UFO News Article: “Ready Room Conversation”

15 February 1953

(Rocky Mountain Evening Telegram, Rocky Mountain,

North Carolina)

Source: NICAP.org

The article reports on the UFO sighting of Marine Second Lieutenant Eddy Paul Balocco, a fighter pilot.

Balocco flew 85 combat missions during the Korean War, mostly in F4U Corsairs, F9F Panthers and F2H Banshees, according to Airport Journals.

The UFO incident occurred over Washington, North Carolina, on the evening of 9 February 1953.

Quote from the article (NICAP.org does not present the last part of the article):

“The favorite conversation topic in the ready rooms of Second Marine Air Wing squadrons this week is speculation on the unidentified ‘object’ which outsped an F9F Panther jet flying more than 500 miles an hour Monday night.

The jet fighter, piloted by Marine First Lientenant Ed Balocco was on a local night flight from the Auxiliary Landing Field at Edenton, N.C. When alerted by the Norfolk (Va.) Navy Tower to watch for a silver object sighted from the ground near the North Carolina-Virginia line.

The lieutenant proceeded to the vicinity, flying at 20,000 feet, but sighted nothing during a half hour in the area. He then took a southerly course which took him over Edenton toward Cherry Point.

‘Over Little Washington (N.C.),’ the Marine Fighter Squadron-224 pilot’s statement, said ‘I saw what apparently looked like an airplane with red lights which appeared to be below me. What caused me to look back at the light was the fact it moved from below me 10,000 feet vertically in a matter of seconds.’

Hia attention focused on the object, Lieutenant Balocco proceeded full throttle (500 knots) towards it. ‘I didn’t gain anything at first,’ he commented, ‘and appeared to be just looking at it when my rate of closure was suddenly prominent.’

The object, at a distance of 10 miles, looked about a quarter of an inch wide and three inches long to the lieutenant’s vision. From that he considered it a ‘big’ object, the color of white heat and throwing out a glow. It had what appeared to be two red lights on the left-hand side, flashing and bouncing off the end, inscribing an arc.

The lieutenant’s rate of closure on the object was again stopped and it ‘seemed to just drop from my position’ in the direction of the Cherry Point coastline on a heading of 180 degrees. He then called on his radio for other planes in the area to help locate the craft.

Diving towards the spot where the object disappeared, Lieutenant Balocco thought he saw a flash but was unable to observe it again. By then he was joined by Captain Thomas W. Riggs, of the same squadron, who sighted an object flying low near the coastline but could not identify it.

Similar flashes were reported by a Navy pilot from Norfolk and Gerald Midget of Oriental, N.C. Mr. Midget told of the flash being followed by a ground fire but no explosion. Marine helicopters searched the area and found a small forest fire but not traces of a crash. 

The object was first reported …”

http://www.nicap.org/articles/530209washington_article.htm

Wikipedia article: “United States Marine Corps”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps

Wikipedia article: “Grumman F9F Panther”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F9F_Panther

Article: “Edenton Marine Corps Air Station (historical) in Chowan County NC” (northcarolina.hometownlocator.com):

https://northcarolina.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,3,fid,2091948,n,edenton%20marine%20corps%20air%20station.cfm

Related posts:

https://realtvufos.blogspot.com/2019/03/ufo-case-directory-sightings-from.html

realtvufos.blogspot.com/2019/03/ufo-news-article-true-tales-from-fred.html

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=February+1953

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1953

An F9F-3 Panther fitted with an experimental Emerson turret housing four 12.7 mm machine guns, in 1950 (text by Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org) (wikipedia.org photo)

Satellite photo of Washington, North Carolina (tageo.com)

(tageo.com photo)

UFO Case Directory (SIGHTINGS FROM AIRCRAFT): “F9F Chases Silver Object February 9, 1953 Washington, North Carolina”

(NICAP.org)

The whole UFO case report:

Evening Duration ??? F9F United States

Military 1+ observer No EMI No radar contact

“Richard Hall:

Evening. A Marine Corps fighter pilot, alerted by a Navy signal tower at Norfolk, Va., chased a silver object which had been sighted from the ground over an area near the Virginia-North Carolina border. After cruising in his F9F Panther for half an hour without seeing anything unusual, 1st Lt. Ed Balocco was returning to his base. ‘Over Washington, North Carolina,’ he said, ‘I saw what looked like an airplane with red lights which appeared below me. I was cruising at about 20,000 feet. What caused me to look back at the object was the fact that it moved from below me 10,000 feet vertically in a matter of seconds.’ He turned and chased the object at better than 500 mph., but was unable to gain on it. Balocco estimated the UFO was about 10 miles from him during the 3-4 minute chase. At that distance, he said, it appeared about 1/4" wide and about 3" long. ‘The object was the color of white heat and it threw out a red glow behind it. It had two red lights on the left hand side, bounding and flashing off the end, encircling an arc.’ The Marine officer said he seemed to gain on the object for a time, but it then dropped from his altitude and disappeared toward the coast. Another pilot involved in the search, Capt. Thomas W. Riggs, reported he sighted an object flying low near the Carolina coast, but couldn’t identify it. (Associated Press, February 12, 1953).”

http://www.nicap.org/530209washington_nc_dir.htm

Wikipedia article: “United States Marine Corps”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps

Wikipedia article: “Grumman F9F Panther”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F9F_Panther

