Fran Ridge

We had discussed this in an email thread in September of 2011 but some of the history hadn't been presented. The discussion resulted in nothing more than a lost email that had no home. A few months ago the subject of those early reports of mystery satellites came up again. Rather than re-invent the wheel as one colleague had intimated, I was determined to get the full story out there and on the NICAP site, no matter the outcome.

The idea of "mother ships", "carriers", etc, in orbit is not a new one and wouldn't be too hard to expect during huge sighting waves, provided that there was some evidence to support the claims. If it were established that some of the rumors were true, then this paper would certainly be justified, and its claim to have a nuclear or strategic connection could also be considered as a strong possibility. If nothing else this paper would serve as a position statement and a directory for the evidence, and any further findings would have a place to be filed. Here is what we think we know about this 60+ year-old enigma, "the mystery satellites".

Very early on, in 1947, it was mentioned that the saucers were not due to Communist agents making false reports and there wasn't much to keep the FBI busy. Military Intelligence, however, pressed on with its intercontinental missile/plane hypothesis. The idea of orbiting satellites were already being studied. (Ref 9)

"Mr.--- further states that he had recently talked with one of the owners of a ---Company in Glenbrook, Conn., and had been informed by --- that his company is making a large powerful telescope to be used in searching the stratosphere for atom bombs." (Ref 10)

So we can see that there was concern about the Russians and secret weapons from space, long before Sputnik. Some thought they were farther ahead of us than we had thought. Was that enough to begin a more thorough search for orbital objects or was there other evidence about other type of objects in orbit?

In 1974, Dr. David Saunders, using documented observations of UFOs in Ted Bloecher's book, The Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, claims that a straight plot of 36 sightings existed between Monterrey, California, and Baltimore, Maryland, with an average deviation of 1-1/4 miles for the period of time July 3rd to July 16th. For more details consult the Santa Ana (California) Register of October 2, 1974, which has the article: "UFO Data Computer Study-Key to Sightings Prediction?" by David Branch. 52)

So what about those pesky reports of unidentified satellites?

At first there were reports in the 1950's, followed by reports in 1960, and more recently the reports of a Dark Star Satellite. What really spawned my interest in all this was the Lunascan Project's detection of what my Lunascan team believes was an unidentified LUNAR orbiter in 1996. But as I began to collect information on Earth orbiters, some in the form of documentation, the findings began to take the shape of a more comprehensive and interesting "paper", rather than what I had initially envisioned, a simple dir for such claims.

If we could establish the existence of large orbiters and UAP activity during major sighting waves it would have to be considered extremely important, much more so than a collection of close and distant encounters. How can one forget that once we had carriers in the Gulf during Desert Storm, big things began to happen. And they were preceded by an increase in normal activity. The rest is history, history that is starting to repeat itself.

The best place to start is the beginning of it all, the 1950's. Two sensational announcements captured peoples attention throughout the world. The first announcement said laconically that the U.S. Army had commissioned the well-known astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, to look for a second moon believed to belong to our Earth. And, two weeks later, came the second, almost incredible, statement to the effect that Tombaugh had already located two new Earth satellites. These were allegedly fairly large meteors which had, in some unexplained manner, come into the neighborhood of the Earth and were now in orbit around it. The article (Ref.1) that mentioned all this went on to say that the two new "satellites" were from 430 to 650 miles from the Earth and between 60 feet and 300 feet in diameter. It was a preposterous explanation. For several asteroids to come in from space and, without any control, to assume the precise courses necessary to go into such orbits, would be impossible. Something was wrong here. Maybe it just wasn't true. That story, translated from the West German magazine Lies Mit!, No. 7, of March 3, 1955?: "SENSATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENTS, The Earth has two new moons", was based on truth, but was it the whole truth?

One of the first places I checked for data was our NICAP UFO chronologies.

