Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 15:46:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: michael swords <mswords@att.net>
Subject: Re: Congaree
To: Francis Ridge <nicap@insightbb.com>


This case is apparently rooted entirely in the Blue Book files. Chop gave it to Keyhoe who used it in Flying Saucers Are Real [attached], and apparently (Aime) Michel got an Air Force report somehow too [maybe Hynek gave one to him or to CSI-NY] as Michel's brief write-up includes one little fact that FSAR doesn't have [attached from The Truth About Flying Saucers]. So these two little references are a bit of history but the Blue Book refs are the big deal --- maybe Dan can pull them out. 

http://www.nicap.org/images/conga3.jpg

The second intelligence report was barely a day old. It was dated August 20, and It came from Congaree Air Base, near Columbia, South Carolina.

On that morning radar men at a nearby Air Defense Command post were watching normal traffic when the blip of some unknown object appeared on the scope.

When it was first sighted, the saucer was 60 miles from the ADC post. Almost instantly the men could see that it was moving at fantastic speed. In a matter of seconds, as the sweep went around, a row of widely spaced dots appeared on the glass. While the operators were still staring at the track, it ran off the scope. Hurriedly, before the blips could fade, they figured the object's speed. Then they looked at each other, astonished.

'The unknown machine was making over 4,000 miles an hour.

One operator hastily cut In his mike. Then he realized it was useless to flash an alarm. The strange craft was moving at 70 miles a minute ---nearly ten times the top speed of any interceptor. Even if he flashed word hundreds of miles ahead, jet pilots would see little more than a blur if they got anywhere near the saucer.

In this report Air Technical Intelligence had made no attempt to gloss over the facts. The operators were experts, trained to recognize the blips of solid objects. The radar was working correctly.

Something had streaked through the South Carolina skies that morning, but the ATIC frankly admitted it had no explanation.


http://www.nicap.org/images/conga4.jpg

On the morning of August 20th, 1952, the radar observers at Congareee Air Base near near Columbia, South Carolina, were watching the sky when suddenly the screen picked up an object in the southeast about 60 miles away. In a few seconds the successive "blip" on the .screen traced a trajectory which implied a speed of more than 4,000 miles per hour ­ many times as fast as the fastest jet. If it had happened in France this object could have crossed the
country from one side to the in ten minutes.

The Air Technical Intelligence Center has put this case in the unexplained category.


Update:
April 5, 2011
Interesting if it turns out not to be in the BB files at all. If so, this could be due to the chaos of the times. Dewey had to have the case for it to be given to Keyhoe, but strangely Ruppelt may NOT have gotten it. I ran into one such instance regarding a good case out of Holloman where this dichotomy happened. Either, in that case, Dewey got it and "forgot" to send it to BB [or some similar snafu occurred], or Dewey did send it and the goofy boys [Ruppelt's aides, Olsson et al] didn't treat it with discipline and it got lost there. If Andy Flues wasn't around the rest of them were pretty incompetent [due to "not-give-a-damn-ism"].  Mike  p.s., of course there is a real chance that the report is misfiled in the film and not noted as such on the index --- I've seen that too.