The
Nuclear Connection Project
presents
The
Oak Ridge Sightings
including all the Tennessee
Blue
Book Unknowns
"Y-12"
Area at Oak Ridge, TN
Updated: September 22, 2005:
The evidence for a UFO/Nuclear Connection grows stronger by the
day. Official FBI, CIA, Army and Air Force documents establish, beyond
a doubt, that UFOs have been seen and reported where uranium was mined
and plutonium was manufactured (
the Congo, New Mexico,
The
Oak
Ridge, Tennessee,
the
Hanford Plant at Washington, the Savannah River facility at South
Carolina). Official reports are on file of UFOs seen where bomb
development took place (
Los
Alamos, Sandia Base) and where nuclear
weapons were stored (
New
Mexico: Los Alamos,Manzano Mountain near Kirtland, NM, and
Texas: Killeen Base ant Camp
Hood).
This is the third part of that story, the Oak Ridge and Tennesse
Sightings, which we
produced to include all the known cases and provided links to the full
report directories and official supporting documents. The matrix for
this chronology is based on a paper
NCP-14:
Saucers Over Oak Ridge by one of our NCP
staff members, Bruce Maccabee.
Where enough
information is not available to produce a case directory, the
supporting documents are provided as temporary directories.
I wish to thank Dan Wilson, one of our staff researchers, for his fine
research into the Blue Book Archives for the supporting documents in
most of these cases. And to Brad Sparks for his re-evaluation of the
Project Blue Book Unknowns which doubled the number of cases that
were unexplained, many of which occurred in New Mexico and other
high-security areas such as Oak Ridge (TN) and Killeen Base (TX) and
were used as a checklist. Jan Aldrich provided documentation on
some cases; Richard Hall provided the chronologies and basic case lists
(UFOE, UFOE II); and Jean Waskiewicz and I created a set of
useable databases within the NICAP Global Sighting Information
Database) for the total caseload.
Francis
Ridge
Coordinator, Nuclear Connection Project
September, 1944; Oak Ridge, TN (BBU)
Metal tube hovers over gaseous diffusion plant.
May 7, 1948; Memphis, TN (BBU)
Bray and Kaiser. (McDonald list; FUFOR
Index)
June 30, 1948; S. Knoxville, TN (BBU)
Whitehouse. (McDonald list; FUFOR Index)
In January, 1949, Colonel Gasser
had reported to the FBI that two photos of a UFO had been taken
near Oak Ridge in the summer of 1947. That was the first Oak
Ridge sighting.
April 6-7, 1949; Memphis, TN (BBU)
12:01 [12:30?], 2, 3:30, 4 a.m. Housewife
Mrs. Mike Love Stewart and Dorthy [Dorothy?] Hall (and Helen Howell?),
a husband and son, saw 6-9 climbing, diving, whirling yellow or silvery
ovalobjects which avoided 3-4 airplanes, traveling from SW to SE about
45° elevation about 1-2 miles away, 1/4 moon angular size. (FOIA)
The second occurred at about noon on May 25,
1949. It was a multiple witness sighting of a strange flat
metallic object passing over the area while making a cracking
noise.
The third occurred at 7:00 PM, June 20,
1949. Several people observed three objects, two rectangular in
shape and one circular, flying over Oak Ridge.
Bruce Maccabee:
...at the end of January, 1950,
President Truman announced that work would begin on the hydrogen
bomb. The race for the Super Bomb was on! (The Soviet
Union would win this race in 1953.) Suddenly spies were being
caught everywhere. In February, Klaus Fuchs was arrested for
giving secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets. (Fuch’s
spy activities were in large part the cause of the Soviet Union’s
successful detonation of a fusion bomb in August,
1949.) FBI Director Hoover made a personal report to
President Truman on Fuchs’ capture and subsequent confession in
Britain. A few days later Senator Joe McCarthy announced that
there were over two hundred Communist Party members working for the
Department of State. Five months later, about the
time that the Korean War began, Harry Gold and David Greenglass were
caught and provided information about a spy ring directed by the
Rosenbergs which had provided atomic secrets to the Soviets during
WWII. All of this espionage activity may have affected the FBI
view of the UFO phenomenon because the Air Force was clearly worried
about the green fireball and disc phenomena seen near the nuclear
installations... could they be related to Communist subversion?... and
because Colonel Gasser had indicated that the saucers were man-made
missiles...but not made by the USA!
March
1, 1950; Knoxville, TN
Radio amateur says he tracked UFOs with radar. For the record, this
often-quoted series of incidents beginning with
the one on March 1st, fails to provide a credible witness or a reliable
set of equipment. It is presented here to set the record straight.
