IMCAT Case Directory
  Category 08, Photographic / Video Images 
 
  Preliminary Rating: 5  

                                   
     

Two UFOs Pace V-2 Rocket
June 14, 1949
White Sands, New Mexico

#1302: 1949/6/10  15:40  15  106:30:0W  33:0:0N  3333  NAM USA NMX  8 12
WHITE SANDS,NM:HIQ USN CREW++:2 WHT SCRS PACE V2 ROCKET:1 PASSES
THRU EXHAUST
Ref# 133 GROSS,L.:UFOs a HISTORY-1949/2 books Book # 1  Page 82 MIL. BASE

Brad Sparks:
June 14, 1949. White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico (BBU)
3:35 p.m. (MST). During the test firing of a Navy rocket [actually AF V-2 rocket No. 47 to 83 miles altitude] 5 tracking stations observed 2 small circular objects about 1.7 ft in size parallel the 1,500 mph rocket on each side, then the W object passed through the rocket exhaust, joined the E object and both accelerated away. Observed through 20x telescope (theodolite) tracking instrument (with photos? that failed to show UFO's). 8 mins later a possible 3rd object was sighted. (Sparks; BB Maxwell Microfilm Roll 5, pp. 1466-7, 1470; McLaughlin TRUE article Mar 1950; Saunders/FUFOR Index; LA Times, Aug. 30, 1949
Fran Ridge:
Not  listed among the original BB Unknowns, this case IS listed in the Comprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns by Brad Sparks. According to Sparks, the date must have been the 14th, rather than the 10th as previously thought.. There was a report in the LA Times that there was film taken but AFOSI was told the film showed nothing. The WSMR launch records show the only Navy missile launches in the period were the Viking No. 1 on May 3rd and No. 2 on Sept 6, 1949, and nothing in June 1949. There was however an Army V-2 launched on June 14, 1949. My search of the BB microfilm records turned up the correct date and the fact that it WAS a V-2 rocket. The film may have showed something but there is no evidence to support it as yet.

Richard Hall:
Features: Pacing of......missile, high-speed ascent. A crew of Navy engineers and technicians under the command of Commander Robert B. McLaughlin were testing an upper atmosphere missile, with observation posts all around the missile test range. When the missile had attained a speed of 2,000 feet per second on its upward flight, it was suddenly joined by two small circular objects that paced it, one on each side. One of the objects then passed through the missile's exhaust, joined the other, and together they accelerated upwards leaving the missile behind. Shortly afterwards, Cmdr. McLaughlin received reports from five observation posts scattered at all points of the compass; all had witnessed the performance of the two circular UFOs.

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