 |
UFOs and the Media
Radar Tracks Blips and
Blobs
From
the TRUE Report On Flying Saucers, 1967
By Major Donald E. Keyhoe
In 1952, the Director of AF Intelligence admitted more than
300 cases of radar tracking and visual sightings confirmed
by radar. In the ensuing years, there have been at least
2,000 additional radar cases in the U.S. alone. Reports have
come from expert operators in the Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marine Corps, Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Agency
(formerly the CAA) and pilots or radar operators of almost
all the major airlines. The same situation exists in foreign
countries. Not only has radar proved UFO reality, it has
accurately recorded the high UFO speeds, intricate
maneuvers, precise UFO formations- including changes from
one formation to another-and other important data which make
it possible to evaluate UFO operations and help in the
search for propulsion secrets.
In the last
decade, radar equipment has steadily improved. At the same
time, operators have acquired wide experience in
distinguishing between the blips of UFO's and those of
conventional aircraft, rockets, etc. Meantime, attempts to
explain away radar blips of UFO's have been jolted by
scientific evidence disproving such claims in practically
all of the key cases. When the full story of the UFO's is
written, radar will prove to have supplied indisputable
technical evidence which finally convinced many previous
skeptics.
In an
intensive investigation of the flying saucers, we have
secured Air Force confirmation of these important facts:
1 Since 1947, hundreds of unidentified aerial objects have
been tracked by radar operators of the Air Force, Navy and
Civil Aeronautics Administration.
2. More than 300 times, Air Force interceptor planes have
chased mysterious lights and unidentified objects revealed
by radarscopes.
3. Strange round objects have shown on interceptors'
gun-camera pictures and on photographs taken from the ground
at a missile-testing range.
4. The "'temperature inversion" or 'mirage" answer to radar
sightings widely publicized by Dr. Donald H. Menzel of
Harvard has failed to satisfy Air Force investigators
because he has not at-tempted to explain any specific
"saucer" cases in official files.
Several
years ago, when an Air Force statement said saucer reports
were hoaxes, hallucinations, or mistaken observations of
normal objects, the case lists of "Project Saucer" included
several puzzling radar reports. At that time, however, most
Air Force officials believed they were errors of
interpretation due to weather phenomena. Even during more
recent years, with radar reports rapidly increasing, some
Air Force officers still believed these disturbing cases
were caused by temperature inversion. Accumulated evidence,
revealed in this article, now proves that very few of the
reports can thus be explained. As a result, many baffling
"saucer" cases investigated by the Air Technical
Intelligence Command are still listed as unanswered.
One of
these mystifying incidents was reported from Congaree Air
Base near Columbia, South Carolina. On August 20, 1952,
radar operators at a nearby interceptor post were watching
their scope when a strange "blip" appeared at an indicated
range of 60 miles southeast. Evidently the object shown was
very fast-moving, for within less than a minute each
successive sweep of the beam renewed the blip in a different
position, producing a row of widely spaced spots on the
phosphor-coated glass in a track that ran off the scope.
Dumbfounded, the men hurriedly computed the speed. It was
more than 4,000 miles per hour. The operators realized that
to flash an alarm was useless. Moving at 70 miles a minute,
the mysterious object would be 200 miles away before a jet
interceptor could take off. When I checked on this case, the
Air Force 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
streaked through the skies that morning, but the Air
Technical Intelligence Command frankly admits it has no
explanation.
Not until
July, 1952, when unidentified lighted objects were seen at
Washington Airport, did the general public learn that radar
was tracking the saucer. Later, conflicting news stories
gave many the impression that the Air Force had "debunked
all saucer reports and had no further interest." Major
General Roger S. Ramey, then Director of Operations, made
the Air Force position clear in the following statement for
TRUE:
"The Air Force, in compliance with its mission of air
defense of the United States, must assume responsibility for
investigation of any object or phenomena in the air over the
United States. Fighter units have been instructed to
investigate any object observed or established as existing
by radar tracks, and to intercept any air-borne identified
as hostile or showing hostile interest. This should not be
interpreted to mean that air-defense pilots have been
instructed to fire haphazardly on anything that flies."
The Air
Force attitude was amplified for me by another spokesman in
this candid statement:
"We don't know what these things are and there's no use in
pretending we do. We can't discount entirely that they may
come from another planet, though we have no evidence to
support it. We have found no threat to this country-there is
not the slightest evidence that they come from a foreign
nation-but until we know the answers we shall carry on a
serious investigation."
Unfortunately, public confidence in radar has been badly
shaken. Many Americans still believe that the Washington
radarmen, veteran air-traffic controllers, were tricked by
atmospheric conditions. The same cause was said to have
created mirage lights in the sky, deceiving airline and jet
pilots, control-tower men, and other trained and experienced
observers.
