer’s saucer scare (_Chapter_ VII)--when several pairs of saucers supposedly engaged in dramatic duels in full view of the base. Ample evidence supports the Air Force conclusion that the UFOs were balloons. The two objects were first seen at 4:15 P.M. Ground observers at the Air Force base, with the aid of binoculars, described them as silver in color, circular in shape, 60 to 100 feet in diameter, and traveling from east to west at an estimated speed of 400 to 450 miles an hour. One object was at about 12,000 feet, the other at about 18,000 feet; as they moved to the west a distance of about fifteen miles, passing over the heads of the observers (but not circling the base), the higher object dived to about the level of the lower, and they bobbed about each other for about an hour and a quarter. Toward the end of this period they were visible only intermittently because they were seen against the sun. Three additional pairs of objects (a total of eight) came into view fifteen to twenty miles west of the observers and, buffeted by the winds, appeared to carry on a dogfight; momentarily they appeared in a “diamond” formation extending over an area of about four miles. Since the witnesses were looking into the sun at objects fifteen or twenty miles away, they found it difficult to follow the course of any one for any length of time.

The objects looked like balloons, behaved like balloons, and weather balloons had been released in the area that day. Conclusion: the saucers were weather balloons[III-2].

A number of other publicized cases listed as “Unknown” were in all probability balloons. Since a probability, however good, is not the same as an established fact, these sightings remain in the Unknown category even though their actual explanation is reasonably certain. Such a case was that near Hermanas, New Mexico, which, like that a few weeks earlier at Hamilton Air Force Base, may have been stimulated by the 1952 saucer panic in Washington (_Chapter_ VII).

On August 24, 1952, an Air Force colonel was flying from California to Georgia in an F-84-G plane at an air speed of about 290 miles an hour. At 10:15 A.M. M.S.T., when near Hermanas, New Mexico, he observed two round, silvery objects about six feet in diameter some two miles north of him and traveling east at high speed; they showed no trail or exhaust. During the three minutes they were in view, one object suddenly began a right turn while the second accelerated rapidly; they changed in shape and in color, became elongated and gray, and then disappeared. A few minutes later over El Paso, Texas, he saw two similar silvery objects, also traveling east. During the ten minutes they were in view, one object seemed to climb straight up for 2000 or 3000 feet, followed immediately by the second one. Assuming that the same pair of objects was involved in both sightings, the observer concluded that they were going much faster than any plane, and reported the incident to ATIC.

The behavior described is typical of that of balloons. Rising into a new wind stream, they may move rapidly and change their orientation so that they look sausage-shaped instead of round; reflecting the sun at a different angle, they look gray rather than silver. Investigators checked with Biggs Air Force Base, White Sands, and El Paso International Airport; both White Sands and El Paso had released weather balloons at 8:00 that morning which had traveled southeast and burst some time before the sighting at Hermanas. Since no single recorded balloon could account for the sighting, it was listed as Unknown[III-2].

This inquiry can scarcely be called thorough. No check seems to have been made at Holloman Air Force Base or at more distant bases whose weather balloons might well have traveled into the area. The investigators apparently accepted the pilot’s assumption that the objects in the two sightings were identical and were therefore traveling at incredible speeds; yet there was no evidence to support the assumption. It is far more probable that he was observing two sets of objects, not one. The estimates of size, distance, and speed are all uncertain because no fixed reference point existed. The report does not state whether the objects seemed to be above or below the plane, and does not give the exact heading of the objects.

The objects looked and behaved like balloons. Another possibility is that they were fragments from the balloons that had burst earlier. But the explanation of this incident remains unknown because too few facts were determined.

_Plastic UFOs and the “Stack of Coins”_

A burst balloon has caused many a saucer scare, but the invasion of Farmington, New Mexico, on Saint Patrick’s Day 1950 was one of the most dramatic. The “saucers” began to fly about 10:15 A.M. M.S.T., and soon filled the air. In numbers estimated from 500 to thousands, for the next hour the gleaming saucer-shaped objects soared over the town, moving erratically at incredible speeds, darting in and out among each other in what one writer has called “the greatest exhibition of magnetic flight that has ever happened in this universe.”[III-6] (See _Chapter_ IX.)

