The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

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# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0 sighting was detailed in the Nairobi Sunday Post, Far East

The sighting was detailed in the Nairobi Sunday Post, February 25, 1951, by Capt. Jack Bicknell, pilot of the East African Airways plane. Extracts from Capt. Bicknell's report: "The Lodestar plane left Nairobi West at 7:00 a.m. At 7:20 a.m., the radio officer (D. W. Merrifield) drew my attention to a bright object like a white star hanging motionless about 10,000 feet above Kilimanjaro. My first reaction was to say nothing. We watched it for three minutes. Then we told the passengers about it. One of them had a very powerful pair of binoculars with him and he began to study it. In the meantime, we put a radio message through to Eastleigh describing it. Eastleigh asked us to check whether it was a meteorological balloon. I then examined it for several minutes through the binoculars. . . [At this point the plane had approached to within about 50 miles of the mountain]...

"Through the glasses I saw a metallic, bullet shaped object which must have been over 200 feet long. At one end was a square-cut vertical fin. Its colour was a dull silver, and at regular intervals along the fuselage were vertical dark bands. Its whole outline was clear and sharp and there was no haziness about it at all. . . It was absolutely stationary, and remained that way for 17 minutes. . . [Capt. Bicknell states that two passengers were taking photographs at this time] . . .

"Then it began to move eastwards, rising as it did so. It disappeared at about 40,000 feet. . . The machine left no vapour trail, and it had no visible means of propulsion. . . My impression was that it was definitely a flying machine of some kind."

New Yorker magazine, October 23, 1954 reported a UFO sighting by the Administrator of Danane, French West Africa on September 19th of that year. He, his wife, a doctor, and others saw an object described as an "oval flying machine" with a dome, and lights like searchlights.

In populous South Africa, scientists, aviation personnel, police and many others have reported UFO sightings. At the Upington Meteorological Station, Cape Province, December 7, 1954 the Officer-in-Charge, Mr. R. H. Kleyweg, tracked a white semi-circular UFO through a theodolite for about a minute. Then the object began moving too fast to track. "I have followed thousands of Meteorological balloons," Mr. Kleyweg said. "This object was no balloon." [53.]

During the North and South American "flap" in November 1957 [See Section XII], hundreds of people in the Southern Transvaal area witnessed an "enormous" cylindrical UFO. On the night of November 5, the object was observed hovering in the sky. South African Air Force searchlights in Dunnotar pinpointed the UFO, which then "withdrew" behind clouds, according to witnesses. [54.]

At Johannesburg, April 11, 1958, H. F. Daniels (airport instrument inspector) and others watched a reddish-white UFO above the north horizon at night, moving back and forth east and west. "I have worked with aircraft for 18 years," Mr. Daniels said, "and the thing I saw was certainly no conventional plane. The speed was phenomenal and it sometimes became completely stationary, changing color from white to blood red." [55.]

Many other African UFO sightings, some from French air bases and scientific stations, are recorded by Aime Michel.

Because of language difficulties, NICAP has not been able to compile as many reports from the Far East (except in the Australia-New Zealand area), but it is known that UFOs are often seen and that UFO groups exist in most countries. A query to the Nationalist Chinese Government, referred to the Taiwan Weather Bureau, brought the following reply in 1963:

"The Mission for the observation on unidentified flying objects should be assigned to a Military Agency such as National Civil Defense Organization in order to meet the emergencies. The Government will inform the public on the sightings of UFOs when the situation is necessary. . At present no conclusion on the observation of UFOs has been reached or an official report. . announced to the public." [56.]

An unclassified Air Force intelligence report in NICAP possession describes a U.S. Air Force sighting of a "large round object" somewhere in the Far East in December 1956. A jet pilot experienced radar jamming as he closed on the UFO, and saw it flash away easily outdistancing his jet. [Section I.]

On September 15, 1954, in Manbhum, Bihar, India, Mr. Ijapada Chatterjee (manager of a mica mine) and hundreds of others watched a saucer-shaped object descend to an altitude of about 500 feet. The UFO hovered, then soared upwards at terrific speed causing a tremendous gust of wind. The object was seen over a mine which has supplied beryllium for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. [57.]

A book entitled "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers Revealed," published in Indonesia in 1961, contains a foreword by the Air Force Chief of Staff, Air Chief Marshal S. Suryadarma, which discloses that UFOs have often been reported by Indonesian Air Force personnel. The author is Col. J. Salatun, Secretary of the Indonesian Joint Chiefs of Staff and member of the Supreme People's Congress. NICAP checked with the Indonesian Embassy and verified the positions of both men.

In Japan and Korea, notably during the Korean War, UFOs have often been sighted by U.S. Air Force and other military personnel.

October 15, 1948: The crew of an F-61 night fighter over Japan tracked on radar and saw the silhouette of a UFO shaped "like a rifle bullet" (cf., Mt. Kilimanjaro sighting, above) which repeatedly accelerated out of reach of the fighter. [Section VIII; Radar.]

January 29,1952: Bright, rotating, disc-shaped UFOs seen by B-29 crews near Wonsan and Sunchon, Korea. [58.]

March 29, 1952: Small shiny disc maneuvered around USAF F-86 in flight north of Misawa, Japan. [Section I.]

August 5, 1952: Dark circular UFO with bright body light hovered near control tower at Oneida AFB, Japan, sped away, dividing into three sections. [Section VIII; Radar.]

October 13, 1952: Elliptical UFO hovering in clouds near Oshima, Japan, sighted by Major William D. Leet, USAF, and his engineer; object sped away after 7 minutes. [Section III.]

December 12, 1962: Five school girls in Amagaski City, at 4:30 p.m., saw a brightly glowing UFO. Asked to draw independently what they had seen, all five sketched a Saturn-shaped disc. [59.]

## AUSTRALIA--NEW ZEALAND

Another hotspot of UFO activity has been the Australia-- New Zealand area. The great number of UFO sightings in this region (about the same southern latitudes as Brazil - Uruguay - Argentina) and the amount of public interest in them can only be suggested in this limited survey of foreign reports. [60.]

As in many other countries, UFOs are "officially" nonexistent. A 1963 letter to a NICAP member from A. B. McFarlane, Secretary, Department of Air, Commonwealth of Australia states: "From time to time reports of unidentified flying objects are received and investigated by the Royal Australian Air Force, but details of individual investigations have not been made public.". The letter goes on to quote a 1960 speech in Parliament by Minister for Air, Hon. F. M. Osborne: "Nearly all [UFO reports] are explainable on a perfectly normal basis. . . only three or four per cent cannot be explained on the basis of some natural phenomenon, and nothing that has arisen from that three or four