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Nuclear
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NCP-18
Roswell 200 Miles Up - The
Boys Upstairs
Fran Ridge
051710, updated 040115
New Mexico is the home of the atomic bomb at Los
Alamos. The Trinity Site is not far from Socorro,
where on July 16, 1945, it was reported that an object
from the sky crashed to the ground at around the very
time the first atomic bomb was scheduled to go off at
4:00 a.m. MDT. The Trinity device was a
plutonium fueled bomb. The plutonium that was in the
device came from the Hanford Atomic Plant at Hanford,
Washington. One clear day in the middle of the
month radar detected an object that
was in a holding pattern directly above the plant.
The object was described by F6F pilots as the size of
three aircraft carriers side by side. The object
had disappeared going straight-up. UFOs were
observing our nuclear activities. But two years later,
in the summer of 1947, something much more
profound than surveillance and possible interference
with an atomic test, occurred that shook up the
military so bad that major policy changes were put into
play. What is important is that there is no doubt
what the military thought was going on, and they had
good reason to believe it. And the evidence
indicates they were not wrong.
A number of times in our history we have been witness
to things that have brought fear into our hearts and
created great conflicts, even wars. One that comes to
mind for many people is the Cuban Missile Crisis of
October 1962. American U-2 flights photographed Russian
missiles being readied on Cuban soil, just 90 miles from
the coast of the United States. It was a very scary time
and we could have gone into a nuclear war situation very
easily.
A more recent example of how things escalate from
general surveillance and discovery was the situation
in Iraq. We had a military presence in the region,
which included aircraft carriers and warships in the
Gulf and photographic missions with the U-2R, plus
more sophisticated satellite imagery. But in this case
we were surprised when the invasion of Kuwait began on
August 2, 1990. The
initial
conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with
an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was
followed by a ground assault on 23 February 1991.
All one has to do is look at UFO history, from
before the great World Wars, even much earlier, to see
that we have been observed by "someone" for a long
time. This would be comparable to a random study to a
more systematic presence, and eventually, a worldwide
presence using large carriers, scout ships, and
unmanned probes, all of which have been seen and
reported throughout the years.
It is my opinion that something serious was going
on in the summer of 1947, something that triggered one
of the most intense UFO waves in history. A number of
us in the Nuclear Connection Project think that it was
a multitude of events that had gone on for several
years and seemed to come to a head. We were engaged in
a potentially cataclysmic nuclear arms race.
I had two sons involved in the Gulf War, and during
the 1990's I had a lot of things on my mind. My work
with the UFO subject had been disrupted as I wondered if
we were going to make it through this ordeal, either as
a family or a nation or a world. My UFO interest had
been fueled by the usual Roswell researcher's findings,
but I had not been in contact with many of them
directly. That came much later when I set up the Roswell
email list, which included all of the big names. My
contacts at that time included Pat Packard, Kevin
Randle, Robert Durant & Mark Rodeghier, which was
years before I began work on the NICAP site and the
Nuclear Connection Project.
The July 1947 UFO Sighting peak
Somewhere after the Iraqi War had broken out I had a
phone conversation with CUFOS Mark Rodeghier. My concern
then was, that from the standpoint of research around
Roswell and the UFO Wave of 1947, I was convinced that
the two events were not a coincidence. The fact that the
two week wave of over a two thousand sightings ended
with the "explanation" of the Roswell event as a downed
weather balloon was no surprise, at least to me. In my
opinion the reporting stopped because of the bad
publicity the flying discs had gotten when General Ramey
& the weather balloon were shown coast to coast in
the newspapers on July 8th. Just what happened after
that is harder to determine because witnesses probably
kept their reports to themselves. But the fact was/is
that the wave began out of the blue, and this was
something new in the skies for most people. "Flying
discs" were being reported in broad daylight all over
the United States. Equally important was that the wave
amplitude spiked right after the crash at Roswell as if
the downed UFO had triggered some kind of frenzied
activity.
For a comprehensive list of sightings for 1947, visit
NICAP's 1947 UFO Chronology at:
Signifying the
importance of the wave and its effect on the military,
I remembered what Project Blue Book's Capt. Edward
Ruppelt had said:
By the end of July
the UFO security lid was down tight. The few members
of the press who did inquire about what the Air
Force was doing got the same treatment that you
would get today if you inquired about the number of
thermonuclear weapons stock-piled in the U.S. atomic
arsenal. . . (At ATIC there was) confusion almost to
the point of panic. ("Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects", p.39)
Mark & I had been discussing all this. I was
commenting on how it was as if we had created a
threatening problem that summer, which in turn caused
stepped up surveillance that resulted in the wave, and
that the intensity, unseen in many years or sighting
waves since, may have contributed to the crash of one of
the objects or the collision of two of them over New
Mexico. In my mind it was as if the crash had stirred up
a "hornet's nest" of much more intense activity, or a
form of retaliation in some way. I also suggested
to Mark that "they", whoever they were, surely must have
been looking for the craft or its unfortunate occupants.