The explanation is more prosaic. A Skyhook balloon had been launched that morning from Holloman Air Force Base near White Sands, New Mexico. Near Farmington, in the cold atmosphere at 60,000 feet the balloon had become brittle, burst, and disintegrated into hundreds of tiny pieces of plastic. Light as feathers, shining in the sunlight, they floated over the town and away[III-1, p. 106].

A similar episode occurred on July 27, 1952, the day after the second Washington “invasion.” The dramatically named “stack of coins” sighting at Manhattan Beach, California, was reported by an aircraft engineer, formerly a Navy pilot, and was confirmed by seven other witnesses.

At 6:35 P.M. P.S.T., just before sunset, a bright silvery object appeared high in the sky, elliptical in shape and apparently solid. The size was estimated to be about that of a dime held at arm’s length. As the observers watched, it turned to the south and gracefully broke apart into seven smaller objects, as smoothly as a stack of coins separating. The three lead objects assumed a V position, the others followed in two pairs, and the whole formation then turned northeast and quickly disappeared. ATIC investigators, still buried in a mass of equally spectacular reports, could provide no solution to the mystery, and another fleet of saucers had apparently been added to the summer’s list.

Immediately concluding that the objects were from outer space, UFO-philes pondered the meaning of the incident. One author suggested that the disks might have been seven different ships that, when first observed, had been stacked like coins and attached to each other by some magnetic force, so that all could be directed as one[III-5].

This sighting has remained technically an unknown chiefly because the descriptions fail to give the necessary information. What direction did the object come from? How long was it in sight? What balloons had been released in the area that day? At what time? What were the winds at high altitudes? The winds at low levels were from the west, and at altitudes from 20,000 to 50,000 feet they were from the east; but what were they in the region above 70,000 feet, the probable location of the object? Even without these facts, a reasonable explanation can be offered: the unknown was a radiosonde balloon that burst at a high altitude.

The sun was low on the western horizon. A balloon at a great height reflects the sun brilliantly from its rubber or plastic skin and gleams like a giant metallic sphere. These balloons usually soar to 70,000 to 90,000 feet before they burst from the cold. The fragments then disperse in an impressively uniform pattern, and may disappear quickly. The radiosonde package and attached parachute fall rapidly at such heights. They are not noticed by the witnesses because the chute usually does not open fully until after the package has fallen some distance into the beginning twilight near the earth’s surface.

This explanation of the “stack of coins” cannot be proved, of course, but every detail of the incident is consistent with the behavior of a bursting balloon[III-2].

_Jets and Contrails_

Weather balloons are not the only air-borne objects that have been mistaken for interplanetary craft. Flying saucers reported over Durango, Colorado, early in August 1952 turned out to be four T-33 Air Force jets flying at 30,000 feet, so high that no sound reached the ground.

A low-flying jet, enveloped in an aura of cloud made by the jet itself, can look like a strange object. This condensation phenomenon, called a contrail, occurs when areas of low pressure develop on the wing surface; the air cools by expansion in the slowly moving boundary layer in contact with the wing. Both the depth of the boundary layer and the drop in pressure increase with increasing air speed, but each depends very closely on the aerodynamic qualities of the wing. An excellent photograph of one such disk produced by a Canberra jet was taken on February 4, 1956, along the coast of Africa near Accra on a morning when the condensation phenomenon occurred several times during air maneuvers. The weather was fine, the sky cloudless with a few patches of haze over the sea, and visibility was more than eight miles. During the display the air speed of the jets was usually too low or the air too dry for the aura to form. “But over the cliff edge where the sea-breeze was just beginning to break through in patches the air would be moist enough to condense about 1½ gm. of water droplets in each cubic metre of air, quite sufficient to produce the observed effect. The effect is increased by higher speeds at the end of a dive (when the angle of incidence of the aerofoil is least) ... but it is likely that the patchy onset of the sea-breeze was the most important contributing factor.”[III-7]

A flying saucer reported from Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 11, 1958, belongs in this category. Hundreds of witnesses reported a mysterious starlike object maneuvering in the northern sky on three successive nights at speeds in excess of 2000 miles an hour. Most observers agreed that “The Thing” could not have been any known aircraft because its speed was too great; it sometimes hovered stationary in the air, and repeatedly changed color from white to red to deep scarlet. One member of an Interplanetary Club who watched it through binoculars described the UFO as saucer-shaped, with a rim like a soup plate around the edge.

