U.F.O. Investigator, July 1957, Vol. I, No. 1
(National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, Washington, D.C.)
Source: NICAP.org
The whole article:
“CERTIFICATION BY MEMBERS OF THE
NICAP BOARD OF GOVERNORS
‘I certify I have seen the signed reports dated April 22 and May 18,
1957, describing the radar tracking of four UFO’s at speeds up to 3600 miles per hour.’
(Signed)
Reverend Albert Baller, Robbins
Memorial Church,
Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Earl Douglass, author of the syndicated column, ‘Strength For The
Day,’ Princeton, New Jersey.
Frank Edwards, Radio and TV newscaster, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Col. Robert B. Emerson, U.S. Army Reserve, Director, Command and General
Staff Dept., 4157th USAR School, Baton Rouge, Iowa.
Reverend Leon Le Van, New Jerusalem Christian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Professor Charles A. Maney, Head of the Department of Physics, Defiance University,
Defiance, Ohio.
Rear Admiral Herbert B. Knowles, United States Navy, Retired, Elliott, Maine.
The report cited was signed by one of four control-tower operators in
the Civil Aeronautics Administration, all of whom tracked the four saucers at a
large California
airport. Since this case is directly linked with the strange UFO sighting at
Oxnard Air Force Base, near midnight March 23, the operators will not be
identified. However, NICAP emphasizes that no violation of security is
involved, since there was no CIRVIS message (a report automatically classified
under JANAP 146, Joint Chiefs of Staff instructions).
Four flying saucers, clocked over California at 3600 mph, were tracked by
Civil Aeronautics control tower operators on the night of March 23, according
to a signed report now in NICAP’s possession. The radar report casts new light
on visual sightings at Oxnard Air Force Base — at the
same hour that night.
At the time, the C.O. at Oxnard, Col E. F. Carey, Jr., stated that no
UFO’s had been picked up by his base radar. He also said that a jet pilot
ordered to search the area had seen nothing, though airmen, police and other
ground observers clearly saw a moving object which flashed a brilliant red
light.
At least one of the four UFO’s tracked by radar was
almost directly over Oxnard Air Force Base at this time, according to the CAA
control tower operator’s signed report (In the following account this radar
expert will be called Operator 1).
The time was 2350 (11:50 p.m.). With several other CAA
men, Operator 1 was on duty in the Municipal
Airport control tower, ————————, California.
‘I was watching to radar scope,’ his report states,
‘when I noticed a target (blip of a moving object) about 15 miles northwest and
moving northwest. At first I thought it was a jet, then I noticed it was moving
much faster than anything I had ever seen on the scope. About 40 miles northwest it came
to an abrupt stop and reversed course, all within a period of about three
seconds.
‘It then traveled back along its course for about 20 miles, reversed course
again and disappeared off the scope at 50 miles (Our radar reaches out only 50 miles).’
Approximately five minutes later, Operator 1 reports,
two more unknown objects appeared, also traveling at tremendous speed. This
time, he quickly called on the other control-tower operators to help him track
the UFO’s.
30
miles, 30 Seconds: 3600 M.P.H.
‘These two disappeared off the scope in the same direction as the
first,’ Operator 1 states. ‘We had time to clock their speeds —
30 miles
in 30 seconds. This figures out to 3600 miles per hour.
‘A
minute or so later, a fourth target appeared in the same area,’ the radar
report continues. ‘It went off the scope at 3600 miles per hour. Our
radar does not give the height of aircraft; however, they had to be at 10,000 feet or lower, because our radar’s maximum
height range is about 10,000
feet.’
Next
day, Operator 1 read a newspaper account of the Oxnard Air Force Base
sightings. Included was a statement by Mrs. Robert Beaudoin, wife of an AF
captain stationed at the base. Just after midnight, Mrs. Beaudoin had
telephoned the base to report what she described as a ‘brilliant, flashing red
object’ in the sky over Santa
Rosa Valley.
Re-checking
the CAA radar observations, Operator 1 found that the UFO seen by Mrs. Beaudoin
and other witnesses was one of the four they had tracked. ‘This sighting,’ he
concludes, ‘was at exactly the same time as our radar sightings — 11:50 pm to
midnight.’