In Iraq, or any other war or conflict, when an aircraft
goes down, we try our best to get to it and rescue the
pilots and navigators. If the aircraft is carrying
anything secret or a new technology, we either use
demolition charges to destroy it or possibly try to
recover it or specific parts so that the technology
doesn't get into the wrong hands. With Roswell, we
surmised that if "someone" had crashed a flying saucer,
they must have tried to recover the pilots or the craft
or parts thereof. At least that was the thinking back
when Mark & I were going over that type of
possible scenario. The conventional wisdom now suggests
that, given the craft at Roswell was not ours, and was
manned, "they" didn't seem to care about bodies or
debris. They simply left everything behind. So, what
were "they" looking for when they flew over the debris
field in the summer and fall of 1947?
M/Sgt. Lewis S. "Bill"
Rickett
Tom Carey:
When
M/Sgt. Lewis S. "Bill" Rickett was escorting
meteor expert Dr. Lincoln LaPaz around the state
of New Mexico in the fall of 1947 trying to
determine the speed and trajectory of the
"object" that had crashed there a few months
previously, they interviewed some Corona
ranchers who told them that they had seen lights
traveling slowly over the crash site
shortly after the crash as if they were looking
for something. I can't recall if they said
that they had also seen beams of
light coming from them that
were traversing the desert floor. The
implication is that "they" may have
been looking for their downed comrades. We
got
our information about the hovering discs over
the crash site directly from Rickett himself in
interviews conducted circa 1989, 1990, 1991. .
Don Schmitt:
Bill Rickett, in
numerous conversations with me went into good detail
about his field work with Lincoln La Paz. Just as in
his meteorite investigations, La Paz attempted
triangulation in his assigned Roswell work. That
required them to interview as many of the ranchers
and other people living around the crash region.
According to CIC Rickett, a number of ranchers
recounted observing bright lights projected onto the
ground from above, scanning that very area. Rickett
wouldn't read anything into those reports, but he
stated that the witnesses were clear that this took
place weeks after the military cleanup.
There were more than two areas where metallic debris
was found, but yet another was confirmed by Rickett
and LaPaz. In September, while trying to determine
the speed and trajectory of the unknown object they
found a possible touchdown point about 5 miles NW of
the Foster Ranch with melted sand AND small pieces
identical to what Rickett had handled before. And
Corona ranchers had their homes indescriminately
ransacked in the military's mad search for
"souvenirs" from the crash. The point being, that
over two to three months after the crash there
were pieces of debris still on the ground or not in
military custody.
But it gets even more interesting.
With that in mind, why would a craft be hovering in
space, 200 miles up, over the Roswell debris field a
little over a month after the crash? Is there any
evidence to support this contention? Is there evidence
in the Blue Book files? And could this high-altitude
craft have been looking for scraps that might get into
the wrong hands?
In May of 2005, while doing research on the Project
Blue Book files for the NICAP site, Dan Wilson
submitted some interesting documents he had found.
Here is what we found.
Late August of 1947. The location was Holloman AFB,
New Mexico. The timing and the location was no
coincidence. The radar was modified to track objects
at very high altitude. They aimed the antenna almost
straight up and picked up a target at 200 miles. In
1948 the report leaked out, Project SIGN sent two
high-level investigators, but the prime witnesses
disappeared.
CPS-4 antenna
The original CPS-4 was designed to be used in
conjunction with the SCR-270 and SCR-271 search sets.
It required six operators. This S-band radar,
operating in the 2700 to 2900 MHz range, could detect
targets at a distance of ninety miles. This radar was
modified with its 20' wide by 5' high antenna turned
on its side and the range extended to 250 miles.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-107
Some researchers had told me that this was all a
mistake and that the object was tracked sometime in
1948, not in August of 1947, and that the radar
actually picked up the mountain tops, and that's
what one of the prime witnesses actually said!. This
would all be OK, except that Air Force documents
prove this is incorrect and later, the witness lied.