There was no conclusion as to what, if
anything, Adcock had detected. SAC Robey reported to FBI
headquarters that the most impressive thing to him had been the “lack
of any agency actually taking responsibility for the situation and
taking any action to verify or disprove the threat.” He also
pointed out that it was many hours after the initial detection or
“threat” was reported that any action at all was taken. Evidently
Oak Ridge was not as well protected against a threat of sabotage as the
security agencies had hoped!
March 29 [30?], 1950; Marrowbone Lake,
TN (BBU 682)
7 a.m. Real estate salesmen Whiteside
and Williams saw 6-12 dark
objects shaped like 300-lb. bombs, estimated 5 ft long, flying 500 mph
in descent, making a noise like wind blowing through the trees.
(Berliner)
The summer and fall of 1950 was an
important time in
the history of UFO phenomena.......there were
important national and international political and military
developments which affected the FBI perception of the flying saucer
problem. The Cold War was hot. The Berlin Blockade
had been successfully overcome, but the Russians had successfully taken
over the satellite countries of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Yugoslavia. Then, on June 25 North Korea
marched about 60,000 men into South Korea and began the Korean
War. Both the Soviet Union and China were aiding North
Korea. The South Korean Army, not fully prepared, collapsed under
the weight of the attack and two days later President Truman ordered US
troops to South Korea. The next day Seoul fell to the North and
General MacArthur reported that the South Korean army was too
demoralized to mount an effective resistance. Two days after that
Truman ordered U.S. ground forces to Korea. The first post-WWII
war was on!
All this time the FBI was quietly
monitoring the
fireball (New Mexico) and saucer situation. Recall that in late
August 1950 agent A. H. Belmont had written a memorandum to
Special Assistant D. M. Ladd summarizing recent developments regarding
green fireballs and saucers. On October 9 Mr. Ladd wrote a
memorandum for Mr. Hoover providing an update on Project
Twinkle. The memorandum states that “To date the Air Force
has not advised us of any new developments in connection with this
project.” Evidently the Air Force had not told the FBI
about the multiple witness sightings and filming of multiple objects on
August 30 and 31. Mr. Ladd also made an explicit comparison
between saucer sighting reports (referred to as “complaints”) and the
war in Korea, which to this point had been going reasonably well, since
the North Korean army had not (yet) succeeded in pushing the United
Nations and United States forces into the sea:
"According to Bureau files, an average
of
approximately three or four complaints have been received per month
from June through September. These complaints were brought to the
attention of OSI. A review of Bureau files does not indicate that
there has been any increase in sightings of these phenomena during or
as a result of the war in Korea."
Mr. Hoover was probably glad to see that there were
so few complaints and that there was no apparent connection with the
war. However, there still was the major question of the origin of
the phenomena seen near the vital installations and the secondary
question of just what the Air Force was doing about it. Mr. Ladd
provided the following comments on these subjects:
“The Bureau has been advised in the
past by OSI that
many of the sightings reported to them were determined by investigation
to have been of weather balloons, falling stars, meteorological
phenomena and other air-borne objects.
"Bureau liaison determined on the
morning of October
9, 1950 from OSI headquarters that the investigation of these aerial
phenoena are being handled by OSI, Wright Field, Ohio. Their
investigation of these phenomena fails to indicate that the sightings
involved spaceships or missiles from any other planet or country.
"According to OSI, the complaints
received by them
have failed to indicate any definite pattern of activity. OSI
further advised they are closely following the investigation of the
captioned matters and they will advise this Bureau of any matters of
interest.”
Once again the FBI was told that the Air Force was
sufficiently worried about these phenomena to continue secretly
investigating even though many sightings could be
explained. Since the Air Force was once again ruling out
the interplanetary and “foreign country” explanations the FBI could
only presume that all saucer sightings resulted from
misidentifications, delusions and hoaxes.
Major General Cabell, Director of
AFI, had requested that AMC reinstate the investigation and analysis at
ATIC. On September 25, 1950 the Bureau received from Cabell a
copy of an intelligence collection memorandum entitled “Reporting of
Information on Unconventional Aircraft.” This was yet another
request to provide sighting information with the added request that “no
publicity be given this reporting or analysis activity.”
The memorandum to Mr. Ladd, quoted above, reflected this new activity
at ATIC. Once again, in private the Air Force was
contradicting its public stance that saucer sightings were not worthy
of attention. In private the Air Force and the FBI found out that
sightings which were about to occur at Oak Ridge were worthy of
attention...a lot of attention.
Att 11:25 PM on October 12, a
military radar unit at Knoxville Airport suddenly detected 11, “and
possibly more,” unidentified targets moving over the restricted flight
zone at Oak Ridge. This time action was taken.
(McDonald
list) At
11:30, the radar station commander scrambled an F-82 fighter. It
was in the air nine minutes later. The fighter was vectored
toward two targets and, according to the radar, closed with the
targets, but the pilot saw nothing. Ground observations
also failed to detect anything in the sky. No unusual objects
were seen visually or on radar for the next two days. Then the
“dam broke.”
