Website: National Investigations Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP.org):
(Search term: “Air Force Base”)
(“Air Force Bases”)
(“AFB”)
(“AFBs”)
(“Air Force
St ation”)
(“AFS”)
(“Air St ation”)
(“SAC (Strategic Air Command) Base”)
(“SAC Bases”)
(“Air Base”)
(“Air Bases”)
UFO case directory:
“Group /Category 9 - Radar Case
Late 1956”
(NICAP.org)
The whole UFO case report:
“Richard Hall:
Features: Aerial encounter, Air Force interceptor ‘cat-and-mouse’
UFO pursuit, partial radar confirmation, evidence of official cover-up.
A.A. and J.R., Air Force interceptor pilots (now
United Air Lines pilots), were flying F-86’s near Modesto, California, on alert
duty due to civilian UFO reports in a nearby town. As they were vectored toward
the town, a call came instructing them to return to the base because a UFO was
visible from the control tower. Turning on the afterburners, they closed
rapidly on a luminous elliptical object that alternately moved above and below
a cloud cover at 10,000 to 12,000
feet as if to elude them. The pilots positioned
themselves one above and one below the clouds and took turns chasing the UFO as
it emerged on their side of the clouds.
During the chase they saw the UFO from various angles,
sometimes closing to within an estimated few hundred yards before it
accelerated away from them again. In plan form, the UFO appeared circular.
Ground radar at Madera
was tracking the F-86’s, but not the UFO. Both pilots got transient returns
from their airborne radars, but were puzzled by the curious way in which they
lost the echo almost as soon as they picked it up.
Running low on fuel, A. A. started descending to land.
When he looked back up and saw that the UFO was now following his wing mate, he
elected to go back up despite his fuel situation. Then the UFO shot off and
disappeared in the distance terminating the sighting. The pilots were debriefed
by several officers flown in from another base who seemed to be seeking ‘confirmation
not information,’ as if they knew just what they wanted to find out. The pilots
were told not to discuss the sighting with each other, nor to make any kind of
statement about it. Local citizens, who had seen the UFO and heard the roaring
jets, were told that the pilots had been chasing ducks or geese.
Special significance: Numerous cases are known to the
author in which military witnesses were debriefed by officers who displayed
detailed knowledge of UFOs and sometimes carried notebooks of UFO photographs
and drawings for identification purposes.”
Wikipedia article: “Castle Air Force Base”:
Related posts:
USGS digital orthophoto of Castle
Airport (formerly Castle Air Force
Base) in Merced , California , United States
(text by Wikipedia) (wikimedia.org) (wikimedia.org photo)
(text by Wikipedia) (wikimedia.org) (wikimedia.org photo)