| Page ID (PID) |  MAXW-PBB12-1428 |
| Collection |
NARA-Maxwell |
| Roll Description |
Maxwell Blue Book 12
|
| Document Code |
N/A |
| Page ID (PID) | MAXW-PBB12-1428 |
| Collection |
NARA-Maxwell |
| Roll Description |
Maxwell Blue Book 12
|
| Document Code |
N/A |
|
231ST ENGINEER COMBAT BATTALION Camp Desert Rock Las Vegas, Nevada 5 November 1951
SUBJECT: Operational Report of OPERATION DESERT ROCK
TO: Commanding Officer
354th Engineer Combat Group Ft Lewis, Washington Annex for Co "A" Command Post Forward Area
On 26 September 51 this company proceeded by motor convoy
to the vicinity of Yucca Pass, where a command post was set up. The
first day was spent erecting tents and preparing the company in
Operation Desert Rock.
In the week that followed the primary work was begun. The
first week brought the task of completing the survey of the Forward
Emplacement Area. This was completed and a detail was sent out to stake
and mark out in masking tape the various emplacement positions.
Orders were received to delay actual construction until
an inspection was made by Major General W. B. Kean on 29 Sept 51.
General Kean flew in, landing his aircraft on a road very near Area B
and conducted an inspection of the area as laid out. From his
observations, from the air, and by walking through the area, Gen. Kean
expressed his satisfaction of the basic lay out recommending few minor
changes. These changes were incorporated into the plan and actual
construction commenced immediately.
In order to expedite construction of the various
emplacements, the following plan was used. One squad was detailed to
conduct a carpenter shop, to build revetments for the emplacements
which were being dug by the remainder of the company. As soon as the
emplacements were dug, the prefabricated revetments were slipped into
position and secured. Sand bags were filled and placed all around the
emplacements.
It was about this time that I was assigned to Company
A. As a wheeled vehicle mechanic with a GI driver's license that
allowed me to drive any vehicle. I was pressed into service driving as
mechanics were needed as much as drivers. I remember the revetments
being finished at the carpentry shop and hauling them to the
emplacement areas near Ground Zero. I remember distinctly it being
quite a shock coming from Atlanta, Ga. to the Nevada Desert. Especially
the night time in the desert was awfully cold after being in Georgia.
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OCTOBER 30, 1951 NOTE: THE PRIME WITNESS'S NAME, CURRENT ADDRESS, AND TELEPHONE ARE TO BE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND ARE NOT TO BE PUBLISHED! UFOCAT Strangeness Class--Type 3** Vallee Class--Type III-B *** BACKGROUND
This sighting; if true, may be unprecedented. It is unusual because of the large number of UFOs reportedly observed at one time in combination with the supersensitive location and timing of the event. On November 18,1964, I happened to be investigating a Boston newspaper story which found me prowling around a West Quincy (Boston suburb), Massachusetts, cemetery in search of some sort of weird nocturnal creature (see my; NICAP report, " 'The Watermelon Caper.'--November 13-14, 1964"). Although I later concluded the Little beast WAS probably an owl or other known animal, the uncle of the initial witness told me, during the course of the investigation, that he had sighted, UFOs in Nevada when he was in the service. At the time I was concentrating upon the investigation at hand and was more interested in securing details from Mr. M. about the creature seen by him and the. .neighborhood kids- in the cemetery. Moreover, I was somewhat skeptical about his story of a UFO armada. * DD (Daylight Discs) **Type 3 (UFO in trajectory with .single discontinuity) Recently I opened my "sightings pending" folder and
attempted to contact some of the witnesses in cases that were never
followed up for a number of reasons. One of these individuals was Mr.
M.. Although 16 years had elapsed since my interview with him, I
discovered that he still resided at the same apartment house but in a
different apartment. I telephoned him on February 28, 1981, and
re-introduced myself. However, he seemed reluctant to discuss the 1951
episode and, in fact, politely refused to grant a face-to-face
interview. As I drew him out, it appeared he received such ridicule
from the police and others during the '64 incident that he
understandably shied away from any future involvements of a similar
nature. I assured him that his name would be kept confidential, that it
was important such UFO sightings become part of the written record,
that I had interviewed many others, and, in fact, was at UFO eyewitness
myself. He seemed to loosen a bit although he still declined to see me
in person. And so I began asking questions over the telephone. Under
the circumstances, I felt very fortunate to have been able to extract
the following account from Mr. M.
THE SIGHTING
In 1951 Mr. M. was an Air Force corporal stationed at Nellis
Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada. That same year the Atomic Energy
Commission established the Nevada Test Site
and began detonating nuclear devices at Yucca Flat (about 120
kilometers, or .75 miles, northwest of the base). He recalled that
during one of the first tests --- perhaps the second or third in a
series of seven--he was among those at Nellis who volunteered for
sentry duty at the perimeter of the AEC site. When asked if he could
pin down the date, he said "October sticks in my mind" although
he couldn't be absolutely certain. The time of the sighting was early
morning after sunrise and occurred perhaps 15 or 20 minutes before the
detonation.