October 13, 1950; Oak Ridge, TN
Cat 2. Sightings by AEC security patrols.
Keeping in mind that these (UFO) books
were coming at a
time of “atomic paranoia,” it is not surprising to see that Hoover took
a particular interest in (Frank) Scully’s book. Ever on the
alert
for Communist subversion, on October 13 he sent an urgent teletype
message to SAC, Los Angeles:
FLYING SAUCERS. YOU ARE
INSTRUCTED TO DISCREETLY DETERMINE
THROUGH APPROPRIATE SOURCES OF YOUR OFFICE WHETHER FRANK SCULLY AUTHOR
OF THE BOOK QUOTE BEHIND THE FLYING SAUCERS UNQUOTE IS IDENTICAL TO THE
FRANK SCULLY WHO HAS BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES
SINCE THE LATE NINETEEN THIRTIES IN THE TERRITORY OF YOUR OFFICE.
October
15, 1950; Oak Ridge,
TN (BBU 819)
Oct. 15, 1950. Oak Ridge, TN (BBU 819)
3:20 p.m. AESS Trooper Rymer, J. Moneymaker, and Capt.
Zarzecki saw 2 shiny silver objects shaped like bullet or bladder
dive with a smoke trail, one vanished, the other hovered at 5-6 ft
altitude, 50 ft away, left and returned several times somewhat further
away. (Berliner)
At 3:25 PM, an Atomic Energy
Security Patrol Trooper, Edward D. Rymer, and a caretaker, John
Moneymaker, from the University of Tennessee Research Farm, at Oak
Ridge, saw an object at about 12,000 to 15,000 feet above Solway Gate
of the "Control Zone." This object appeared to be an aircraft which was
starting to make an outside loop, trailing smoke behind. Soon these two
men realized that the formerly described smoke behind the aircraft was
a tail. This object continued to descend in a controlled dive, and when
it approached the ground it leveled off and flew slowly, parallel to
the ground. This object came within two hundred and ten (210) feet of
the two observers and was paralleling the ground at approximately six
(6) feet. The Knoxville radar showed on its screen some strange targets
at the same time as the
visual sightings. Again an aircraft was scrambled and
saw nothing. The Project Blue Book master list shows that ATIC
could not explain the visual sighting. (Hynek UFO Rpt pp. 142-3)
The next day at about 1:30 PM,
John Isabell, a
security guard of the Oak Ridge Patrol Force, saw a silver-white
spherical object traveling from the southwest to the northeast and
passing over the K-25 restricted area at high altitude. It
was white or silvery and round like a ball.
The second
sighting on that day occurred at “exactly 2:55 PM.” Mr.
Isabell and two other members of the patrol force saw the same round
object approaching from the northeast at a lower altitude and
speed. The object, while spinning about an axis, traveled in a
wide circle toward the southwest and disappeared. In a couple of
minutes it reappeared in the southwest at a very high altitude
and headed northeast at a high rate of speed. The guard
phoned the information on the sighting immediately to headquarters
where radar was picking up an indistinct target every third or fourth
sweep over the K-25 area. An F-82 was scrambled. The ground
witnesses reported that the fighter plane arrived about 15 minutes
after the object had disappeared. (The ATIC sighting analysts
subsequently decided that this object was a balloon in spite of the
decription of spinning amd in spite of the odd flight path.)
Later on, during the evening, some of the security guards heard
strange, loud noises.
That same day, October 16, the CIC
agent decided it
was time to review the situation. He wrote a report mentioning
the 1947 and 1949 sightings and discussed the recent sightings.
The CIC took these sightings very seriously and thoroughly checked the
backgrounds of the witnesses by using employment records and FBI
reports in order “to ascertain their reliability, integrity and loyalty
to the United States Government.” The was no reason found
to discredit these witnesses, many of whom were professional security
guards.
The CIC and the other security agencies
discussed
the situation and attempted to arrive at some conclusions. The
CIC report of these discussions make amusing reading in view of the
concerted attempt later on by ATIC to explain the sightings any way
possible. One gets the impression from the following document
that, when it came to explaining UFO sightings as mundane phenomena,
the security officials who were involved in the investigations had
“been there, done that” and now they were looking for something new and
convincing to explain these sightings:
“ The opinions of the officials of the
Security
Division, AEC, Oak Ridge; Security Branch, NEPA Division, Oak
Ridge; AEC Security Patrol, Oak Ridge; FBI Knoxville; Air Force
Radar and Fighter Squadrons, Knoxville; and the OSI, Knoxville,
Tennessee, fail to evolve an adequate explanation for OBJECTS SIGHTED
OVER OAK RIDGE, however the possibilities of practical jokers, mass
hysteria, balloons of any description, flights of birds (with or
without cobwebs or other objects attached), falling leaves, insect
swarms, peculiar weather conditions, reflections, flying kites, objects
thrown from the ground, windblown objects, insanity, and many other
natural happenings have been rejected because of the simultaneous
witnessing of the objects with the reported radar sightings; because of
the reliability of the witnesses; because of the detailed, similar
description of the objects seen by different persons; and because of
impossibility.”