To get the
full story, I spent considerable time at the Airway Traffic
Control Center at Washington Airport. I talked with the
controllers who saw the strange blips and also with outside
radar experts, Weather Bureau officials and radio
astronomers. The final answer is startling in its
implications. The action began at 12:40 a.m. on the night of
July 20, 1952. At midnight, eight air-traffic controllers,
headed by Harry G. Barnes, took over the watch at the
Washington Center. The night was clear, traffic was light,
and the men settled down for a routine watch. To understand
the queer events that followed, you must first have a clear
picture of the Center's operations. The Center is located
entirely apart from the airport tower, which directs
take-offs and landings and close-in traffic. The radar room
of the Center is a long, dimly lit chamber, darkened so
scopes can be easily read. Its radar equipment, by which
controllers have guided thousands of airliners through fog
and storms, is an M.E.W. (Microwave Early Warning) type
similar to the sets used by the air-defense forces.
On a nearby
hill, a huge parabolic antenna, rotating six times per
minute, transmits a narrow radio beam which swings around
the horizon. When the beam strikes a plane, an "echo" or
"return" is reflected back. Amplified, this appears as a
small spot or "blip" on the face of a cathoderay scope. The
Center's main scope, 24 inches in diameter, has a pale
lavender glow. Traveling around the glass, like a glowing
clock hand, is a purplish streak called the "sweep" which
shows the direction of the moving radio beam. As the echo
comes hack from a cruising airliner, a small round violet
blip appears on the scope. At that spot, the phosphor
coating of the glass maintains a diminshing glow. Every ten
seconds, a new blip appears, showing the plane's changed
position. The glass retains seven blips before the first one
fades out. From the position of the blips and the space
between them, the plane's course and speed can be seen at a
glance, also its location, distance and compass bearing.
Besides the
main scope, which is adjusted to show traffic within a
34-mile radius-a 68-mile circle-the Center operates two
smaller console scopes which show the transmitter's full
range of 105 miles, or a circle 210 miles in diameter.
Radarscopes show other things than planes in the
sky-irregular blobs are reflected from thunderstorms, thin
spotty blips from flocks of birds, spreading blotches caused
by rain or snow clouds. Very-high-frequency radar sets can
pick up even cobwebs or clouds of nearby insects. But these
do not appear on the M.E.W. scope, nor would their echoes
resemble the clear, sharp blip of a plane. There are two
known things which can cause somewhat similar
echoes-balloons especially equipped with large panels of
metal for radar tracking, and "chaff" or "window," which are
strips of aluminum foil dropped by military planes to jam
radar sets. The presence of either is indicated by their
drift at the speed of the wind. Strips of chaff, usually
dumped by the hundreds, cause heavy returns which trained
radarmen can easily recognize. In addition, chaff falls to
the ground, so that its blips soon \
On the
night of July 20, none of these things were involved, as an
Air Force check has proved. The scope was clear of any
strange objects until 12:40. At that moment, seven round
blips, like those of planes, suddenly appeared in the
southwest quadrant. Since no group of planes-military or
civilian~was due to arrive, the Control Center men were
immediately concerned. Harry Barnes, the senior controller,
tracked the unknown visitors at 100-130 mph-a speed oddly
low compared with their swift appearance. Barnes quickly
checked the consoles; both scopes showed the strange blips.
He called in radar technicians; they found no flaw in the
set or antenna. Worried, though the low speeds didn't
indicate Soviet bombers, he called the Washington Airport
tower. To handle local traffic, the tower has a separate
set, an A.S.R. (Airport Surveillance Radar) with a 30-mile
range. Tower operators Howard Cocklin and Joe Zacko both
reported the strange blips on their scope, and in the same
position. So did Air Force radarmen at Andrews Air Force
Base, which uses an A.S.R. set. Not only that, visual
observers at both points could see mysterious lights moving
in the sky. Flashing word to Air Defense, Barnes turned back
to the scope. The unknown visitors had separated, were now
over Washington, two near the White House, one close to the
Capitol.
A few
minutes later, the controllers bending over the scope got a
new jolt. One blip track showed an abrupt 90-degree turn,
something no plane could do. As the sweep came around,
another of the strange objects suddenly reversed its new
blip "blossoming" on top of the one it had previously made.
The unknown craft, or whatever it was, had stopped dead from
over 100 m.p.h., then completely reversed direction-all in
about five seconds. Then we noticed another strange thing,"
Barnes told me later. "Some blips suddenly disappeared,
between sweeps. I couldn't explain it, until Jim Ritchey
called 'Casey' Pierman to check on one group of the things."
Captain
Pierman, flying a Capital airliner, had just taken off from
Washington. In a few moments he radioed back that he saw a
bright light where the scope showed one of the objects. At
the very instant he called the Center, the object raced off
at terrific speed. It was almost as if whatever controlled
it had heard us, or had seen Pier-man head toward it," said
Barnes. "He said it vanished from sight in three to five
seconds. But here's the important point: at that very
moment, the blip disappeared from the scope. That means it
must have raced out of our beam between ten-second sweeps.
It could have done this in one of two ways: First. it could
make a steep climb at terrific speed, so that in ten seconds
it would be above the vertical area swept by our M.E.W. set.