This ATIC Form 329 confirms the time frame as "Late
Aug. 47", nails Holloman AFB, New Mexico, radar
technicians, and a "motionless" object at "altitude
(not range) 200 miles" tracked by radar. Besides
that, Project Mogul abandoned use of radar after the
summer of 1947, so the 200-mile high radar tracking
could not have happened in 1948.
Brad Sparks:
The radar tracking
was late Aug 1947 and it is in my BB UNK's
Catalog. (The visual sighting of April 5,
1948, is different.)
AMC Watson Labs
Project Mogul engineer Rosmovski and communications
officer Lt. H. G. Markley tracked a stationary
target at 200 mile altitude using a modified CPS-4
radar aimed at 70-degree elevation." (FOIA, Loren
Gross, Aug-Dec 1947 SUPP p.28.)
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-850
TELETYPE MESSAGE
Air Service Command Teletype Network
FROM:
AMC
DATE: 30 Apr 48
TO.
COMMANDING OFFICER
HOLLOMAN AFB
ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO
ATTN:
COL. PAUL F. HELMICK
MR. ZABRISKI OF THIS HQ INDICATED THAT DR. J. (?)
PEOPLES OF THE WATSON
LABORATORIES HAS INFORMATION THAT WOULD BE OF VITAL
IMPORTANCE TO THE
INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT. CONFERENCE WITH DR. PEOPLES
REQUESTED ON
5 OR 6 MAY 1948. ADVISE IF CONVENIENT.
INTELLIGENCE REPRESENTATIVE
LT. COL. JAMES C. BEAN AND MR. A.C. LOEDDING WILL
TRAVEL BY MILITARY AIR.
SIGNED, TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-847
With this document it is requested that travel orders
be prepared for James C. Bean, Lt. Col. and Alfred C.
Loedding, Aeronautical Engineer, travel to begin on or
about 3 May 1948 for approximately 2 days to the Office
of the Director of Intelligence, Air Intelligence
Requirements Division (AFOIR) Hq, USAF, Washington,
D.C. Purpose of travel: Discuss classified Project
MT-304 , per orders of Col. Clingerman.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-843
11 May 1948
Report of Trip to Holloman Air Force Base, 5-6
May 1948
1. The primary purpose of this trip
was to interview Dr. Peoples, repre-
senting the Watson Laboratories, who was temporarily
on loan to Holloman Air
Force Base. Upon arrival, it was learned
that Dr. Peoples had returned to
the Watson Laboratories at Red Bank, N.
J. A teletype sent from Holloman Air
Force Base stating that Dr. Peoples would not be
available for interview did
not reach HQ, AMC in sufficient time to postpone the
visit. However, it was
learned that Dr. Peoples would be at Maxwell Air Force
Base, Montgomery, Ala.
on or about 11 May 1948 for an indefinite period of
time.
2. A civilian, Mr. Joseph Olsen, who
works in the same laboratory with
Dr. Peoples had also seen the unidentified flying
object while in the presence
of Dr. Peoples. Mr. Olsen was interviewed
with the following stated results:
a. The
object definitely was not a balloon.
b. The
object appeared round and white; was at a great
altitude and
moved at a high rate of speed.
3. Mr. Olsen promised to send
in a detailed report through channels, to-
gether with the report of another civilian who also
witnessed the phenomenon.
4. It was also learned that a
Lt. Markley who works in the Radar Laboratory
at Holloman AF Base has, on several occasions in the
past, witnessed on his
scope unidentified flying objects at high
altitude, moving at a very high
rate of speed. Lt Markley was not available for
interview; however, a request
for a detailed report of these observations was
forwarded to the Commanding
Officer, Holloman Air Force Base.
5. Lt Colonel James C. Beam and Mr.
Alfred C. Loedding proceeded to
Phoenix, Ariz, to interview Mr. William A. Rhodes
and follow up on the report
and photographs submitted by him some months ago.
<snip>.
James C. Beam
Lt. Col. USAF
Project Officer
Concurred in:
Alfred C. Loedding
On May 12, 1948, Col. W.R. Clingerman, Chief of the
Technical Intelligence Division at AMC wrote the
Commanding General of Holloman AFB at Alamogordo:
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-840
This memo dated 12 May
1948
From AMC (Air Materiel Command)
To Commanding Officer, Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, NM
1. On 5 May 1948, Lt Colonel
James C. Beam and Mr. Alfred C.
Loedding, representatives of Intelligence
Department, this Command,
visited your headquarters for the purpose of
interviewing Dr. Peoples
of the Watson Laboratories.
