Part 17 (2/2)

Aftera azine article I'd read about a year before It said that there was not a single reliable UFO report that couldn't be attributed to a skyhook balloon

I'd been back at ATIC only a few days when I found ain This tih-priority wire had co how a Navy pilot had chased a UFO over Mitchel AFB, on Long Island It was a good report

I reh Elizabeth, New Jersey, early in the , and I could see the fires caused by an American Airlines Convair that had crashed This was the second of the three tragic Elizabeth, New Jersey, crashes

Thebefore, on January 21, a Navy pilot had taken off from Mitchel in a TBM He was a lieutenant coineer at the Navy Special Devices Center on Long Island At nine-fifty he had cleared the traffic pattern and was at about 2,500 feet, circling around the airfield He was southeast of the field when he first noticed an object below hiths off the end of Runway 30” The object looked like the top of a parachute canopy, he told es or panels He said that he thought that it wasind, but he was sure that so at the top of his parachute He was just ready to call the tohen he suddenly realized that this ”parachute” was drifting across the wind He had just taken off fro

As he watched, the object, whatever it was (by now he no longer thought that it was a parachute), began to gradually cli above and off to the right of the object When the UFO started to make a left turn, he followed and tried to cut inside, but he overshot and passed over it It continued to turn and gain speed, so he dropped the nose of the TBM, put on more power, and pulled in behind the object, which was now level with hiree turn and started to e of Mitchel AFB

The pilot tried to follow, but the UFO had begun to accelerate rapidly, and since a TBM leavesfarther and farther behind But he did try to follow it as long as he could As he e of the airfield he saw that the UFO was now turning south He racked the TBM up into a tight left turn to follow, but in a few seconds the UFO had disappeared When he last saw it, it had crossed the Long Island coast line near Freeport and it was heading out to sea

When he finished his account of the chase, I asked the commander some specific questions about the UFO He said that just after he'd decided that the UFO was not a parachute it appeared to be at an altitude of about 200 to 300 feet over a residential section From the time it took it to cover a city block, he'd esti about 300 ot a good look, it still looked like a parachute canopy-- dome-shaped--white--and it had a dark undersurface It had been in sight two and a half minutes

He had called the control tower at Mitchel during the chase, he told me, but only to ask if any balloons had been launched He thought that hea balloon The tower had told him that there was a balloon in the area

Then the coht path and the apparent path of the UFO for me I think that he drew it accurately because he had been continually watching landmarks as he'd chased the UFO and was very careful as he drew the sketches on the map

I checked with the weather detachment at Mitchel and they said that they had released a balloon They had released it at nine-fifty and froot a plot of its path

Just as in the Long Beach Incident, where the six F-86's tried to intercept the UFO, the balloon was almost exactly in line with the spot where the UFO was first seen, but then any proof you ht attempt falls apart If the pilot knehere he was, and had plotted his flight path even semi-accurately, he was never over the balloon

Yet he was over the UFO He came within less than 2,000 feet of the UFO when he passed over it; yet he couldn't recognize it as a balloon even though he thought it ht be a balloon since the tower had just told him that there was one in the area He said that he followed the UFO around the north edge of the airfield Yet the balloon, after it was launched southeast of the field, continued on a southeast course and never passed north of the airfield

But the biggest argu a balloon was the fact that the pilot pulled in behind it; it was directly off the nose of his airplane, and although he followed it for more than a minute, it pulled away froht toward it you will catch it in a matter of seconds, even in the slowest airplane There have been dogfights with UFO's where the UFO's turned out to be balloons, but the pilots always reported that the UFO ”ht up with the balloon and passed it I questioned this pilot over and over on this one point, and he was positive that he had followed directly behind the UFO for over aaway from him

This is one of the most typical UFO reports we had in our files It is typical because no ue there isn't any definite answer If you want to argue that the pilot didn't knohere he was during the chase--that he was 3 or 4 ht he was--that he never did fly around the northern edge of the field and get in behind the UFO--then the UFO could have been a balloon

But if you want to believe that the pilot knehere he was all during the chase, and he did have several thousand hours of flying time, then all you can conclude is that the UFO was an unknown

I think the pilot summed up the situation very aptly when he toldlike it before or since--maybe it was a spaceshi+p”

I went back to Dayton stumped--maybe it was a spaceshi+p

CHAPTER TEN

Project Blue Book and the Big Build-Up

Just twenty ht on January 22, 1952, nineteen and a half hours after the Navy lieutenant commander had chased the UFO near Mitchel AFB, another incident involving an airplane and so in Alaska In contrast with the unusually balht, according to the detailed account of the incident we received at ATIC, was aat one of our northernmost radar outposts in Alaska This outpost was similar to those youbuildings grouped around the observatory- -like domes that house the antennae of the most s and do of ice and snow The picture that the outpostout of a Walt Disney fantasy--but talk to somebody who's been there--it's ht, an airet appear It looked like an airplane because it showed up as a bright, distinct spot But it was unusual because it was northeast of the radar site, and very few airplanes ever flew over this area Off to the northeast of the station there was nothing but ice, snow, and ot to Russia Occasionally a B-50 weather reconnaissance plane ventured into the area, but a quick check of the records showed that none was there on this night

By the tiet, they all knew that it was so 1,500 miles an hour The duty controller, an Air Force captain, was quickly called; he ets that had now been put on the plotting board and called to a jet fighter-interceptor base for a scrahter base, located about 100 ed the captain's call and in aout toward the north

While the F-94 was heading north, the radar crew at the outpost watched the unidentified target The bright dots that ht across the radarscope, passing within about 50about 1,500 miles an hour

The radar had also picked up the F-94 and was directing it toward its target when suddenly the unidentified target slowed down, stopped, and reversed its course Noas heading directly toward the radar station When it ithin about 30 miles of the station, the radar operator switched his set to a shorter range and lost both the F-94 and the unidentified target