Immediately
after NICAP’s receipt of this radar report, a letter signed by the Director was
sent to Colonel Carey, requesting copies of the Oxnard AFB radar report and the
report by the jet pilot. On May 4, NICAP received an answer from the adjutant
of the 414th Fighter Group at Oxnard, which stated that ‘the UFO’s in question’
were investigated by the 4602 Air Intelligence Service Squadron (this squadron,
which has headquarters at the Air Defense Command, Ent Air Force Base, Colorado
Springs, has investigative teams at all Air Defense bases. The team which
investigated the Oxnard sightings came from
Norton AFB, California).
A
NICAP letter to the 4602d, at Ent Field, brought an official answer signed by
Major John D. Taylor, Jr., Adjutant.
4602d
Denies Release
‘Current
Air Force policy,’ Major Taylor stated, ‘is that the issuance of such information
as you request can be made only by Headquarters,
United States
Air Force. Therefore, your letter to the Commander, 414th Fighter Group was
forwarded, through channels, to Headquarters, USAF. Your letter of 8 May 1957
(a direct request ot the 4602d for the reports) will also be forwarded to
Headquarters, USAF.’
After
waiting eight days for word from the pentagon, NICAP telephoned a new request
to Maj. Gen. Joe W. Kelly, Director of Legislative Liaison, USAF, who for
several years has been the Secretary’s official spokesman on UFO subjects (Copy
of telegram and detailed request shown elsewhere in this issue).
In
a letter to Representative Lee Metcalf, of Montana, General Kelly had insisted that UFO
reports were not withheld from the press, and that information was supplied to
the press on any sighting which had drawn national attention.
Since
the Oxnard AFB sighting had been covered by press-wire stories, in hundreds of
newspapers, this obviously came under General Kelly’s policy declaration to
Congressman Metcalf. To conform to this Air Force policy, the NICAP request was
made to the Director, who is also Editor of the U.F.O. INVESTIGATOR.
To
date, NICAP has received no answer to its two letters or the telegram to
General Kelly (A public attack on NICAP was made by an unnamed Air Force
spokesman, three days after the wire to General Kelly, but this may have been
only a coincidence. NICAP does not believe that General Kelly was involved in
the attack, which is described in full, in another part of the magazine).
Because
of the obvious importance of the March 23 sightings, and the delay in receiving
the 4602d Intelligence Squadron’s investigation report, NICAP believes that its
members should be acquainted with all the facts, including the names of several
witnesses who apparently have been silenced.
For
details of the Pasadena and San
Gabriel reports, NICAP is indebted to Russ Leadabrand, columnist of
the Pasadena Independent,
who personally investigated the incidents, and also to Lee Pitt, aviation writer
of the Los Angeles
Mirror-News. Mr. Pitt obtained
additional information from a Ground Observer Corps identification expert, Les
Wagner, who has served as volunteer with the Pasadena Air
Filter Center
for six years.
The
first sighting on the night of March 23, or at least the first one listed, came
from K. E. Jefferson, a Pasadena
resident. At 9:55, Mr. Jefferson saw a brilliant, flashing object moving over Downey (about 5 miles southeast of Los Angeles). Between that time and midnight,
similar UFO reports were made by many Californians in Los
Angeles, Pasadena, and throughout
the San Gabriel Valley.
Police
switchboards in the area were flooded with hundreds of calls, indicating that
probably several thousand people saw at least one UFO, perhaps more. During the
latter part of this period, both official and civilian reports poured into the Pasadena Air Filter Center.
According
to a statement given to Russ Leadabrand by the Filter Center C.O., Capt. Joseph
Fry, the first official report came in at 11:10 p.m., at which time Captain Fry
notified Air Defense radar.
‘Between
2310 (11:10 p.m.) and 2350,’
said Capt. Fry, ‘we had many reports. We had reports that indicated the UFO was
orange-red, flashing a bright white light. Some of the callers claimed they
heard th ‘sound of reports’ when the light flashed from the object.’
But
most observers, including two Filter
Center personnel,
described the object as showing a bright red light. One of the men was Air
Force T/Sgt. Dewey Crow, who is permanently attached to the Center. Until he
saw the object, he was openly sceptical about UFO’s.