2. It was learned that a Lt Markley
has, in several instances
in the past, detected on a radar scope
unidentified flying objects
moving at an excessive rate of speed. It is
desired that a report
be submitted to this headquarters giving all
available information
on these reported sightings. Future observations of
this type should
be reported to this headquarters
immediately.
By Command of Gen.
McNarney
signed
W. R. Clingerman
Chief, Tech Intelligence Div.
Intelligence Department
Here Lt. Markley, while denying he saw high speed
objects on radar, leaks information about the 200 mile
high radar track of a motionless object.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-841
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE
BASE
ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO
OPERATIONS & PROJECTS
ELECTRONICS & ATMOSPHERICS DIVISION
S-T-A-T-E-M-E-N-T
1. Reference is made to Par 2, basic
communication. Apparently a
misunderstanding exists in that I did not personally
see unidentified ob-
jects moving at an excessive rate of speed on a radar
scope. Rather,
Mr. P. Rosmovski, of Watson Laboratories, very
probably saw unidentified
objects. However, Mr. Rosmovski informed me that
the objects seen were
not moving at an excessive speed, but rather were
motionless at an altitude
somewhere in the vicinity of 200 miles. When
these were seen on the Radar
scope of the CPS-4 (Modified) the angle of elevation
of the Radar antenna
was approximately 70 degrees from horizontal.
2. During the latter part of August, 1947,
this organization was carry-
ing on several test runs with a modified SCR-270 at
this base. I had re-
leased a corner reflector and two balloons and
was watching them in their
flight as they drifted to the southeast from this
base. While watching the
balloons through a pair of ten power binoculars, a
white object, appearing
to be round, came into my field of vision. I followed
the object as far as
possible but lost it within seconds after picking it
up. The object was
traveling at an unprecedented rate of speed and
appeared to be several
thousand feet over the top of the Sacramento mountain
range, traveling in
horizontal flight south to north.
3. There have been other times when manning the
M-2 Optical tracker,
that I have seen round or flat-round objects that were
unexplainable.
4. In view of Par 1, this endorsement, it
is suggested that Mr. P.
Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory, AMC Watson
Laboratories, Red Bank New
Jersey be
contacted.
Robert G. Markley
1st Lt. USAF
Communications Officer
Over 5 years ago, Brad Sparks, who was aware of the
incident and had posted the basics of it in his
Comprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns,
was engaged in a lengthy email thread with us and had
commented:
The CPS-4
height-finding radar apparently had only a 4-degree
wide beam not 10 degrees (as Martin Shough had
suggested in the 23 page discussion). However it
was pointed almost straight up (70 degs elevation) and
picking up "targets" at about 200 miles
altitude. There is "nothing" that should be "out
there" to reflect a near-perpendicular incidence radar
beam in 1947. There are no "mountains" 200 miles high
or 1,000,000 feet tall.
Brad was more interested in the fact that the ground
range of a 70-deg beam with a 200-mile high target is
200 miles/tan 70 = 73 miles. In otherwords the
target would have been hovering in space 200 miles high
over a spot about 73 miles away from Alamogordo Army Air
Field (later Holloman AFB). Considering that 200 miles
is a rounded number, it could easily be 210 or even 220
miles and then the ground range could be 76-80 miles or
more. "You see, the Foster Ranch debris field (and any
fairly close-by anomalous site) was about the same
distance, about 85 miles away from Alamogordo."
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-845
This document is hard to read and was not
transcribed. It is a supplement to a trip report that
is two pages long (PBB3-845-846).
Personnel interviewed were Dr.
Peoples, Mr. Chance, Mr. Olsen, and Mr. Johnson
of the Geophysics Laboratory Section and Mr.
Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory. This document
pertains to UFOs observed on April 5, 1948 and is only
relevant to our August 1947 report in the sense UFOs
were being observed by these trained observers in New
Mexico.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-846
6.
All agreed on the following: the object was
very high, moved faster than any known aircraft,
possessed a rounded, indistinct form, and disappeared
suddenly rather than fading away in the distance. It
was under observation ½ minutes or slightly less. It
was definitely not a balloon and apparently not manned
judging from the violent maneuvers which were
performed at a high rate of speed.
<snip>
8.
Mr.
Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory was interviewed on 4
June 1948. His statements do not check very
closely with those contained in Lt. Markley's report
to this office. Mr. Rosmovski stated that Lt.
Markley was one of two observers on a modified CPS-4
Optical Tracking Device. The observations Lt.
Markley reported seeing on this equipment could not be
confirmed at any time by the other tracker. Mr.