“...because of impossibility”?
What was that
supposed to mean? It meant that all the suggested explanations
had been rejected because, in view of the high quality of the witnesses
and the descriptive details, these explanations were
impossible. So, having rejected mundane explanations, what
were these objects? The CIC agent continued:
"The trend of opinions seem to follow
three patterns
of thought. The first is that the objects are a physical
phenomenon which have a scientific explanation; the second is that the
objects are experimental objects (from an undetermined source) guided
by electronics and the third is similar to the second except that an
intended demoralization or harrassment is involved. The fantastic
is generally rejected.
"These objects have apparently
followed only two
patterns. The first is that they were sighted at the same
hour on two consecutive days and the second is that the time of flight
is either to or from the Northeast and Southwest, which directions
(are) parallel the terrain ridges in the locality.”
The fantastic is generally rejected?
It is not too surprising that “the
fantastic” would
not be in an official report. However, the fact that it was
rejected means that they at least thought about “the
fantastic.” They also showed a healthy degree of skepticism
regarding the ATIC treatment of such sightings because they questioned
the ATIC “identification” of the image in the 1947 photographs as a
photographic flaw:
“Attention is invited to the 1947
photograph of a
flying object. Atomic Energy Commission officials advise that the
Air Force Laboratory at Wright Field, Ohio, indicate that the object is
a water spot on the photograph. Because this object does not
resemble other water spots of the photograph and because the object in
the second photograph is following the dim trail left by the first
object, some officials at (the) Atomic Energy Commission question the
veracity of this statement. They also believe it is significant
that the Air Force did not return the negative of this print.”
These security agencies were quite
correct to be
skeptical of the ATIC treatment of these sightings. The
Project Blue Book record shows that the radar sightings were identified
as “radar pecularities,” the first October 16 sighting was identified
as an aircraft and the second as a balloon (even though the description
of the object was the same for both sightings!). Only the
October 15 sighting discussed above was listed as Unidentified.
Copies of the reports by the CIC
agents were made
available to the FBI. When he saw them Hoover may have
wondered if the saucers had now transferred their activities from the
west, where atomic bombs were designed, built and stored, to Oak Ridge
where the uranium isotope U-235 was being extracted for use in atomic
bombs and where nuclear energy was being studied as a possible source
for aircraft propulsive power.
Strange noises were also part of
the phenomena
reported. Major Ronniger, a Senior Instructor at Oak Ridge,
reported that at 3 PM on October 15 he heard a sound like the blast of
a jet engine. He and another person searched the sky for such an
aircraft but could find none. The next day several security
guards reported that around 8 PM they heard what sounded like the blast
of a jet several times. Each time the noise lasted about 3 1/2
seconds. “The sounds seemed to leave the vicinity making an
ascent almost vertical. None of the guards could see an object in
the sky.”
By October 16 things were already hot at Oak Ridge,
but that was only the beginning.
October 18, 1950; Oak Ridge, TN
Unidentified radar contacts. Source of this report is unknown.
On the 19th of October, before the FBI
was fully
aware of what was taking place at Oak Ridge, Hoover received from Mr.
Ladd more information about Air Force activities:
“The matter of flying saucers was
discussed by
Special Agent .....(name censored)...with Major General Joseph F.
Carroll of OSI on October 16, 1950, at which time General Carroll
advised that insofar as he has been able to determine the Air Force is
not working on any type of ‘flying saucer’ or ‘flying disc.’
General Carroll stated that the Air Force is working on high altitude
rockets and jet aircraft. He stated these experiments may account
for some of the reports concerning flying saucers but that the air
Force is not apparently working on anything which is the cause of the
many flying saucers reports. He stated that the Air Force program
for investigating reports concerning flying saucers, etc., has been
reinstituted at Wright Field and that any pertinent information of
interest coming to his attention will be furnished to the Bureau.”
By October 16 things were
already hot at Oak Ridge, but that was only the beginning.
October 20, 1950;
Oak Ridge, TN
At 4:55 PM on
October 20, Larry Riordan, the Superintendent of Security for the X-10
control zone became a witness. While driving to a residential
area he saw an object which he thought at first was a balloon which had
lost its “basket.” It was generally round, appeared to
“come together at the bottom in wrinkles (rather indistinct and
something was hanging below.” It appeared to be 8 to 10
feet long and lead or gunmetal colored. It didn’t seem to be
moving but, since he was traveling and only saw it for a number of
seconds, he couldn’t be sure. He was sure it wasn’t a weather
balloon, although he thought it might have been a gas bag balloon
launched by the nearby University of Tennessee Agricultural Research
Farm.. On the same day at 3:27 PM the radar unit at the Knoxville
airport detected radar targets near the area of Mr. Riordan’s sighting
and scrambled a fighter plane. The pilot searched the area for
about an hour and a half, which included the time of Mr. Riordan’s
sighting, and found nothing.
