UFO Report: “1951 UFO Chronology”

Created: 2 January 2006

Updated: 29 April 2017
(NICAP.org)

Quote from the UFO report:

“This chronology is currently a 20-page report. I want to thank all the members of the A-Team who made this possible. Finally, but certainly not least, I want to thank Loren Gross for thoughtfully and diligently collecting data many years ago for his UFO Histories and supplemental notes, in particular here the year 1951. A big thanks to CUFOS and Mary Castnor for housing them on the CUFOS site …

Francis Ridge

NICAP Site Coordinator

Feb. 9 (not 10th), 1951; off Newfoundland, Canada

On the night of the UFO encounter, a four engine Navy R5D transport was flying west over the Atlantic. On this trip the 30-year-old pilot was bringing two flight crews home from special duty in Europe. Including his own crew there were over twenty-five pilots, navigators and flight engineers aboard the transport. The National Archives turned up a number of supporting documents on this case, including Air Intelligence Information Reports by five of the crew members. Although it isn’t documented, reports indicate the object was tracked by ground radar. (NICAP, BB, Dan Wilson)

Feb. 21, 1951; Bt. Newfoundland and Iceland (BB)

3:00 AM. The Incident #26 report describes the event in more detail. Lt. George Williams was piloting a Navy Fleet Logistics airplane cruising at 10,000 feet. At first he thought the object was a ship and then called the copilot forward. Nine witnesses saw the object approach at terrific closing rate. It veered to their port side and hovered momentarily, then rose at extremely rapid rate and disappeared off their port quarter. Size was estimated at 200 feet in diameter, flat elliptical or cigar shaped by side view and seemed to be producing a ring of red-orange exhaust all along the edge. (Jan Aldrich, Project Interloper report).”

UFO incidents involving U.S. military personnel occurred thick and fast in 1951.

http://www.nicap.org/chronos/1951fullrep.htm

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realtvufos.blogspot.com/2019/10/ufo-paper-estimating-flight.html

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=February+1951

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1951

The Graham E. Bethune Case, 9 [not 10] February 1951, 

off Newfoundland, Canada (nicap.org image)

Map of Canada (canada-maps.org)

(canada-maps.org image)

U.S. Government UFO Document: “NAVAL MESSAGE”

10 February 1951

(U.S. Navy, Washington, D.C.)

Source: NICAP.org

The document pertains to the 9 February 1951 Lieutenant Graham E. Bethune UFO incident. Bethune was the pilot of the R5D Navy transport airplane.

The whole document (not written in U.S. Department of Defense document format):

“VR-1 PILOTS OFF LIGHT N-125 ENROUTE KEFLAVIK TO ARGENTIA ON COURSE 225 TRUE AT 10000 FEET REPORTED AN UNIDENTIFIED RED AND YELLOW OBJECT AT 100055Z INITIALLY BEARING 060 RELATIVE. OBJECT APPEARED TO BE CLOSE TO SURFACE. SHAPE INDEFINITE WHEN FIRST SIGHTED LATER APPEARING CIRCULAR. DIAMETER ESTIMATED IN EXCESS 400 FEET. OBJECT APPROACHED PLANE TURNED AND DISAPPEARED OVER HORIZON ON COURSE 290 TRUE AT TREMENDOUS SPEED. 100055Z POSITION LATITUDE 49-50 NORTH LONG 50-03 WEST. SIGHTING REPORTED TO GANDER ATC PLAIN LANGUAGE.”

The document was sent from Naval Station Argentia, Argentia, Newfoundland, Canada.

http://www.nicap.org/bb/NARA-PBB89-420.jpg

Wikipedia article: “Naval Station Argentia”:

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

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realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=February+1951

realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=1951

(U.S. Navy/nicap.org image)

UFO Case Directory: (SIGHTINGS FROM AIRCRAFT): “The Bethune Encounter February 9, 1951 Off Newfoundland, Canada”

Posted: 3 June 2009

Updated: 25 March 2014

(NICAP.org)

The whole UFO case report:

“9:55 pm local Duration Sev mins aircraft R5D Navy C54 Newfoundland, Canada

Military 6-7+ observers No EMI Possible radar contact

Fran Ridge:

Feb. 9, 1951; Off Newfoundland, Canada
(0055 Zulu is Feb. 10th) 9:55 pm local (Feb. 9). A four engine Navy R5D transport was flying west over the Atlantic. On this trip the pilots and navigators were bringing two flight crews home from special duty in Europe. Including his own crew there were over twenty-five pilots, navigators and flight engineers aboard the transport. Bright indefinite object first sighted near ocean surface at 060 relative, then became a ring which had a close encounter with the transport. Object now circular estimated at in excess of 400' diameter, then turned and disappeared over horizon on course 290 at tremendous speed. The National Archives turned up a number of supporting documents on this case, including Air Intelligence Information Reports by five of the crew members. Although it isn't documented, reports indicate the object was tracked by ground radar. Publicly, the Air Force made several attempts to explain the sighting as the aurora borealis (northern lights) or the Moon, but behind the scenes the encounter was; being taken very seriously. The number and quality of UFO sightings in the region in 1950 prompted the government of Iceland to request military aid from the United States. Apparently what we know today as UFOs were interpreted as experimental Soviet bombers. After 50 years of waiting, no craft with this discription [description] or performance has shown up in any Earthly inventory, Russion [Russian] or American. This event, and others like it, prompted the development of the Air Defense Command. (James McDonald’s letter to NICAP shows William D. Bridge was the weather navigator on that flight and mentioned another witness named Abrams. Another witness was Fred Kingdon who says Bethune was a co-pilot on his flight and that the AF investigation team at Argentia classified the incident as Top Secret. Finally, the final testimony of Graham Bethune was written by Robert Durant and is presented below in a doc file.) Major Donald Keyhoe had learned of this hidden report in 1959. Admiral Delmer S. Fahrney, former Navy guided missile chief (whom he had known for years) told him that Captain James Taylor, USN, Ret., had an important UFO sighting made by a naval pilot and his crew. That night Taylor gave him the report.

Richard Hall:

I must say that after reading the BB file, the notion that they saw the moon seems absurd. It is very clear that the object approached from one direction, then (a la Nash-Fortenberry) reversed direction at a very sharp angle and disappeared over the horizon in quite a different position. Quite an ‘illusion!’

Dan Wilson:

In par 10 of Bethune’s report he states that Capt. D.H. Paulson’s written and radar report was not on microfilm (meaning BB files I guess). So there may be a radar report.”

NICAP.org presents U.S. government documents that pertain to the UFO case.

http://www.nicap.org/casework/2014indexes/jan-mar/510210newfoundland_dir.htm

“Map produced 14 May 2009 (Joel Carpenter)” (NICAP.org):

http://www.nicap.org/images/bethune_map_03.jpg

Wikipedia article: “List of Douglas DC-4 variants”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Douglas_DC-4_variants

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U.S. Navy R5D Transport (text by NICAP.org)

(variant: Douglas DC-4 R5D) (nicap.org photo)

Map of Canada (canada-maps.org)

(canada-maps.org image)

UFO News Article: “ASKS TRACKING OF ‘SAUCERS’ ”

26 February 1951

(The Times-News, Hendersonville, North Carolina)

The whole article:

“Dr. Anthony O. Marrachi [sic] (Mirarchi), former Air Force scientist, urged today that radar and spotter observation posts be set up to track down flying saucers ‘that may lead to another Pearl Harbor.’

Dr. Mirarchi, who investigated more than 300 reports of flying saucers as chief of the Air Force’s atmospheric composition bureau of the Geophysical Research Division in Watertown last year, brushed aside recent statements by Dr. Urner Liddell, a navy scientist.

He said Liddell’s conclusion that flying saucers really were plastic balloons sent into the upper atmosphere by the navy for radiation research ‘does not tell the whole story.’

‘The results of my own investigation,’ he said, ‘indicate that we cannot exclude the possibility that the so-called flying saucers is the result of experiments by a potential enemy of the United States.’

‘If they were launched by a foreign power, then they could lead to a worse Pearl Harbor than we have ever experienced,’ he said.

Dr. Mirarchi urged that a ‘considerable appropriation be granted the Air Force to set up photographic, radar and spotter tracking points to study the mysterious phenomena.’

He said he had issued a report to the Air Force on his findings last year, but did not know whether the inquiry had been continued.

‘The Navy’s report is erroneous. It lulls people into a false sense of security,’ he added.

Asked about an Air Force statement that more than 500 investigates were made without one bit of concrete evidence to back up reports of flying saucers, Dr. Mirarchi said, ‘I thought I was the only one making such an investigation. And as far as I’m concerned, there certainly was evidence to back up my conclusion.’ ”

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19610226&id=LCwaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OCMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4504,2146443

NOTE: The newspaper date is 26 February 1951.

Related posts:

http://realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=Mirarchi

(wikimedia.org image)

UFO Paper: “Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles”

Published: 25 September 2019

By Kevin H. Knuth, Robert M. Powell and Peter A. Reali

(Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), U.S.A.)

The paper investigates three UFO incidents: the 9 February 1951 Lieutenant Graham Bethune, U.S. Navy (off Newfoundland, Canada) (according to NICAP.org), 17 November 1986 North East Alaska (Japan Airlines (JAL) Flight 1628) and 14 November 2004 (USS Nimitz) Tic Tac cases.

