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This intelligence summary concerns MADAR APD 04 of Nov. 1, 1973 and some of the events prior to it, in particular the October 18, 1973, Ford Road/VORTAC cigar-craft overflight (Mt. Vernon, Indiana) which was preceded minutes earlier by the famous Mansfield, Ohio/Coyne helicopter, domed-cigar / E-M case. Capt. Coyne noticed that the magnetic compass was rotating slowly, while the Radio Magnetic Indicator was functioning normally. To make it even more interesting, near Rosewood, Ohio, American Airlines Flight 21, a Boeing 747 at 33,000' encountered apparently the same UFO witnessed by Capt. Coyne. Two days later, on October 20th, at 6:50 AM, a UFO apparently disabled a Burlington engine on an L&N train between Mt. Vernon & Evansville, Indiana.

APD -04
A closer look
The Form 146 shows that a "phantom pulse" triggered the system at 9:47 PM.

Since the first triggering pulse from the MADAR sensor turns on the Mode Control Panel and all recorders, the data recorder for the sensor (TERS unit) does not record that first pulse. For that reason I refer to that pulse as the "phantom pulse". The background radiation was 18 cpm and the radar at Evansville was NIS (Not In Service) at that time. The alert was terminated at 10:47 PM.

Most recent graph
A closer look at the this graph

The most recent graph contains data points derived from this special extracted midwest summary. (Full U.S. 1973 UFO Chronology). All of the regional sightings for the entire year very explicitly demonstrate the 1973 wave and the MADAR connection. There were numerous other good E-M cases during this major sighting wave, highlighted by MADAR being triggered on November 1st, at 9:47 PM. The FDB graph above pretty well says it all. Something significant was happening during this wave, and MADAR, which cannot hallucinate, took notice as well.

1973 found a very dangerous, troubled world. The massive sighting wave of 1973 had begun in the fall during the Oct 6 - 25, Arab-Israeli War. On Oct. 25th, the U.S. became concerned that the Soviet Union might intervene in the Yom Kippur War, and U.S. forces including Strategic Air Command, Continental Air Defense Command, European Command and the Sixth Fleet were placed on DEFCON III Alert.

To illustrate the dimension of this sighting wave, the events listed on the chrono for October alone consists of a printout 17 pages long. With this backdrop we can now see the significance of the events of October 18th.

Oct. 18, 1973; Mt. Vernon, Indiana

10:30 p.m. The lady had gone to bed on this Thursday evening but was disturbed by a loud noise. She described it as sounding like a barge on the river. It was so unusual that after 2-3 minutes she decided to go outside and check it out. Her home is in the line of traffic from Evansville Dress-Regional Airport about 15 miles to the NE and she sees a lot of chopper traffic. She saw an object over her garage and to the south. It was merely an outline produced by as many as 50 lights, not exactly evenly-spaced. It didn't appear to have any body to it and it had a red flashing light on the rear. It was long and narrow, about 3 times as long as it was wide, moving very slow East to West. She observed the long side view about 3 minutes, and right in front of her house it turned south toward the river and she saw the end view. It was described as not round but sort of rectangular...like a squared-off cigar. At this time it was really low and she said she should have seen metal as it went past a tree. It got lower than the trees (elevation, not altitude) at least during one point during the observation. Total time of observation: 5 minutes. Dogs present showed no response. The control tower at Evansville said there was no aircraft in the area at the time. My contact at the tower on 10/22 drew a blank. Since the object was very close, but probably not within CE range (< 500') I've listed it as a distant encounter. However, when the "cigar" turned south it was heading right over the VORTAC which was less than a mile away toward the Ohio River. (See "How UFOs Navigate: The VORTAC Beacon" (Ridge/MUFON)

Ohio is one hour ahead of us here. Twenty five minutes before this incident, at 9:05 p.m. our time and 10:05 p.m. Ohio time, the famous Mansfield, Ohio/Captain Coyne helicopter involving E-M effects on the aircraft's compass case occurred.

The events of the region alone for ONE DAY, October 18, extracted from the UFO Filter Center dBase here at Mt. Vernon, are now listed in chronological order below.

Oct. 18, 1973; Fort Knox, KY

7:15 a.m. Sergeant First Class Ralph E. Green, motor sergeant for the Headquarters Company 194th Armored Brigade, spotted the UFO Thursday morning. "I was walking up the road by the motor pool and I caught sight of this extreme burst of light twirling in the air. It had a bright red light on top and a bright red light on bottom. And in between were these rotating lights . . .green, blue, yellow, and red." He described the object as oval-shaped with a dark background. It seemed. enormous although it was too far away to really estimate its size. "It was roughly a mile or so away and roughly 1,000 feet off the ground," he said. When Green first saw the UFO, it was slowly coming toward him, but then it slowed and "hovered over a wooded area in the tank trails by the motor pool," he explained. Green yelled at PFC Eddie R. Halstead, who was working in the motor pool's tool room. PFC Halstead also described the UFO as circular with red, green, blue end yellow lights flashing around the center . . ."like a Christmas tree."..."The UFO hovered over the area for a while, SFC Green said. "It was positioned so still. . .it looked like it would fall out of the sky. It wasn't even moving, then it slowly started to veer off to the right, made a real sharp right turn and disappeared. It went so fast it went plumb out of sight." (Louisville Courier, Oct. 25)

Oct. 18, 1973; Rosewood, OH

7:30 p.m. American Airlines Flight 21, a Boeing 747 at 33,000' encountered apparently the same UFO witnessed by Capt. Coyne and his crew over Mansfield, OH. (CUFOS,92)