Armed with these clues, I called the Union of Concerned
Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and spoke to Paul Walker. I had
already learned there were 12 nuclear tests in Nevada during 1951 and
now wanted to know the dates, times, and code names of each of the
tests. Walker not only had that information but also the height of the
burst and the yield. His source was the book, The Effects of
Nuclear Weapons, edited by Samuel Glasstone and published jointly
.by the Department of Defense and the AEC in April, 1962.. There were
two series of tests in Nevada during 1951. The first one was called
Operation Ranger and consisted of five detonations in. January and
February. The final seven-shot sequence. was Operation, Buster-Jangle
in October and November. Three of those tests---Shots Able, Baker, and
Charlie - occurred, respectively, on October 22 at 6:00 a.m. PST; the
28th at 7:20 a.m.;. and the 30th at 7:00 a.m. Able was a small tower
burst at 30 meters (100 feet), yielding less than 0.1 kiloton. Baker
and Charlie .were air-drops, exploding
2
at 341 and 345 meters (1118 and 1132 feet) above the desert
floor with a force of 3.5 and 14 kilotons, respectively. Able was ruled
out immediately since the UFO sighting would have had to take place 10
or 15 minutes before sunrise. When I reached Mr. M again on
March 5, I asked him if he. could remember how soon after sunrise his
UFO observation had happened. He replied that it must have been a half
hour or so. Both Baker and Charlie qualified. When I asked the witness
about the size of the explosion, he recalled it was between 10 and 20
kilotons. This narrowed down the date to October 30. (Local sunrise on
that date, 6:00.)
Mr. M., who was 19 years old at the time (on November 3),
thought his post was several kilometers--perhaps five to six (three to
four miles)--east of Ground Zero, which would place the sun at his
back. Suddenly, as he glanced at the clear sky in front of him, he
perceived three silvery, elliptical. objects hovering in the direction
of the. target zone and at an estimated height of up to 600 meters (a
few thousand feet). Time: approximately 6:40-45, as determined by the
known time of the detonation 15 to .20 minutes later. Each object
possessed a flat bottom and a dome on top. No other features were
visible. The UFOs were arranged in a horizontal triangle, with one
object positioned in. front toward the observer and the others in back
to either side. The analogy Mr. M. used was "like looking down a
bowling alley at ten-pins." The UFOs were shiny and reflected the early
morning sunlight. No sound could be detected from that distance.
The prime witness and another guard, who also saw the
objects, turned to get the attention of the Corporal of the Guard. When
the latter arrived, Mr. M. noticed an armada of other discs had joined
the original trio. They were all arranged in about six groups of three
stretched out in a horizontal row. Apparently, none of the three
witnesses saw the huge formation arrive. Mr. M. remembers he had time
to count a total of 18 discs.
"After perhaps "30 seconds to a minute" (total observation
time), the entire UFO formation abruptly departed upward at an angle
and. vanished in seconds. The Corporal of the Guard said something like
"if we're smart, we; won't say anything about this." Mr. M. never heard
any mention of the sighting again. No conventional aircraft appeared on
the scene to pursue the UFOs since aircraft weren't permitted over the
test area (he doesn't recall seeing or hearing the aircraft that
dropped the nuclear device 15 to 20 minutes later).. However, the
witness believes the UFOs' presence undoubtedly was recorded somewhere.
The objects themselves, he feels, must have been monitoring the test
.He hinted that, as a consequence of his sighting, he believes UFOs are
of extraterrestrial origin.
When I told Mr. M. that in 1964 he said the discs rotated
and hovered for 10 to 15 minutes, he answered by saying he didn't
recall any rotation and the objects definitely weren't
3
. visible that long. (Of course, it has been 16 years since he
talked with me and 30 years since the sighting itself. Perhaps the
longer time actually was a reference to the interval between
the sighting and the nuclear detonation.)
During my March 5 telephone call, I asked the witness if he
might attempt to estimate each UFO's apparent size and angular
elevation. Of course, it was understood such estimates made 30 years
after the fact would be so uncertain as to be almost useless. Farther,
the observer was unable to visualize the arm's-length size comparison
(he kept coming up with a 12- inch rule or pie plate, which would make
the UFOs enormous). If the objects were five to six kilometers distant
and 600 meters up, the .35-degree elevation value offered by the
witness should be reduced to less than 10-degrees. If, on the other
hand, the original elevation figure is in the right ballpark,
then the objects .were actually much higher--say, 3000 to '4600
meters (10.000 to 15,000 feet) at he same distance. It seems to me that
in order for the domed shapes to have been visible, it is quite
possible the UFOs were closer to the witness. In such case, the
witness's initial angle estimate would again be in the right ballpark.
The fact of the matter is that juggling the above figures is a rather
useless exercise at this point in time.