Rosmovski passed off the "ghost pip" he personally
observed on the radar equipment as merely the illusion
of the equipment. He explained that this "ghost"
did not move, and was possibly the echo from a distant
mountain on a side wave of the radar equipment.
He also spoke of "crazing" which is the effect on
radar by the white gypsum sand in the area directly
west of the Air Base. He also mentioned another
form of "ghost" called "Angels" which have been
detected and which are believed to be caused by
changes in air density. Such phenomena have been
observed and reported from Camp Edwards.
Brad Sparks:
But let me preface
this by saying that I am not necessarily arguing
that there was a real object at 200 miles height
above the earth, in outer space, at all. I do
not "believe in ETH" anyway, but I do recognize this
case however weak it is, is nonetheless unique and
unprecedented potentially DIRECT evidence of
extraterrestrial UFO's (contrary to my anti-ETH
position) since there were no manmade satellites or
anything else at 200 miles up in space in 1947 and
nothing even today that can stand still motionless
at 200 miles.
What Brad was arguing is that certain AF operations,
like Project MOGUL which did the tracking of the
200-mile high stationary object, believed that there was
an object at 200 miles up and went to some effort to
cover it up by outright lying about it. And they were
caught red-handed and had to admit it "and by
extraordinary evasion of official inquiries." Two
fairly high-level AMC people (Lt Col James C. Beam and
Alfred Loedding, the "brains" behind Project SIGN) made
special arrangements in advance to fly out from Ohio to
NM to interview Dr Peoples about the incident and then
only when they arrive they find out Dr Peoples has
conveniently left and flown off to New Jersey, evidently
to evade interview, and Lt Markley is strangely
unavailable.
As Brad commented back then, not only is this incredibly
rude behavior but it is potentially reportable offenses
by personnel all under AMC's Commanding General
McNarney, in effect defiance of Gen McNarney's orders
making Project SIGN a Priority 1-A project, excusable
only if superseded by higher classification
orders. MOGUL personnel had to leak the
information in the first place, from one AMC unit
(Project MOGUL) to another AMC unit (Project SIGN),
since it was never officially reported as it should have
been reported. This in itself is very strange
since this was all internal to AMC, Air Materiel Command
(which is why Brad thought it was the only reason it
leaked in the first place). One would think that AMC
units would be more cooperative amongst themselves than
to lie and hide personnel from interview. One gets
the impression there was a behind-the-scenes struggle by
AMC personnel on whether to tell the SIGN investigators
the truth or how much of it to let out, because SIGN
investigators had stumbled onto a highly classified
operation. "This blatant evasion of an official
investigation is virtually unprecedented in UFO
history. If one wanted to find telltale signs of a
coverup this is exactly the kind of thing one should
look for, all hidden in classified files never meant to
go public."
As per the radar tracking, we do not have an azimuth, so
we do not know the exact direction, but regardless, the
altitude would allow surveillance of the relevent sites
and there is no currently known reason why the object
might not have been in an even more provocative
position.
To summarize:
We had a massive sighting wave in 1947, with well over a
thousand reports of unidentified flying objects that
descended on a completely unaware public, with half of
the incidents taking place in broad daylight. During the
climbing six week wave, an unknown craft crashed near
Roswell or collided with another disc during the intense
surveillance that spiked on July 5th. Even without the
Roswell incident the Air Force knew something serious
was going on and by Ruppelt's own admission, by the end
of July "the UFO security lid was down tight." Sometime
within the next month, someone in the military, working
outside of AMC's guidelines, modified a CPS-4 and aimed
it almost straight up and picked up a hovering target
200 miles up. When other serious incidents over New
Mexico, involving information termed "of vital
importance to the intelligence department", came to
AMC's attention in 1948, the incident with the CPS-4
leaked out. AMC wired ahead and received travel orders
to meet with the radar people. Those radar people not
only disappeared, but since they were not AWOL, those in
charge of the action were also part of the cover-up.
This UFO report isn't just another radar case. It
involves an object tracked by military radar in one of
the "hottest" nuclear areas in the world and a little
over a month after the Roswell crash. This object was
doing something we can't even do today, hover motionless
in space at 200 miles up, and right over New Mexico in
1947. At this vantage point any part of New Mexico could
be scrutiized. Two years before, two atomic weapons had
been rushed into a World War and had killed over 200,000
civilians. By now New Mexico and other strategic parts
of the United States were buzzing with activity to make
sure nuclear weapons were available for use on aircraft,
missiles, and submarines, even mines. By June of 1947
the nuclear arms race was on, and "somebody" watching
couldn't help but get the idea that, if we build
something, we always seem to use it.
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