Quote from the 11 October 2019 De Void (Billy Cox) article,

“Let’s see them equations”:
“ ‘Flight Characteristics’ takes three incidents – the Tic Tac, a 1951 sighting by Navy Lt. Graham Bethune near Nova Scotia, the 1986 Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 – and ties them together with these threads: ‘multiple professional witnesses observing the UAV in multiple modalities (including sight, radar, infrared imaging, etc.),’ in which each incident produces ‘sufficient information to estimate kinetic qualities such as speeds and accelerations.’

‘Assuming that any one of these cases we examine is based on accurate reports,’ they add, ‘we show that the UAVs exhibit unreasonably high accelerations ranging from 100 g to well over 5,000 g.’ Not very sporting odds for a dogfight. The authors tell readers that ‘humans can endure up to 45 g for 0.044 seconds with no injurious or debilitating effects.’ Meaning: attempt those moves and you’re soup in a can.”

https://www.explorescu.org/post/estimating-flight-characteristics-of-anomalous-unidentified-aerial-vehicles

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Captain Kenju (or Kenji) Terauchi, Japan Airlines, with a drawing of one of the 3 UFOs (the 17 November 1986 Japan Airlines (JAL) Flight 1628 case) (4.bp.blogspot.com photo)

Freeze-frame of the Tic Tac UFO (filmed from a U.S. Navy

F/A-18F Super Hornet jet fighter on 14 November 2004)
(U.S. Department of Defense/disclose.tv/gstatic.com image)

UFO News Article:
“Scientist Insists ‘Flying Saucers’ Real”,
24 February 1951
(The Lewiston Daily Sun, Lewiston-Auburn, Maine)

The Lewiston Daily Sun reports on an argument between the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy regarding the nature of UFOs:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=X0gpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=S2gFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1851,4998890

Quote from the article:
“Dr. (Anthony O.) Mirarchi (air chemist, U.S. Air Force) said that after studying extensive files of the Office of Strategic Information, covering hundreds of eyewitness reports of flying saucers or ‘fireballs,’ he concluded the observations were consistent with ‘a missile programmed in advance.’ ”

A number of the fireball observations came from the area around Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to Dr. Mirarchi.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico

(wikimedia.org photo) (wikimedia.org)

Google Website Searches: Focus On UFO Incidents At the Pantex Plant Nuclear Weapons Facility

Website: J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS.org):

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Pantex+site:cufos.org

Website: National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP.org):

https://www.google.com/search?q=Pantex+site:nicap.org

Website: National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC.org):

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Pantex+site:nuforc.org

Website: UFOINFO.com:

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Pantex+site:ufoinfo.com

Website: Archives For the Unexplained (AFU.se), Norrköping, Sweden:

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=Pantex+site:files.afu.se

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U.S. government web page: “U.S. Department of Energy Pantex Plant”:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/us-department-energy-pantex-plant

Wikipedia article: “Pantex Plant”:

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

Quote from the Wikipedia article:

“The Pantex Plant is the primary United States nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility that aims to maintain the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.[1][2] The facility is located on a 16,000-acre (25 sq mi; 65 km2) site 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Amarillo, in Carson County, Texas in the Panhandle of Texas. The plant is managed and operated for the United States Department of Energy by Consolidated Nuclear Security and Sandia National Laboratories. Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS) is composed of member companies Bechtel National, Inc., Leidos, Inc., Orbital ATK, Inc, and SOC LLC, with Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. as a teaming subcontractor.[3] CNS also operates the Y-12 National Security Complex.[3]

As a major national security site, the plant and its grounds are strictly controlled and off-limits to all civilians, and the airspace above and around the plant is prohibited to civilian air traffic by the FAA as Prohibited Area P-47.

History

Bunkers at Pantex used for temporary staging of nuclear weapons.

The Pantex Plant was originally constructed as a conventional bomb plant for the United States Army Air Force during the early days of World War II. The Pantex Ordnance Plant was authorized February 24, 1942. Construction was completed on November 15, 1942 and workers from all over the U.S. flocked to Amarillo for jobs.

Pantex was abruptly deactivated when the war ended and remained vacant until 1949, when Texas Technological College in Lubbock (now Texas Tech University) purchased the site for $1.[4] Texas Tech used the land for experimental cattle-feeding operations.

In 1951, at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission (now the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)), the Army exercised a recapture clause in the sale contract and reclaimed the main plant and 10,000 acres (40 km2) of surrounding land for use as a nuclear weapons production facility. The Atomic Energy Commission refurbished and expanded the plant at a cost of $25 million. The remaining 6,000 acres (24 km2) of the original site were leased from Texas Tech in 1989.