Three days later, October 23, at 4:30
PM, Francis
Miller, an Oak Ridge laboratory employee, while driving along a road in
Oak Ridge saw an object that appeared to be less than half a mile away
and between 1,000 and 2,000 feet up.
October 23, 1950; Oak Ridge,
TN
It appeared as an “aluminum
flash” that was traveling in a south-southeast direction. He only
saw it for a few seconds. Subsequently it was discovered that a
nuclear radiation detection station (a Geiger counter) in the vicinity
of the sighting registered a burst of alpha and beta
radiation. The purpose of this station was to detect any
leaks of radiation from the Oak Ridge Laboratory. There was no
leakage of radiation, however. An expert from the Health and
Research Division analyzed the readings from the Geiger counter and
pronounced them unexplained. This association between radiation
detection and a UFO sighting was similar to that at Mt. Palomar
mentioned in Chapter 13. Whether the reading of the Geiger
counter was actually a result of nuclear radiations or whether the
presence of the UFO induced a transient electrical fault in the counter
or whether there was some other explanation is not known.
This case does not appear in the Project Blue Book file.
October 24, 1950; Oak Ridge, TN
During the evening there was
a
“light in the sky” sighting by two witnesses who were at widely
separated locations. The first to see it was Mr. William Fry, the
Assistant Chief of Security for Project NEPA. He was at a
drive-in theater with his family at about 6:45 PM waiting for the movie
to begin when he saw the lighted object in the southwest while casually
looking around the sky. He reported to the CIC investigator:
“...I observed what I at first
thought to be an
unusually bright star. The exceptional brilliance caused me to
continue to observe it when it suddenly seemed to change color rapidly
from a reddish hue to a bright orange and again to a brilliant light
blue. (His wife and son also saw it.) ...A few
moments later I heard a plane directly overhead making passes over the
Oak Ridge area, which was later identified as one of the F-82 fighter
planes from the Air Force unit stationed at McGhee-Tyson Airport..
(At this point Mr. Fry went to a
phone and called
someone to look, but the person could not see it because of the hills
and trees.) "While returning to my car I met a friend...who
stated
he had been observing the object. I continued to observe the
object with my wife but it seemed to be in a more northerly position
which caused me to select a fixed point to determine whether or not the
object was changing in either direction or altitude. There seemed
to be a deviation from north to south for approximately five to ten
degrees. The changing colors were still very evident but the
object seemed to be continually getting smaller and smaller as though
it was becoming more distant. At approximately 7:18 by my watch
it disappeared from view entirely. During these observations my
wife continued to report to me the identical things that I was
observing. During the entire time the F-82 airplane continued to
make passes over the area until approximately 7:15. The weather
conditions were excellent; the air was calm; and the sky was cloudless
with the exception of a very slight haze over the distant horizon.
"The following morning, upon
reporting to work I
confided my story to...(name censored)...stationed at Oak Ridge with
the NEPA project, but I hesitated to go on record as having observed
such an unidentified object.”
Mr. Fry did go on record
because he learned that he
was not the only witness. Air Force Major Lawrence Ballweg also
saw the light. He reported as follows:
“On the evening of 24 October
1950 at approximately
1855 (6:55 PM) I heard a plane fly over my home in the Woodland
area. Being a curious individual I went outdoors to watch it with
my binoculars. While looking for the plane I saw an object in the
western sky which appeared at first to be a star but upon closer
observation I noticed that it was rapidly changing colors from red to
blue to white. When first seen it appeared to be moving very
slowly in a northwest direction. It was moving relative to the
other stars. The object was too small to be able to see any
details even with the glasses. It disappeared from sight about
1920 (7:20 PM). During this period of time my wife also observed
the object.”
Mr. Fry then learned that the
radar unit had also
detected something. He was told that an unidentified object
appeared at 6:30 PM at an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet in the
same general vicinity as the object he saw. The radar target
disappeared at 7:20 PM. The complete radar report to the CIC
investigator says that targets appeared at 6:23 PM moving over the
restricted flight zone and at 6:26 a fighter was scrambled to the area
of the targets but failed to see anything.
Considering that the
atmosphere can make a star or
planet which is within a few degrees of the horizon appear to change
color and move very slightly or twinkle, one might be tempted to
identify the light as the bright planet Venus or a very bright star
seen in the west an hour after sunset, which was at about 6 PM local
daylight savings time. However, two elements of the
description reject that sort of explanation. First, the light was
described by Major Ballweg as moving relative to the stars. Since
Major Ballweg used binoculars to view the light it is likely that his
description of motion is accurate. Furthermore, it must have been
quite large because Mr. Fry, not using binoculars, also detected
motion. Second, Major Ballweg said that the light
appeared over a telephone pole that was about 100 yards away.