The
second Filter Center observer was Les Wagner, whose
regular job is that of a Mirror-News
staff writer in charge of the air-movement identification section. During his
six years of GOC duty, Wagner has become an expert on aircraft identification.
While
hundreds of people along Pasadena’s
Colorado Street
were staring up at the flashing UFO, T/Sgt. Crow and Wagner also watched it
move about the area. Their combined observations covered a period of more than
an hour. The two men admittedly were baffled.
Near
midnight, the tempo of UFO reports increased. It was just after twelve when
Mrs. Robert Beaudoin, wife of an Oxnard AFB captain, telephoned the base tower
from her home in Camarillo
Heights. Mrs. Beaudoin,
who is familiar with aircraft types positively described the UFO as a large,
silent object, flashing a brilliant red light and maneuvering in the sky over Santa Rosa Valley.
F-89
Fails to Contact UFO
In
rapid succession, other telephone calls — some from airmen attached to the base
— confirmed Mrs. Beaudoin’s report. Since the base already had an F-89 jet in
the air, the tower radioed the pilot to intercept the UFO, if possible (The
F-89 carries, besides the pilot, a radar operator specially trained for this
type of interception).
According
to the later report given to the press by Col. E. F. Carey, Jr., base
commander, the F-89 crew was unable to make any contact, visual or radar. This
attempted contact was timed at between midnight and 12:30. But at approximately
the same time (12:22 a.m.) several eye witnesses on the ground reported
sighting a strange flashing red object hovering near one of the Oxnard base
runways.
Three
of the witnesses were Ventura County deputy sheriffs from the Camarillo substation — Dick McKendry, John
Murphy, and Robert Corshaw. The three deputies on patrol in the
Ventura-Camarillo area not only saw the UFO hover near the field, but also
watched it maneuver swiftly about the valley until 1:37 a.m., when it quickly
disappeared on a northern course.
Meanwhile,
two policemen from Port Hueneme also had sighted the saucer and made a report,
which was relayed to the Oxnard
tower.
(At
an unspecified time, a Navy interceptor also joined in the search for the UFO,
according to the United Press. NICAP is attempting to identify the station from
which the plane was sent.)
From
the times and details given, it is not certain that all visual reports
concerned tha same UFO. It appears possible that witnesses may have seen two or
more of the four UFO’s tracked by the CAA control tower operators. If two or
more objects were seen separately this could account for the varied reports of
hovering, accelerations, and swift maneuvers. However, all these visual reports
may possibly concern a single object which maneuvered at varying speeds near
Oxnard AFB and the surrounding area.
Balloon
Ruled Out
When
the UFO was first sighted by T/Sgt. Dewey Crow and Les Wagner, in Pasadena, its
slow movement caused Wagner to check on the possibility of a balloon with anew
type of light (the combined visual and radar reports, covering tremendous
speeds and maneuvers, now appear to rule out and such answer completely).
Following
a Weather Bureau suggestion, Wagner checked with the Atomic Energy Commission’s
test site in Nevada.
The AEC stated the last balloon launching at the site had been on March 21, and
the balloon had been accounted for. In addition, a spokesman pointed out, their
balloons do not carry lights of anykind.
A
second check with, Edwards Air Force Base, ruled out the weather balloon
answer. No weather balloons carry red lights, Wagner was told. Also, the
balloons launched in the preceding 48 hours had been tracked to about 100,000 feet, where
they automatically were destroyed.
Finally,
the CAA also denied any connection with red-lighted balloon operations.
Though
the UFO reports bore no resemblance to any known type of aircraft, even those
still in the test stage, all aircraft operations in the area — military, civil
and special testing — were quickly screened by the Air Filter Center, and this answer was ruled out.
Following
Air Force Regulation 200-2, on the reporting of UFO’s, the Pasadena Filter
Center after the first verified UFO report, immediately notified Air Defense
Command HQ at Colorado Springs, the Air Technical Intelligence Center, the
Directorate of Intelligence at the Pentagon and the nearest Air Defense base —
Norton AFB, in San Bernardino. A team of Intelligence investigators from the 4602d
Squadron unit at Norton was at once sent to Oxnard AFB.