The Pantex Plant was operated by Procter & Gamble from 1951 to 1956, Mason & Hanger from 1956 to 2001, and Babcock & Wilcox from 2001 to 2014.[5]

The plant employed about 3,600 people in 2010 and had a budget of $600 million for fiscal year 2010.[6]”

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Aerial view of Pantex Plant, Carson County, Texas (wikimedia.org)

(wikimedia.org photo)

Satellite photo of Amarillo, Texas (tageo.com)

(tageo.com photo)

U.S. Government UFO Document: “PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD: DATE: 3 Feb 53/LOCATION: Keflavik Airport, Iceland”

(Project Blue Book, U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.)

Source: Fold3.com, Lindon, Utah

Quote from the document (Page 2):

“Headquarters Iceland Air Defense Force, Keflavik Airport, Iceland

Official Log of 932nd AC&W Sqd,

65th Air Division, IADF

Unidentified Flying Objects (Restricted)

Iceland

4 February 1953

Milton Radovsky, Capt, USAF

1.  Copies of this report will be furnished the Commanding General, IDF, and Air Attache, England.

2.  The following unidentified radar plots were observed on radar scopes of the 932nd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron on 
3 February 1953:

a.  1825Z  Bearing 345° Range 90 nautical miles 
(65° 25’ N; 23° 36’ W).

b.  1827Z  Plot faded after remaining motionless for two minutes.

c.  1836Z  Bearing 341° Range 112 nautical miles 
(65° 45’ N; 24° 08’ W).

d.  1849Z  Bearing 348° Range 118 nautical miles 
(65° 55’ N; 23° 38’ W).

3.  There were no aircraft, either military or civilian, operating in the area of the plots according to all military and civilian sources contacted.

4.  These plots remain unidentified, although the possibility exists that civilian aircraft were operating in this area unknown to the Icelandic CAA.

5.  The apparent lack of motion indicated during two full minutes is still unexplained.

APPROVED:

Milton Radovsky

Captain, USAF

Intelligence Officer”

Several objects were observed on radar, according to the document.

The case is listed as “UNIDENTIFIED.”

https://www.fold3.com/image/9549829

Wikipedia article: “Iceland Defense Force”:

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

Quote from the Wikipedia article:

“The Iceland Defense Force (IDF) was a military command of the United States Armed Forces from 1951 to 2006. The IDF, created at the request of NATO, came into existence when the United States signed an agreement to provide for the defense of Iceland, which did not, and does not, have its own unified defense force.

The IDF was formally headquartered at Naval Air Station Keflavík, though its base was actually at Miðnesheiði near Keflavík. Commander, Iceland Defense Force was a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with three other titles and roles: Commander, Iceland Sector ASW Group (CTG-84.1), Commander, Fleet Air Keflavik, and NATO Island Command Iceland. Commander Fleet Air Keflavik (COMFAIRKEF) was the senior Navy command in Iceland, responsible for the operational readiness of Navy units assigned. The commander of Fleet Air Keflavik was the operational commander in charge of all Navy and anti-submarine warfare operations. Administratively, COMFAIRKEF reported to Commander, Naval Air Force U.S. Atlantic Fleet, located in Norfolk, Virginia.”

(ufocasebook.com image)

The emblem of the Iceland Defense Force (U.S. Armed Forces)

(wikimedia.org image)

Keflavik International Airport, Keflavik, Iceland (wikimedia.org)

(wikimedia.org photo)

Satellite photo of Keflavik, Iceland (tageo.com)

(tageo.com photo)

NASA TV UFOs: 
UFO Filmed during a Space Shuttle Launch, 
Unknown Date, Night-time

This NASA TV footage shows the UFO, which was filmed close to the Space Shuttle shortly after a launch. The UFO is seen 4 seconds into the video.

And, no aircraft known to US aerial and/or space authorities flies anywhere near the Space Shuttle launching pad during a launch.

This video also includes the audio message by astronaut Catherine Coleman, during the STS-73 mission (20 October 1995 - 5 November 1995), where she says (22 seconds into the video), “We have an unidentified flying object.” That statement certainly got my attention when I saw the documentary. This audio message was recorded by a US amateur radio enthusiast. As a Norwegian it’s interesting to note that she (Coleman) was an exchange student at Røyken upper secondary school in Norway in 1979-1980.

Other stories in the video includes the story about the light flashes seen by the astronauts during the STS-82 mission (11 February 1997 - 21 February 1997), UFOs seen by Russian cosmonauts and an interview with astronaut Gordon Cooper, where he recounts his own UFO sighting in a fighter jet over Germany in 1951.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7056812997575015063