On April 4, 1952, it showed that "Ruppelt Briefs Rand Corp. Satellite Project Gen. Garland arranges for the AF-Rand Corp. Satellite Project to receive a UFO briefing from Ruppelt on a visit to ATIC.  Ruppelt meets and befriends Rand satellite engineer Jim Thompson." (Brad Sparks)

I had heard about the RAND study, entitled, "Evolution of the U.S. Military Space Program, 1945-1960 quite a few years and sent copies to several colleagues in 2008. It was interesting that the report was half devoted to 1948. As a colleague told me then, "they don't want to discuss 1947 too much". What had happened in 1947 that involved satellites and the U.S. space program?

It was six years later, in September, of  1953 (Ref.2), a slip of the tongue by an officer of the U.S. Armed Forces then on duty in the Pentagon had put Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe on to the scent which led eventually to his discovery of the alleged secret and that the American authorities had first detected the presence of the two mystery satellites in the early summer and had commissioned Clyde Tombaugh to confirm and make further investigations for them. .

The Associated Press article (Ref. 3) in the New York Herald Tribune of May 15, 1954, had already reported that in a radio net­work interview the day before, Keyhoe had declared that the Earth "was being circled by one or more artificial satellites," and that this very important piece of news was being kept from the public.

Years later Keyhoe had said that "At least nine times, huge alien spacecraft had been seen or tracked in orbit, or as they descended nearer the Earth for brief periods."  He also said that during 1953, the AF began experiments with new long-range radar equipment. "While making the initial tests, AF operators were astonished to pick up a gigantic object orbiting near the equator. Its speed was almost 18,000 miles an hour. Repeated checks showed that the tracking was correct. Some huge unknown object was circling the Earth, six hundred miles out." (Ref. 16)

Brad Sparks:

"But there were no radar tracking stations on the equator (I challenge anyone to find such in 1953).  A satellite only 400 miles up would not be detectable from radars in Florida (the most likely southernmost location of experimental radars in 1953) but at 600 miles up it might have been possible, especially if it was not strictly over the equator but inclined a few degrees.  (A satellite at 400 miles directly over the equator can be seen up to about 25 degrees latitude; at 600 miles up to 30 degrees.)."

At the time of this writing I still do not have a list of the nine incidents Keyhoe was talking about. If this list, or clues to the incident dates, is in the NICAP files, I have yet to find it. These would have had to be random detections rather than that gained from systematic searches.

Brad Sparks:

"Satellites in equatorial orbits 400-600 miles up will be sunlit for 25-30 degrees of earth rotation or almost 2 hours after sunset and almost 2 hours before sunrise (the same 25-30 degs of latitude of radar visibility I cited for 400-600 mile sats).  That means that any equatorial satellite 400-600 miles up, which are therefore in 97-104 minute orbital periods, will be seen again AND again AND again virtually every night (twilight), every week, every month.  Depending on weather conditions in Ecuador where Tombaugh set up his cameras, there should be something like 60 "incidents" of trackings per satellite each month!  Not a piddly 9 "incidents"!

Keyhoe had mentioned the one incident, then he stated, "shortly after this a second enormous object approached the Earth. Tracked by AF radar experts, it also went into orbit, about 400 miles away." Again, I don't have the date on this, and I am asking the A-Team to help us locate and document some or all of these incidents. Keyhoe continues: "Alarmed Defense Department heads hurriedly set up an emergency satellite-detection project at White Sands, New Mexico. The scientist in charge of this secret search was Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, the only noted astronomer who had admitted sighting a UFO. The "sky sweep" was a combined armed forces project, under Army Ordnance Research."

Brad Sparks:

"Keyhoe's conversation with "Paul Redell" in Oct 1953 was the first mention of anything near the equator and it followed a leak from a (Navy?) Captain in Sept 1953 who mentioned something orbiting but not that it had anything to do with the equator (Keyhoe 1955 p. 33).  This report has only one satellite, between 400 and 600 miles up.  It is apparent given the way rumors are generated and mutate that since people didn't understand satellite orbits that the mere mention of two numbers, 400 miles and 600 miles, might have made some think that meant two satellites, one at 400 miles and the other at 600 miles, when in fact it simply means a single satellite with perigee at 400 miles and apogee at 600 miles.  That could finally resolve the whole rumor of 'two satellites.'"