That would make the angular elevation greater than 5 degrees.
According to the CIC investigator, Mr. Fry indicated that the
elevation from his location was 30 to 40 degrees above
horizontal. Hence it was so high in angular elevation
that atmospheric effects would not make it appear to change color and
there would be no noticeable effects other than the normal twinkling
which affects stars at any angular elevation. The final
reason for rejecting Venus or a bright star is that Venus was below the
horizon at the time and there were no excessively bright stars in that
sector of the sky at the time. The disappearance of the
radar target at the same time as the light suggests that the UFO was a
some kind of metallic unknown object hovering in the vicinity of Oak
Ridge. This is another Oak Ridge sighting that is not in the Blue
Book file, nor are the following October events.
October 25, 1950; Oak Ridge, TN
About six hours later, between 2 AM and 3 AM, the radar unit reported
several slowly moving objects such
as had been seen previously.
On October 26 at 5 AM Col. Edwin
Thompson heard an intermittent noise like the blast of a jet, similar
to what had been reported on the 15th and 16th. He saw no
aircraft associated with the noise.
Three days later seven people
waiting at the Knoxville Airport “saw an object traveling to the
Southwest at a great rate of speed. (name censored), who
has considerable flying experience, was extremely excited and stated
that this object was not an aircraft. He described it as a
circular object, leaving a trail of smoke.”
There were two
reported sightings on November
5.
November 5, 1950; Oak Ridge, TN
At 9:29 AM an object was
detected on radar traveling over the
restricted area at a speed of 80 mph. A fighter aircraft
attempted an intercept and then trailed the object for 20 miles.
The pilot reported no visual contact.
Two and a half hours later,
at 11:55 AM, Don Patrick of the NEPA Division saw a very strangely
shaped object travel by, apparently just above the mountain
range.
November 5, 1950; Oak
Ridge, TN.
(BBU 829)
11:55 a.m. Fairchild Aircraft illustrator Don Patrick saw a
translucent object, light grey with dark core, shaped like a pear or
bean, flying with rapid, darting movements. (Berliner)
It seemed to change rapidly from
a
pear shape to a bean
shape and other sausage like shapes as it traveled. Although the
shape changed the overall size was about constant. It seemed
translucent but had definite outlined edges as seen against the sky and
background clouds. There was no particular color and there were
no bright highlights. Mr. Patrick at first thought it was a
balloon but then realized that the shape changes and rapid motions
meant it was something else. He told the CIC investigator that
“the core (dark triangular portion) remained constant and the apex of
the core varied only a few degrees while the body of the object seemed
to change shapes rapidly and would become elongated during a quick
movement of the object.” Project Blue Book files list this
sighting as unidentified.
As part of the CIC agent’s attempts
to explain these
sightings he asked Mr. J. Holland, chief of the Weather Section
of the AEC at Oak Ridge, to provide information on balloon launches at
the times of the sightings. There was no correlation. The
only sighting that could have been a balloon was the October 20
sighting, and even that was not correlated with the Weather Section
data. With regard to the radar detections during the previous
month, Mr. Holland said radar can be reflected from patches of ionized
air and if a large quantity of radioactive material were released it
might provide sufficient ionaization of the air. However, he
didn’t believe any such release had occurred. According the the
CIC agent’s report the Weather Section would carry out research to
determine whether or not “radioactive energy ejections” could cause
radar returns. There is no report on the results of the radar research.
Between 5 and 11 PM radar targets
returned to the Oak Ridge area. Fighters were scrambled. They saw
nothing.
However, at 7
PM, during this period of radar
sightings, graphic records of Geiger counter detections in the
restricted area of Oak Ridge indicated an abnormal increase in alpha
and gamma radiation that could not be attributed to a known
source. Apparently this was “too much” for the officials in
charge of Oak Ridge security. They held a two day meeting to
discuss the “operational difficulties” of the early warning radar of
the Air Defense Command at Knoxville. AFI was asked to
investigate the situation and to set up a separate radar set for
comparison. (McDonald list)
The suggestion that some radar
targets might be the
result of ionization of the air by nuclear radiation must have been on
the mind of Mr. Gray, SAC Knoxville, because on December 4 he called
FBI headquarters and discussed the speculation that releases of
radioactive material could have caused the anomalous radar targets
observed. The next day Mr. Hoover sent an urgent teletype to SAC
Knoxville: “Arrangements should be made to obtain all facts concerning
possible radar jamming by ionization of particles in the
atmosphere. Conduct appropriate investigation to determine
whether incident occurring northeast of Oliver Springs, Tennessee,
could have had any connection with alleged radar
jamming.” Unfortunately any information that might
have been available on the “Oliver Springs” case has not been
released. Nor is there any response to Hoover’s teletype message.