Article: “Edenton Marine Corps Air Station (historical) in Chowan County NC” (northcarolina.hometownlocator.com):

https://northcarolina.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,3,fid,2091948,n,edenton%20marine%20corps%20air%20station.cfm

Related posts:

realtvufos.blogspot.com/2019/03/ufo-news-article-ready-room-conversation.html

realtvufos.blogspot.com/2019/03/ufo-news-article-true-tales-from-fred.html

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=February+1953

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1953

An F9F-3 Panther fitted with an experimental Emerson turret housing four 12.7 mm machine guns, in 1950 (text by Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org) (wikipedia.org photo)

Satellite photo of Washington, North Carolina (tageo.com)

(tageo.com photo)

UFO News Article: “True Tales From the Fred Baron - Seeing UFOs!”

May 2005

(Airport Journals, Centennial, Colorado)

Sources: UFO Newsclipping Service, Plumerville, Arkansas and AFU.se

The last part of the article reports on the UFO sighting of Marine Second Lieutenant Eddy Paul Balocco, a fighter pilot.

Balocco flew 85 combat missions during the Korean War, mostly in F4U Corsairs, F9F Panthers and F2H Banshees.

NOTE: NICAP.org reports that the UFO incident occurred over Washington, North Carolina, on 9 February 1953 (nicap.org), and not on 11 February 1953. The Norfolk (Virginia) Navy Tower only sighted the UFO visually from the ground (not on radar), according to a Rocky Mount Evening Telegram article (nicap.org) and NICAP.org (nicap.org).

Quote from the article (Page 8):

“About six years ago he told me of his encounter with a real UFO. After returning from the Korean police action, Ed was a first lieutenant stationed at Edenton, N.C., a small Marine fighter base about 100 miles southwest of Norfolk, Va. Norfolk was—and still is—a major naval and air base on the East Coast. By that time, Ed, only 24 years old, bad some 1,000 hours of pilot time, mostly in fighter jets.

On Feb. 11, 1953, just a week after a flurry of UFO sightings in the Norfolk area, he was the only pilot on the base on intercept-ready status at about 10 p.m.

‘I was riding around the base in a Jeep, when the alert whistle sounded,’ he recalled. ‘I sped out to my waiting F9F Panther jet and in less than two minutes, I was beading toward Norfolk.’

Flying with his external lights off, he was being vectored toward an unknown flying object spotted by Norfolk radar. As he neared where the object was supposed to be, that object suddenly dropped off Norfolk’s radar screen.

‘I had no radar in my Panther, so I searched visually, and began running low on fuel,’ he said. ‘I got approval to return to Edenton.’

As he proceeded south at 20,000 feet, with his outside running lights turned on, he spotted a bright light well below him on the port side, near the ocean surface.

‘I looked away for a couple of moments to steady my course for Edenton and when I looked back through the windscreen, I was astonished to find that the object had climbed vertically to my altitude and was only about 2,000 teet away and almost directly ahead of me,’ he remembered.

He quickly adjusted his heading to aim right at the UFO and increased his speed to more than 500 miles an hour. As he got closer, he could clearly see that the UFO was disk-shaped with blinking red lights.

‘I guess it was my Korean combat experience, but my reaction was to squeeze the trigger on my control stick to blast this ‘enemy.’’ he said.

Nothing happened. The guns were empty!

‘With full throttle, I got to about 350 feet from the UFO when my entire cockpit was bathed in a strong, blue-white light,’ he recalled. ‘Everything seemed to be motionless.’

As he glanced at his gloved hand on the throttle, he was shocked to discover that he could see through the glove, and the flesh, to see the bones of his hand.

‘lt was like an X-ray,’ he said. ‘For what I think was several seconds there was no sound—not even the sound of my engine. Suddenly, there was a flash, and the UFO broke away at incredible speed, as sound and motion returned.’

As reported by newspapers in the following days, a similar flash was seen by a Navy pilot over Norfolk and a civilian near Oriental, N.C. Marine helicopters searched where the flash was seen, but found nothing. Ground-controlled interceptors with radar also failed to make contact after a helicopter spotted the mysterious object south of Norfolk earlier in the day.

On his return to Edenton, Ed was whisked to Cherry Point, the headquarters for Marine Air on the East Coast, and subjected to an intense debriefing by several Marine colonels and others for several hours. He was told in no uncertain terms to say absolutely nothing about the incident.

‘There were other UFO sightings that night, and the Marines were really concerned,’ he said.”

http://files.afu.se/Downloads/Magazines/United%20States/UFO%20Newsclipping%20Service/UFO%20Newsclipping%20Service%20-%202005%2007%20-%20no%20432.pdf

Wikipedia article: “United States Marine Corps”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps

Wikipedia article: “Grumman F9F Panther”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F9F_Panther

Article: “Edenton Marine Corps Air Station (historical) in Chowan County NC” (northcarolina.hometownlocator.com):

https://northcarolina.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,3,fid,2091948,n,edenton%20marine%20corps%20air%20station.cfm

Related posts:

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=February+1953

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1953

An F9F-3 Panther fitted with an experimental Emerson turret housing four 12.7 mm machine guns, in 1950 (text by Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org) (wikipedia.org photo)

Satellite photo of Washington, North Carolina (tageo.com)

(tageo.com photo)