I asked Mr. M. if he would mail a sketch of the UFOs and
their formation, but he declined. Therefore, the drawings that
accompany this report are the investigator's own interpretation based
upon close questioning of the witness on the telephone.
MASS FLIGHTS OP UFO'S
In an effort to determine just how prevalent such mass UFO
flights are, I conducted a cursory survey of some of the literature,
especially Ted Bloecher's on the UFO Wave of 1947 (private
printing, 1967). During the June, 1947 peak period covered by the
Bloecher study, I found 16 sighting reports alone that referred to UFO
formations numbering 18 or more. An unknown portion of. these probably
have mundane explanations such as flocks of high-flying birds, airborne
seed fibers (milkweed, cottonwood), spider gossamer, and clusters of
balloons. One group of 50 to 60 night-flying discs (Case #554) 'was
even accompanied by the suspicious sound of "goose-like honking":
Nevertheless, there appeared to be a number of fairly reliable
observations in the Bloecher collection describing UFO fleets composed
of Mr. M.'s total or more, as follows: 18, 19, 20, 21, 20-30, two dozen
(three :reports), 25..25-30, and 30. Groups of three discs in
geometrical formation weren't uncommon in the '47 survey.
One of the most detailed and reliable accounts of a mass
flight I happened to come across was investigated by APRO Con-
4
sultant (psychology) R. Leo Sprinkle. It. was reported in The
APRO Bulletin, December, 1975. On September 24, 1974, at. Rock Lake
in Wyoming, a. pair of fishermen witnessed the flyover of approximately
35 silvery discs arrayed in an oval formation which emitted a droning
noise like a beehive. At the end of the sighting, the objects began to
climb at a steep angle and the sound ceased at that point. Then they
accelerated rapidly out of sight.
On occasion such items as radar chaff discharged from
military aircraft and exploding balloons account for some mass-flight
sightings. The famous "saucer invasion" of Farmington, New Mexico, on
March 17, 1950, proved quite literally to be a bust: Many of the town's
citizens asserted they watched hundreds of discs--from 500 to
"thousands" -- cavorting in the sky. Blue Book chief Ed Ruppelt in The
Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (Doubleday, 1956), explained
that a skyhook balloon burst near Farmington on the 17th, and the
drifting pieces sparkling in the sunlight at very high altitude
probably were responsible for the local flap.
EVALUATION
When I first heard Mr. M''s story 16 years ago, I must admit
I was dubious. His hesitation in 1981 to allow a face-to-face interview
is, in my judgment, satisfactorily explained by the official ridicule
he suffered during the '64 episode. I would describe the witness as
"reluctantly cooperative." During our telephone conversations, I was
impressed by a number of things. Without any prompting from me, Mr. M.
immediately referred to "18" as the number of UFOs he claimed he had
seen during the '51 sighting--the precise figure he gave me 16 years
ago. And, as stated elsewhere in this report, such an armada of UFOs
is, by no means, a rarity.
The witness had more than simply a passing knowledge of
events at the AEC Nevada Test. site in 1951. I was able to
eventually pin down the date of the experience using the information he
recalled and checked against known dates, times, etc., for the nuclear
tests that year. He correctly identified the total number of tests in
the fall series of nuclear tests (seven) the test he attended (second
or third in the series), the month of his sighting (October), the time
(half hour or so after sunrise and 15 or 20 minutes before the
detonation), and yield of the test (between 10 and 20 kilotons). This
last bit of in formation was enough to permit selection of the final
date since the October 30 test was the only one in the entire series
that fit within the bracketed lower and upper limits given by the
witness; other yields were either much lower or much higher. Thus,
while this doesn't necessarily prove Mr. M. had a UFO sighting, it does
go a long way toward establishing that he was present at the atomic
test site when he said he was.
5
The appearance and behavior of the UFOs described rule out
conventional objects such as aircraft, helicopters, blimps, and
balloons. In addition, no such objects would have been permitted over
the test site just before the detonation-- especially a mass flight!
Thirty years have elapsed since Mr. M.'s observation, and
until now he has never reported it officially to anyone. I tend to
accept his account of what he said, happened in Nevada on that October
morning in 1951. Therefore, I believe this sighting should be
classified as an unknown.
NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF WITNESSES
NOTE: THE PRIMARY WITNESS'S NAME, CURRENT ADDRESS, AND
TELEPHONE NUMBER ARE TO BE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND ARE
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Unidentified USAF guards (2).
Walter N. Webb
MUFON Consultant 3/8/81 cc: Walter Andrus (MUFON)
Richard Hall (MUFON) David Webb (MUFON) XXXXXXXXXXXXXX  SKETCH OF UFO FORMATION FROM TELEPHONE
CONVERSATION WITH WITNESS (INTERPRETATION IS ONLY AN APPROXIMATION) (This web page was produced for the NICAP web site and the
Nuclear Connection Project, March 15, 2003, by Francis Ridge, with
material submitted to MUFON by Walter N. Webb. Copies provided by
Jan Aldrich.)
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