On December 5 and 6 there was a
discussion of the
technical aspects of the radar sightings with ATIC and intelligence
officials. They concluded that the targets were probably “radar
angels” which are reflections of objects on the ground which are
observed only because of a temperature inversion which bends the radar
radiation downward. On the other hand, that did not mean that
there were no flying saucers around.
December 5, 1950; Oak
Ridge,
TN
Wife of security officer reports object made of polished
metal.
At about 12:50 PM,
December 5, the wife of one of the security officers saw an
unusual object north of her position, flying apparently over the Post
Office building in Oak Ridge. It appeared to be a couple of miles
away and 500 feet above the ground. It appeared to be made of
highly polished aluminum or metal that reflected the sun. Its
shape was round and flat or disklike. She saw the object for
about a minute as it flew in a direct course eastward. Ten
minutes later another lady at a different location observed the same or
a similar object heading westward. The OSI agent who investigated
this case learned that there was an east wind at 6 mph and a clear
sky. No balloons had been launched near that time. He also
learned that there were two aircraft airborne at the time, but both
were about fourteen miles south of the witnesses. ATIC
subsequently claimed that the witnesses saw an aircraft
Although ATIC would eventually
claim that most of
these events were mundane (radar anomalies, balloons, aircraft) and
leave only two of the Oak Ridge sightings unidentified, the local
military officials and scientists were not so certain of easy
identifications. They planned to begin their own scientific
investigation. Lt. Col. John Hood, the AMC Field Engineering
Officer, outlined the plan in a December 5 memorandum entitled
“Technical Approaches to the Problems of UFOs.” He proposed
placing radiation counters over a wide area. After there had been
sufficient anomalous object reports to establish a pattern, the data
recorded by these counters would then be compared for time and location
with the sightings “to see if any change in the background (radiation)
occurs with the presence of sighted objects.” He also proposed
that portable counters be made available which could be taken to the
area of a sighting. Along with the counters he proposed that an
aircraft with Geiger counters and also a magnetometer be made
available. The magnetometer would indicate any fluctuations in
the local magnetic field associated with sightings. He also
proposed more accurate radars capable of measuring height as well as
range and azimuth. This plan was to begin operating near the end
of December.
The next anomalous event in
the Oak Ridge area was
yet another appearance of radar targets which “blanketed the radar
scopes in the area directly over the government Atomic energy
Commission projects.....these objects could not be identified from the
radar image and a perfect fighter interception met with negative
results.”
On December 6,
1950.
For an hour the United States military was under a condition of
national emergency that morning. Two days
later the FBI was informed that the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps
had been placed on Immediate High Alert for any information related to
flying saucers. Were these two documented events related?
December
14, 1950; Oak Ridge,
TN
An FBI document found in Clear
Intent (page 173) shows that a group of targets blanketed
the radar
scopes in an area directly over the government AEC projects at Oak
Ridge. They were not identified and scope photos were taken. However,
these radar tracks were not listed among the Blue Book Unknowns.
December 18, 1950; Oak
Ridge, TN (BBU)
Calkins. (McDonald list; FUFOR Index)
The last Oak Ridge sighting of any
consequence
occurred at about 8:30 AM on December 18. Groups of people in
separate cars traveling to work saw an unusual object fly over the Oak
Ridge area. To the Air Force officers in one of the cars it
appeared as would a bright reflection from a very distant
aircraft. It was southwest of them and they only saw it for a few
seconds. At the same time several other NEPA project employees
were in another car at a different location. They saw this object
for about 30 seconds before it was obscured by the nearby hills.
They described it as a bright circular light with an intensity
greater than that of the full moon. It was between 15
and 30 degrees above the horizon as it moved in a northwesterly
direction. They observed a strange effect on the circular
light: it seemed to “darken, starting at approximately 7:00 t o
9:00 o’clock along the perimeter and continuing to darken along the
perimeter and inner area until the light was concentrated in
approximately 1:00 to 3:00 o’clock position of a very small diameter,
at which point it appeared somewhat similar to a large star.”
(McDonald list; FUFOR Index)
Not listed among Blue Book list or
Spark's updated version.
About the time that Col.
Hood’s research plan was to
be put into effect the last two Oak Ridge sightings occurred.
These were on December 20 and January 16. The December 20 case
was another radar-only event (no visual contact) and the January
16 sighting involved sightings of stars. The Oak Ridge flap
was over. There were no more sightings until a single one in the
late fall of 1951. By that time the research project had
effectively died. Thus, as happened with Project Twinkle in New
Mexico, just as the local scientists and security agencies were about
to carry out precise research that could prove the UFOs were real
anomalous objects.... they disappeared!