Oct. 18, 1973; Galion, OH

9:00 p.m. (+-) Walter and Mary Kowalchik near Mansfield were talking on the local network of their Ham radio group with Richard Swain, a Technical Sergeant in the Air Force, who was in Galion, Ohio. Kowalchik reported: Swain said, "There's something strange. First of all, it's a strange light. No airplane has a light like that. It's an orange glow, rather than a flashing red or green. And secondly," he said, "it isn't behaving like an aircraft. -Now wait a minute, there's something strange herel" And he was all excited. He was in Galion and he said it was heading towards Shelby. (Ref. 7, page 87, Zeidman)

Oct. 18, 1973; Shelby, OH

9:00 p.m. (+-) Now it so happens that Mr. Eldon Heck sent his wife out in the yard to scan the skies while he was on the air. She came back to report that she was sighting something strange over the Shelby area. (Ref. 7, page 87, Zeidman)

Oct. 18, 1973: Mansfield area, OH

9:00 p.m. (+-) Then we have a report from Gordon Sponseller who was also in the Air National Guard, and he reported while on the air, "There is a strange object. I can't identify it because all I can see is a light. I cannot see an object, but I can see a strange light, and the manner in which it is maneuvering it' s very rapidly in one direction and then a sudden stop." Sponseller said that no object with any mass at all could possibly stop that suddenly. "Something is strange," he said. "Either someone is shining a light against some clouds, or it's a type of maneuvering that is very fast." (Ref. 7, page 87, Zeidman)

Oct 18, 1973; SW of Mansfield, OH

9:00 p.m. (approx) The Kowalchik sighting. Mary sighted an aircraft in the sky, and she knew it was an aircraft because of the flashing lights on the craft, and it was moving at a very steady rate across the sky like an airplane would, whereas the other object was moving very rapidly from spot to spot on the skyline. So Mary called Walter out and as he got there she said, "Look at that! Oh my God, they're gonna crash!" Because they were on a collision course at least it appeared from there, and they did come close together and veered off--the orange object veered off, and the plane kept going on, and that's about the extent of our sighting. (Ref. 7, page 88, Zeidman)

October 18, 1973; Mansfield, OH

At 11:05 p.m. Army Reserve helicopter encountered domed, craft-like object that beamed green light into cockpit, lifted helicopter off course (UFOE II). The Army helicopter 68-15444 was returning from Columbus, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio, and SE of Mansfield Airport while flying at an altitude of 2500 feet and on a heading of 030 degrees, SSG Yanacsek observed a red light on the east horizon, 90 degrees to the flight path of the helicopter. Approximately 30 seconds later, Yanacsek indicated the object was converging on the helicopter at the same altitude at an airspeed in excess of 600 knots and on a midair collision heading. Captain Coyne observed the converging object, took over the controls of the aircraft and initiated a power descent from 2500 feet to 1700 feet to avoid impact with the object. A radio call was initiated to Mansfield Tower who acknowledged the helicopter and was asked by Capt. Coyne if there were any high performance aircraft flying in the vicinity of Mansfield Airport, however there was no response received from the tower. The crew expected impact from the object; instead the object was observed to hesitate momentarily over the helicopter and then slowly continued on a westerly course accelerating at a high rate of speed, clear west of Mansfield Airport then turn 45 degrees heading to the NW. Capt. Coyne indicated the altimeter read a 100 fpm (feet per minute) climb and read 3500 feet with the collective in the full down position. The aircraft was returned to 2500 feet by Capt. Coyne and flown back to Cleveland, Ohio. The flight plan was closed and the FAA Flight Service Station notified of the incident. The radio returned to normal 10 minutes after the incident, having gone completely dead on both UHF and VHF frequencies just after Coyne had established contact with Mansfield control tower. Some witnesses on the ground reported seeing the helicopter as well as and object "like a blimp" and "as big as a school bus" hovering above the helicopter. When the UFO's green light appeared it was described by the witnesses as "like rays coming down and the helicopter, the trees, the road and everything turned green." Capt Coyne : "From a speed of 600 mph, it abruptly slowed down to our exact speed of 100 mph and hovered above us." Co-pilot Jezzi: "The object was cigar-shaped, metallic grey, with a dome on top." Staff Sergeant Healey : "It was about 60 feet long, without any portholes or intake openings that we could see. At first it was just showing a red light in nose. Then a green spotlight at the back swept around and shone into our cabin." (Sources: Zeidman, NARCAP Case 36, Army Disposition Form 23 Nov 1973)
http://www.nicap.org/731018mansfield_dir.htm
Reviewing his instruments, Coyne noticed that the magnetic compass was rotating slowly, while the Radio Magnetic Indicator was functioning normally. He descended to the previously assigned cruise altitude of 2,500 feet and made radio contact with the Akron/Canton air traffic controllers. (Richard Hall)

October 18, 1973; Mt. Vernon, IN

(described earlier)
http://www.nicap.org/731018mtvernon_dir.htm

The one and only MADAR event for 1973 occurred right after the peak in key regional and national sighting events, but on Nov. 1, at 9:47 PM, just 53 minutes before a UFO sighting 6 miles NE of Mt. Vernon at Bufkin, Indiana:

After MADAR was triggered, a call came into the UFO Filter Center at Mt. Vernon. At 10:40 p.m.. a blue and green object with a humming noise was observed near Mt. Vernon for 10 minutes. It first went from west to east, then north to south, moving up and down and back and forth. It was last seen near the Meade Johnson plant at Mt. Vernon. (UFOFC, Ridge files)

This intelligence summary is subject to update.