Fran Ridge:
Sept. 1952; Albuquerque, New Mexico
Afternoon. Radar detected a 700 m.p.h. target near Kirtland AFB which slowed to 100 m.p.h.. Two F-86's were scrambled. One fired on the UFO. Report ordered destroyed. If Captain Edward J. Ruppelt hadn't written about it in his book we would never have heard about this case. It never made it to Blue Book.

In January of 1998 I received a large collection of notes by Ruppelt that his wife had turned over to the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago. These were actually provided to me by Robert Swiatek of the Fund for UFO Research. They included interesting information regarding this case. In June of 2002 our Nuclear Connection Project team made a startling discovery. A few years before we had found that there were193 incidents where UFOs and nuclear energy or weapons sites were common factors. Kirtland had figured in on two of them (1957 & 1980). We then realized any major sighting over Kirtland would also have a NC and this incident was added to the list.

Lt. Glen Parrish was the Intelligence Officer at the 34th Air Defense Division at Albuquerque where Col. Matheny was the CO. Ruppelt: "Parrish sent in some of the best reports that we had and he is the man who showed me the report on the pilot who shot at the UFO." (Sept. 1952) According to Ruppelt, with all of the good reports that Parrish had submitted, he wasn't a confirmed believer. But he did think that the reports were important enough to warrant careful investigations. In addition to the above, Parrish was the middle man for the reports from the people who were doing the radiation work in Los Alamos. The date of the encounter was discovered by Brad Sparks to have been sometime in September of that year. Dan Wilson recently posted some BB docs that show incidents in September, but have them listed as explained as "balloon".

Joel Carpenter:

In the spring of 1952 there was proposal by Col Methaney (I believe that's the spelling) of Kirtland's Air Defense Command 34th Air Defense Division - to modify Lockheed F-94C Starfire interceptors with cameras to get closeup photos of UFOs. They were to be put on 24/7 alert (POUNCE). I would think Kirtland would have been the logical place.

Detailed reports and documents
The F-86 Shooting Incident (Edward Ruppelt)
Matheny's wherabouts and potential date of incident - NARA-PBB1 81-83 (Dan Wilson)

Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas - Kirtland AFB
The F-86 Sabrejet
The New Mexico Page