Keyhoe wasn't the only one who had heard about these reports. In 1952 or 1953 Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the Director of Project Blue Book, accompanied by an OSI agent, visited with Dr. Lincoln LaPaz and discussed LaPaz' work. Later, Ruppelt had heard that LaPaz, along with Clyde Tombaugh, had established the fact that there were two "satellites" orbiting the Earth, one at 400 miles and the other at 600 miles. Ruppelt was sure that Aviation Week had first reported this also, and that LaPaz was convinced that the satellites were artificial, otherwise they would have been discovered earlier. On April 26, 1956, Ruppelt wrote Lapaz (Ref.4), saying he had heard this story many times and was hearing it every few days from professional people he was in contact with. LaPaz' denial (Ref 18) on May 26, 1956 says the story had no basis in fact, but it doesn't really prove anything.

One must remember that Clyde Tombaugh was one of the first scientists/astronomers to see and report a UFO. And Dr. Lincoln LaPaz was involved at Roswell and reported to the Pentagon that it was his opinion that the object he investigated (and he wasn't involved in the full recovery) was an unmanned interplanetary probe. So it could have been possible that there was more to the studies. All we know is......they were looking.

In February 1954, plans for the satellite search were described in an article for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Quoting Dr. Tombaugh, it said that special telescopic equipment would be used. Radar wasn't mentioned. The article had been written before the project began, and there was no hint of UFOs. The operation was called a search for natural objects.




On March 3, an official explanation, approved at the Pentagon, was released at White Sands. The armed forces, Army Ordnance stated, were searching for tiny moons or "moonlets," natural objects which had come in from space and were now orbiting the Earth. They had not been tracked or discovered sooner, a spokesman said, because they were following orbits near the equator and the scarcity of observatories there made them harder to locate. Also, special automatic-tracking cameras moving at the satellites' speed would be required, because such fast-moving objects gave off very little light and ordinary telescopic cameras would not reveal them. The armed forces' intention, the spokesman explained, was to locate suitable "moonlets" which could be used as space bases and for launching missiles for the country's defense.

Again, there was no hint that the unknown satellites might be intelligently controlled craft. The official statement implied that they were objects like asteroids and nothing serious was involved. It was accepted as a legitimate statement back then, but today we know better, much better. It was a preposterous explanation. For several asteroids or meteoroids to come in from space and just go into  a low and safe controlled orbit IS ridiculous.  And the armed force's intention, to "locate suitable 'moonlets' which could be used as space bases and for launching missiles for the country's defense", now seems ludicrous but LaPaz WAS saying this on March_21,_1954. (6) Even if there were moonlets out there, we would be hard pressed today to get them into a stable orbit and make missile launching bases from them.

But as Brad Sparks recently told me, Tombaugh's Army Ordnance contract to search for satellites was issued on Dec 5, 1952. This undercuts all the b.s. about Tombaugh suddenly being called in to do an "emergency" search after the purported satellite tracking in 1953.

Brad Sparks:

"Why has no one been able to obtain a copy of this Dec 5, 1952, Army-Tombaugh contract?  I thought Jan (Aldrich) might have been able to obtain a copy from the Tombaugh papers but I think Jan told me all he had was the final report that cited the contract by date, title and contract number, not the contract itself (if I'm remembering right what Jan said by phone).

"The 1952 Tombaugh contract would explain why he was proposing the project and might spill out something interesting.  Tombaugh submitted a 25-page proposal to the Army in June 1952.  Tombaugh's Final Report of June 30, 1959, states that he began the motion-compensating photographic telescope observations from Lowell Observatory in Dec 1953 looking for geostationary objects 22,000 miles up.  He tried various search zones and strategies, but none lower than 1,300 miles above the earth, and ending at Lowell on June 28, 1956.  A non-photographic visual telescopic and binocular patrol was run from Las Cruces March 21 to June 7, 1957, for possible satellites as low as 500 miles high and up to 3,340 miles.  Such visual patrols had begun at Lowell in Dec 1953 and continued to Oct 1958, but unclear what altitudes were covered.  The Quito, Ecuador, photographic search was conducted at different times from May 1956 to Nov 1958 and searched orbital heights from 550 to 2,000 miles, and there was also a visual patrol part of that time."