(The beam's average altitude, at its highest point, is from
35,000 to 40,000 feet, far out, but it is much less near the
airport. At 30 miles, it is about 8,500 feet, sloping to
1,200 at three miles.) Second. it could race horizontally
off our 34-mile scope within ten seconds." Considering the
objects' relative position, just before they vanished, this
last would require a speed of from 5,000 to 7,000 mph. At
the time, this seemed unbelievable to Barnes and the other
controllers. But Captain Pierman later confirmed the
objects' tremendous speed. They'd go up and down at terrific
speed, or streak off and disappear. Between Washington and
Martinsburg, we saw six of these fast-moving lights.
(Control Center radar showed them at the same position.) I
don't know what they were, but they weren't shooting stars."
Another
confirmation of the visitors' incredible speed came later
that night, from the Washington tower. Operator Joe Zacko
had been watching the A.S.R. scope when one of the mystery
objects abruptly appeared just west of Andrews Field. Unlike
the slower M.E.W., the A.S.R., with its 28-rpm antenna, can
track extremely high speeds. As Zacko watched, fascinated,
the blips made a bright streak or trail, heading
north-northeast toward Riverdale. Then the trail ended as
swiftly as it had come. Howard Cocklin, hastily called over
by Zacko, also saw the bright trail. Together they figured
the object's speed from its trace. It had been making two
miles per second-7,200 m.p.h. "It was as if it had descended
rapidly, almost vertically," Cocklin told me later. "That
would bring it suddenly into the A.S.R. beam area. It seemed
to level off for those few seconds, and then abruptly ascend
out of the beam again."
Barnes and
his men saw another significant maneuver that night. When
they vectored a pilot toward one of the lighted objects, the
strange blip disappeared. Then in a few seconds it
reappeared behind the plane. Barnes commented, "If it was
the same one-and I think it was-that was another of those
high-speed vanishing acts between sweeps."
The swift
acceleration of saucers, confirmed by radar and visual
reports, far exceeds the acceleration of man-made rockets
and guided missiles. In addition, no earthly craft can
reverse from high speed or make the violent turns proved by
radar tracks.
Some
flying-saucer skeptics claim that no solid object, not even
a revolutionary space ship, could maneuver as reported,
since it would be subject to the Earth's laws of gravity,
momentum and inertia. But there is one practical answer. By
applying the propulsion force in the opposite direction,
abruptly reversing its thrust, an object might be halted in
a few seconds. On an M.E.W. radarscope, or as seen visually,
it would appear to have stopped almost instantly. After this
full-power stop, a 90-degree turn could then be achieved by
again changing the thrust.
The
increasing evidence from the radar-and-light reports cannot
be denied. It is my opinion that the saucers are devices
from outer space, exploring the Earth just as our government
expects some day to explore other planets. If the saucers
are not from planets of our solar system, then the problem
of the vast distances from other stars' planets may seem
insurmountable. But Einstein's theory of special relativity
offers a solution now accepted by space travel planners in
this country and abroad. Because of the relative nature of
time and space, the elapsed time for a round trip to a
distant point will be less for the travelers than the
elapsed time recorded on Earth when that journey is ended.
However, the occupants of the space craft will be unaware of
any difference during their trip; to them, the daily passage
of time, as shown by their clocks, will seem normal.
This
difference, or "time-dilatation factor" as it is called,
will increase as a space ship's speed approximates the
velocity of light. Fantastic though it seems, time
dilatation has been proved mathematically. In a recent
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Dr. L. R.
Shepherd gives figures for a specific interstellar voyage.
He assumes that a traveler, X, makes a round trip to the
star Procyn, 10.4 light years away, while an observer, Y,
remains on Earth to record the elapsed time here. He also
assumes that, because of the long trip at maximum speed,
periods of acceleration and retardation are negligible.
"Suppose X goes to Procyn and back," says Dr. Shepherd,
"with a velocity of 99c (c equals the velocity of light).
While Y records X's return twenty-one years later X is aware
only of a passage of three years. . . . The only shortcoming
would be . . . that friends whom he left in the bloom of
their youth would be found in their dotage."
This latter
effect, however unfortunate, does not alter the basic fact:
time dilatation can greatly shorten interstellar journeys.
Nor would trips of several years daunt human space explorers
any more than long sea voyages daunted Columbus, Magellan
and others who left home for extended periods to explore the
globe.
From all
the hundreds of saucer reports, one fact stands out-there is
no cause for fear. For years, these unknown visitors have
been operating peacefully in our atmosphere. There has been
plenty of time, if hostility were intended, for the
intelligence back of the saucers to strike at our planes and
our cities. It is evident that exploration, and eventually
contact, are the purposes behind the saucers' repeated
visits. When that contact comes, it should be no cause for
panic. Meeting intelligent beings who know the secrets of
space should be of profound benefit to everyone on Earth.
It could be
the greatest adventure of all time.
 
A Guide to This Site
What's here and how to get there.
Text version of this site
An easy to read black and white version.
 |