Members of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Minitrack Station, near Johannesburg, were amused by the variety of reports on “The Thing.” The mysterious object in the night skies was in fact a South African Air Force Dakota aircraft, flying back and forth so that the Minitrack Station could test the calibration of its tracking instruments. In addition to the usual navigation lights, the aircraft had carried a bright, flashing light so that it could be photographed[III-7a].

A flight of bombers refueling in mid-air at night can be a startling spectacle and more than once has been reported as a gathering of flying saucers.

Such an incident occurred in Florida on October 31, 1955, when a disk jockey at Gainesville broke into his radio program about ten o’clock in the evening to announce that flying saucers were over the station. Many of his listeners hurried out of their houses to look at the Halloween visitors, clearly visible in the night sky. One reporter stated that he had seen four to six objects, oblong in shape, brilliantly glowing, red and orange, traveling soundlessly in a straight-line formation that later changed to a V[III-8]. Both the radio station and the police station were swamped with telephone calls from frightened citizens, most of whom calmed down when they learned the explanation: a flight of bombers had been refueling at an altitude of 32,000 feet.

_The Killian Case_

The most famous UFO sighting of this type is the Killian case. On the evening of February 24, 1959, an American Airlines plane was flying from Newark to Detroit. At about 8:45 P.M., when the plane was near Bradford, Pennsylvania, the pilot, Captain Killian, noticed some puzzling lights above and to the left of his plane. There seemed to be three, their colors changing from yellow to light orange, dimming and brightening in intensity and shifting their relative positions. At first he supposed he was looking at the constellation Orion, for the lights had the same configuration as the stars in Orion’s “belt,” but when the lights changed position and he could see Orion itself in addition to the lights, he discarded his first theory. He considered the possibility of a jet tanker refueling operation, but decided the lights were moving too slowly. He couldn’t think of any ordinary explanation--but he had long wondered what truth there was in the idea of flying saucers and had thought there must be something to it.

Over the loud speaker he remarked to the passengers that American Airlines had a special treat for them which they could see by looking out of the left windows. He continued to watch the lights as he flew west toward Detroit, and radioed two other American Airlines planes in the area. Learning that their pilots were also watching the unusual spectacle, he notified Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Detroit. The lights remained in view for about forty minutes, all the way to Detroit, and the pilot lost sight of them only when he began to let down through the haze for a landing.

Reporters and photographers were waiting to interview him, and next day’s Detroit _Times_ carried a banner headline, “Mystery Discs Trail Plane Here,” over a picture of Captain Killian flanked by the plane’s two pretty hostesses, all three smiling as they held up to the camera three ordinary kitchen saucers[III-9]. After checking with the Detroit ATC, who did not know of any scheduled refueling operation, the pilot reported his experience to officials of American Airlines, and next day returned to New York where again he was besieged by reporters and photographers. Meanwhile, following standard CIRVIS procedure (Communication Instruction for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sighting from Aircraft), the manager of operations of American Airlines reported the incident to ATIC at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

In New York the day after the sighting Captain Killian gave a telephone interview to Radio Station WCHS, Charleston, West Virginia, describing his experience. Following the customary procedure, intelligence officers from Mitchell Air Force Base questioned him and filled out the usual report form[III-2]. In the radio interview and in the talk with intelligence officers Captain Killian made the same statements he had made to American Airlines officials: he didn’t know what the lights were, and he couldn’t tell how far away they had been because he didn’t know their size or their altitude[III-10].

Not for months had such a good flying-saucer story appeared, and the newspapers made the most of it. Among the first to assert that the unknown lights had been flying saucers was the UFO Research Committee of Akron, Ohio (see _Chapter_ XIII). Members of the committee had received the news by telephone, even before Captain Killian’s plane landed at Detroit, from the pilot of a United Airlines plane who had watched the lights on his flight to Akron. During the days following, Captain Killian’s copilot gave an interview on Long John Nebel’s after-midnight radio program in New York. Captain Killian himself described the UFOs to members of a New York UFO organization, Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI), and appeared on several radio and TV programs. Both saucer addicts and newsmen besieged Air Force representatives, demanding an immediate explanation of the sighting. Finally, on February 28, only two days after receiving the report from American Airlines, ATIC yielded to public pressure and produced a tentative theory: it was possible that the pilots might have sighted the stars of Orion, as Captain Killian had first suggested. However, the release added, no definite conclusion could be reached until all the facts had been studied.