Tombaugh reported 8 one-shot photo trackings of "suspect" satellites, apparently in 1955 and 1957, none of which could be found a second time.  So he concluded these were not real satellites. (Sparks)

During October of '54 a new puzzle was linked with giant spaceships. In a press statement, NASA was supposed to have said it had picked up strange signals from an unknown orbiting object. (Ref. 19)  However, this comment was made in 1973 when NASA existed, but in 1954 NASA didn't exist. And after this, a French astronomer publicly revealed that he also had heard signals from an unknown source orbiting the Earth. According to the reports no message could be recognized. Apparently this was intersteller radio noise and nothing more came out of it.

Air Force interest began right after the first major sighting wave. The great flying saucer wave of 1947 (See Ref.7) involved at least 2,000 sightings, most of them flying discs, and ended within two weeks, right after the Roswell crash. The AAF began secret work on experimental radar in New Mexico. The main idea was to track captured German V-2s being tested at White Sands as high as possible.  Something must have happened during those experiments because in August of 1947 they were looking for something else! Something they must have known was there. As strange and unbelievable as this may seem, we have documented proof that similar incidents involving objects at orbital altitudes, and HOVERING, something we STILL cannot do, had already occurred.

It is fully documented that in August of 1947. (Ref.5) that an object at an orbital altitude WAS detected by experimental radar  years before the mystery satellite stories began to come out.  At least one incident actually occurred where a UFO was tracked at 200 miles up. And this tracking was not an accident. A radar was modified, aimed almost straight up, and there was a UFO!

In the 1951 version of the motion picture, "The Day The Earth Stood Still", the film starts out with an object being tracked by radar. The scene where the elliptical antenna is rotating demonstrates how a normal radar antenna configuration works. But if you flip that antenna over and aim it almost straight up (70 degrees) and extend the range, you have a way of following missiles up into outer space. In 1947 what happened after that is even stranger. Guess what? They weren't tracking a V-2 but they picked up something else. It was as if they knew something was there TO pick up. Not to mention the object was right over the Roswell area. If it didn't happen that way, then "somebody else" who knew we were looking, stepped into the beam. But it gets better. Here's what we found:

At Alamogordo in late August, 1947, Air Materiel Command's Watson Labs Project Mogul engineer Rosmovski and communications officer Lt. H. G. Markley tracked a STATIONARY target using this modified CPS-4 radar aimed at 70-degree elevation. The 90-mile range radar had been modified to track objects at a  250 mile range. The radar, aimed into outer space to look for targets picked up a target at 200 miles. Lucky for us the report leaked out. Project SIGN had sent two high-level investigators, but the prime witnesses were conveniently not available. Read the full report (5)

In the mid-50's we all started to look to the skies in a new way. After the launching of Sputnik I this was a new pastime. In 1956 and 1957 similar sightings of unidentified satellites were made by both professional and amateur astronomers.

Frank C. Clark, an amateur astronomer in New Mexico, saw an orbiting object September 8, 1956, during observations of the planet Mars. His account was printed in "The Strolling Astronomer" in October 1956. (Ref 8)

By the way, according to Brad Sparks, it was C B Moore who wrongly claimed in 1949 that his Arrey NM sighting might be at 18,000 mph because he was "assuming escape velocity" (quote is from Moore's report the Navy sent to CIA) and he mistakenly thought escape velocity was 5 mi/sec or 18,000 mph instead of 7 mi/sec and 25,000 mph.  "This misled McLaughlin so you should disregard this stuff in the (Ref 13) TRUE article as Un-True nonsense, along with all the associated altitude and size figures.  Moore assumed an arbitrary speed and distance just to see how the figures worked out, nothing more.  Could have been 10x closer, and then the speed would only be 1,800 mph, altitude 30,000 feet, etc."