Though
this is standard procedure, and is well known to the HQ staff at all Air Force
bases, no mention of the 4602d was made when Russ Leadabrand called the base at
Norton. Major Thomas Bowers, Information Services Officer of the 27th Air
Division, admitted they had received a number of civilian reports on the UFO.
‘They
came from Los Angeles, Pasadena,
and eventually the Oxnard
area,’ he told Leadabrand.
‘Were
you able to identify the object?’ the columnist asked Major Bowers.
‘Negative,’
Bowers answered. ‘We were not able to pick up the object on radar. No Air Force
personnel saw the object (This contradicts the report by T/Sgt. Dewey Crow).’
He
added that a full report of the sighting was being sent to ATIC. ‘I believe the
Technical Intelligence people are working out of Wright-Patterson,’ he added.
Major
Bowers’ failure to mention the swift on-the-spot investigation by a 4602d team
from his own base may have no real significance, since the Oxnard AFB adjutant
did not hesitate to inform NICAP of this fact.
But
except for this official admission to NICAP and the subsequent confirmation
sent to NICAP by the 4602d Headquarters adjutant, no official information has
been released since the incidents occurred.
Instead,
several of the witnesses named have either refused to answer queries or their
superiors have kept them from answering.
On
April 25, NICAP wrote to Mrs. Beaudoin and asked fro detailed information on
the sighting. To date, there has been no reply.
AF
Silences Sheriff’s Men
On
the same date, NICAP also wrote to the Sheriff of Ventura County, California,
and requested that the three deputies named: McKendry, Murphy and Corshaw, be
permitted to forward all possible details and also their personal opinions on
the sighting. On May 15, NICAP received a reply from Sheriff William J. Suytar,
stating that all the information they had on this sighting was turned over to
the officials at Oxnard Air Force Base. It was evident that he had been ordered
to neither furnish the reports NICAP had requested, nor permit his men to be
interviewed by a NICAP representative in Ventura.
‘We
would be most happy,’ Sheriff Suytar told NICAP, ‘to cooperate in having these
officers available for interview by any duly authorized military officer.’
Once
the Air Force gave him such an order, neither an admiral on the Navy, an Army
general, nor even a high-ranking Air Force officer could interview the deputies
without approval by AF Intelligence.
From
the foregoing evidence, it appears that highly important facts about the March
23 California
sightings are being withheld from the public.
This
case is still being investigated by NICAP, but a complete analysis by NICAP’s
Special Advisers is not possible without the report of the 4602 Intelligence
Squadron, now at Air Force Headquarters.
Pending
AF action on NICAP’s request for this report, under the policy stated by
General Kelly, anyone in the United
States with authentic information or
personal knowledge of the facts is requested to send a report to NICAP — unless this would be an actual violation of
military security.
NICAP
UFO-report forms will be sent on request, and names will be kept confidential
if so requested.
When
additional verified information is received, whether on the actual sightings or
on the Air Force investigation, this will be goven to members, to Congress, and
the press, either by special bulletin or through the [U.F.O.] INVESTIGATOR.”
Wikipedia article: “Oxnard Air Force Base”:
The whole Wikipedia article:
“Oxnard Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base, located
in the city of Camarillo, California.
History
Camarillo Airport was originally established in 1942 when the California State Highway
Department constructed an auxiliary landing field with a 5,000 ft (1,500 m) runway. During
World War II the 36th Flying Training Wing (U.S. Army Air Forces) supervised
contractors training pilots at the airfield. The runway was later extended to 8,000 ft (2,400 m) in 1951 to
accommodate what by then had developed into Oxnard Air Force Base. The airport
runway was further extended in 1959 to accommodate jet fighter aircraft such as
the Northrop F-89 Scorpion and McDonnell F-101B, used as part of the Los
Angeles Area Air Defense Network.[citation needed] In the 1950s, the base was
also home to the 354th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. In Mid-1960s the base
received 17 new F-106 Delta Darts. On January 1, 1970, Oxnard AFB was
deactivated and the base became surplus property. Oxnard had 99 Officers and 990 enlisted
assigned prior to its closing. The last commanding officer of the 414th Fighter
Group was Colonel Paul D. Cofer.”
Related posts:
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=Radars
Satellite photo of Camarillo,
California (tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)
(lib.utexas.edu image)