Promptly rejecting the possibility that he might have been looking at Orion, Captain Killian stated in an interview with the New York _Herald Tribune_, “I am sure there are people on other planets and that they have solved the problem of space travel.... I sincerely believe that their vehicles are coming close to earth.”

While the saucer believers were keeping the story alive, applauding Captain Killian and denouncing the Air Force, the experts at ATIC had been collecting facts and trying to analyze them. The basic piece of evidence was Captain Killian’s own report to American Airlines, made a few hours after the incident took place. After describing the circumstances of the sighting, the appearance and behavior of the lights, the statement continues:

“The only possible explanation other than flying saucers could be a jet-tanker refueling operation. Never having witnessed refueling operations at night, I am not aware of the lighting of the jet tanker.

“My air speed during this complete flight was 250 knots indicated. I also do not know the air speed of tankers during operation if this could be so. I contacted ATC to find out if they had any airplanes on a clearance and no three airplanes were given.

“In summary, it was difficult for me to believe they were jets because of low speed and configuration. If they weren’t jets I still don’t know any more than I did before even though I watched them for forty minutes before. Due to the dark and strong lights I was not able to ascertain any size or shape. The altitude of the objects was 30 degrees above my horizon. Distance away is unknown.”[III-2]

Almost equally important was the evidence of other witnesses. During the forty-minute period of observation, the crews of five other planes, all flying west in the Pennsylvania-Ohio region, had watched the lights for varying lengths of time. Several persons on the ground in and near Akron had seen them between 9:15 and 9:30.

Air Force investigators methodically gathered the facts and made their analysis and on March 16, only twenty days after the sighting, they released a summary to the press. The mysterious lights belonged to normal terrestrial aircraft. Although ATC at Detroit had apparently not had the information when first asked, three B-47 bombers of the Strategic Air Command had been carrying out a night refueling operation from KC-97 tankers at the time and place reported. The tanker has several groups of lights which, from a distance, can seem to be one or more lights, and would have looked very much like the three objects described by Captain Killian. Such a refueling operation takes from about forty minutes to more than an hour.

Captain Killian had been flying at an altitude of 8500 feet, and he had given the location of the unknowns as 30 degrees above his horizon; this agreed with the position of the tankers, which were operating at an altitude of 17,000 feet. Captain Killian had been flying west at an indicated air speed of 250 knots; the refueling tankers had also been flying west at a true air speed of 230 knots (ca. 270 mph). Since the courses of plane and tankers were roughly parallel, the tankers had remained in view and would have arrived over Akron at about 9:15, the time that ground observers reported the lights.

Everything checked. Every detail of the incident was accounted for[III-11]. Nevertheless the solution caused an explosion in the camps of the saucer enthusiasts, who called it, among other things, imaginative. Forgetting that the “Orion” theory suggested immediately after the sighting had been only tentative, UFO addicts ridiculed it and asked why the experts had later offered a different explanation--which they greeted with equal ridicule[III-12].

Captain Killian, too, had apparently forgotten his first report. On March 24, a month after the sighting, in an interview by the Long Island _Daily Press_ he stated that the things he saw could not have been tankers; that he knew what B-47 bombers and KC-97 tankers looked like, and how they looked in operation at night (Original statement to American Airlines: “Never having witnessed refueling operations at night, I am not aware of the lighting of jet tankers.”) Also, he told the _Daily Press_, the objects he saw were at least triple the size of any known tanker or bomber. (Original statement to American Airlines: “Due to the dark and strong lights I was not able to ascertain any size or shape.”) Furthermore, he asserted, the unknowns had been far too fast for a tanker, and had moved at a speed of about 2000 miles an hour. (Original statement to American Airlines: “... it was difficult for me to believe they were jets because of low speed.”)