In retrospect, although
it might be possible that
some of the radar detections were weather anomalies, often called
“radar angels,” caused by temperature inversions in the atmosphere, the
visual sightings cannot be so easily
dismissed.
AESS guard J. H. Collins
saw a 20 ft square object, white-grey but not shiny fly above ridge to
the clouds and back again twice, taking 30-40 seconds each time. A
civilian guard (AESS) on duty at Oak
Ridge reported
sighting an
airborne object at 0815 EST. Traveling at a
constant speed, equivalent to conventional aircraft, the object was
described as square, approximately 20 feet wide, grey-white in color,
with no markings. The observer, age 40, is described by his employer as
honest and conscientious, and is held in high respect by his
employer. Two F-47's were unsuccessful in an attempt at
interception. (Berliner; FUFOR Index)
1952
April 14, 1952; Memphis, TN (BBU 1112)
6:34 p.m. U.S. Navy pilots Lt. jg.
Blacky, Lt. jg. O'Neil flying on 18° (about NNE) heading at 2,000
ft over NAS Range Station saw to their left an inverted bowl glowing
bright red, 3 ft long and 1 ft high, with vertical slots, approaching
at high speed on 300° heading, straight and level at 2,000 ft,
passing 300 ft from their aircraft and below overcast at 4,200 ft.[Red
glowing trail?] (Berliner; McDonald files; Jan Aldrich; cf. NARCAP)
June 21 [23?], 1952; Oak Ridge
[Marxville?], TN (BBU)
10:58 p.m. GOC post spotted target,
confirmed by ADC radar,
followed by F-47 fighter interception of a 6-8-inch white blinking
light which made ramming attacks on the F-47 from 10,000 to 27,000 ft.
(Ruppelt p. 43)
June 23, 1952; Oak Ridge, TN (BBU 1334)
3:30 a.m. Secretary Martha Milligan saw
a bullet-shaped object
with burnt-orange exhaust fly straight and level. (Berliner)
Oct. 21, 1952; Knoxville, TN (BBU 2179)
No time given. Witnesses at airport
weather station saw 6 white
lights fly in a loose formation, make a shallow dive at a weather
balloon. (Berliner)
December 18, 1952; Oak Ridge, TN
RV, source unknown.
1953
July 19, 1953; Oak
Ridge, TN
At approximately 3:00 P.M., an F-86
aircraft was observed
flying over the Oak Ridge residential area, making circles at what
appeared
to be approximately 2,500 or 3,500 feet. The F-86 flew
over
the area in this manner for approximately ten or fifteen minutes. The
witness,
together with his wife, observed the aircraft through a pair of six
power
field glasses. After the aircraft flew in what appeared to be the
direction
of Knoxville, Tennessee, a black object moved out of a high white
cloud,
directly over the area the F-86 had been flying. This object began to
travel,
at a tremendous speed, in a large circle. This action on the part of
the
unknown object continued for at least five minutes. During the circle
of
this object, it appeared at times to be in the shape of a cigar and at
other times round.
1954
Sept. 23, 1954; Gatlinburg, TN (BBU 3227)
9:45 a.m. (EST) Dave Owenby [and Trainer?] saw 2 bright silver,
wheel-shaped
objects fly N to S in trail. (Berliner;
FUFOR Index)
1955
Sept. 9, 1955. Near Alcoa [Rock Garden?], TN (BBU 3757)
12 noon. M. N. Dawkins, using binoculars, saw a brown, almost
square object fly with a circular motion. (Berliner)
Oct. 19, 1955. 40 miles NW of Knoxville, TN (BBU)
8:30 p.m. (EST) F-86 case. (McDonald list; FUFOR Index)
Nov. 20, 1955; Lake City, TN (BBU 3862)
5:20 p.m. Operations Officer Capt. B. G. Denkler and 5 men of the
USAF 663rd AC&W Sq saw 2 oblong, bright orange, semi-transparent
objects fly at terrific speed and
erratically, toward and away from each other (Berliner)
1957-1966
Dec. 11, 1957; Lake City AFS, TN (BBU)
(McDonald list)
March 28, 1966; Fayetteville, TN (BBU)
8 p.m. Man driving 60 mph suddenly saw a large lighted object 3 ft
above the road on a hilltop, which flew off, as the car engine and
headlights died. Headlight bulbs later had to be
replaced. Object was oval, 25 ft long, dark gray, with about 30
lights along its periphery. (Vallée Magonia 739)
April 5, 1966. Alto, TN (BBU 1038)
11:55 p.m. W. Smith and another stopped to watch an object
hovering about 15 ft above a swamp, tried to follow it but it flew
away. Object 100 ft long oval with a dark top, appearing cone-shaped
when moving, making a high-frequency noise, and flying between a
hightension power line and a row of trees. Animal reactions
wherever the object flew over. (Berliner; cf. Vallée Magonia
753)
END OF REPORT
