The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

“On___December 1956 two USAF jet pilots were practicing ground radar positioned intercepts on each other in the vicinity of___.

During one run, the report states, the intercepting pilot picked up a large unexplained radar blip; he estimated the UFO to be as large as a B-29 bomber. Radar showed it to be 20 miles away and 30 degrees to the left.

"Pilot called the GCI [Ground Control Intercept] site to ask if they had a target which would correspond to the unidentified blip. After receiving an answer in the negative, he asked for and received permission to determine the nature of the source of the radar return."

The pilot closed in at over 700 mph; at 8 miles range a round object became visible exactly where the radar showed it. The apparent size was very large. The pilot described it as "the size of a lead pencil eraser if placed against the windscreen." [Using figures supplied by North American Aviation, the diameter of the UFO was computed to be about 350 feet.] [14.]

The pilot got a radar "lock-on" (automatically guiding his plane toward the UFO). As he continued to close in, his radar was suddenly jammed by a strong interference. Using anti-jam procedure, the pilot switched frequency. For 10 seconds, this eliminated the mysterious interference pulses, then they began again. But the pulsations were not strong enough to break the radar lock-on, and the jet held its course.

"The jet closed to within 5 nautical miles of the object and could not close further. When the pilot was closest to the unidentified object, it appeared to make a shallow left turn. It had the appearance of being circular on the bottom."

The color of the UFO was described as a golden tan, with no reflection from the sun. After the UFO began turning, the pilot's radar indicated that the object was "moving up and away at from 1,500 to 1,800 knots [1,700 to over 2,000 mph]."

The Air Force report states that this is an estimate, since the UFOs' rate of departure was faster than the jet's radar could track. The blip "disappeared by moving rapidly off the top of the scope."

The Intelligence Report shows that the jet and all of its equipment was immediately checked, and all systems were satisfactory. Under "Comments of the interrogation officers," the Report states:

"The observing pilot, Lt.___, had many flying hours as of the time of the incident. Over half had been logged in this type of jet. He appeared to be conscientious and reported the incident in a straightforward, slightly embarrassed manner, saying that he would doubt the possibility of such an occurrence if it hadn't actually happened to him.

"The fact that no unidentified tracks were observed by ground radar should not be given much weight in evaluating this report. Both the jet aircraft involved required IFF in order that the controlling GCI site could plot them." ["IFF"] is an identification code transmitter system developed in World War II called "Identification, Friend or Foe." The fact that IFF signals were required for ground radar to plot the jets indicates that the Air Force planes otherwise would not have shown up on the ground radar.]

The above sample cases contain examples of most of the recurring features of reported UFOs:

Reports from competent observers such as scientists and pilots.

$ \surd $ Flight characteristics such as a disc wobbling on its axis.

$ \surd $ Maneuver patterns such as hovering and terrific acceleration.

Physical evidence such as radar trackings and electromagnetic effects.

Typically, the majority of reports describe disc-shaped or elliptical objects. [See Section XII, Patterns, for additional details.]

## COULDN'T THEY BE U.S. OR SOVIET SECRET DEVICES?

When a person who has been a skeptic first becomes convinced that UFOs are, or might be, real, his usual first reaction is that they must be secret devices. While space activity in the past six years undoubtedly has caused some false UFO reports,

the activity of secret test devices on the other hand would necessarily be confined to restricted test areas. The arguments against the secret device theory, then, are:

a. Test devices of one nation would not be observed worldwide [see Section X, Worldwide UFO Reports].

b. If secret devices were operational in the scope necessary to account for UFO reports, the technology implied would cause all current jets and rockets to be completely outmoded. Yet, the direction of our research and experimentation does not reflect such a breakthrough.

c. Perhaps most damaging to the secret device theory is the fact that UFOs apparently have been observed for a very long time [see Section XI, Chronology]. Soviet aerial technology through and after World War II was not impressive. German technology at the end of World War II was impressive, and this has caused advocates of this theory to attribute UFOs to captured German scientists and engineers working secretly for the U.S. or Russia. American technology was making rapid strides at the close of the war, but our hottest operational aerial devices were propeller-driven aircraft, and our few guided missiles were hardly out of the laboratory.

However, NICAP examined this possibility thoroughly, consulting scientists and engineers (including Prof. Dr. Hermann Oberth, famous German rocket expert) and found not the slightest evidence to confirm the rumors of secret devices developed by former Nazi scientists.

The antiquity of UFO sightings, especially, rules out the possibility of any sort of test devices, secret or otherwise, accounting for more than a handful of UFO reports.

Explorer Nicholas Roerich, on an expedition in the Himalayan Mountains, August 5, 1926, and others in his caravan, saw a shiny oval-shaped object [15.] While watching a soaring eagle, they noticed the object far above moving south at high speed and observed it through binoculars. The UFO then made a turn to the southwest and moved out of sight in the distance.

An early postwar observation by an unusually well-trained observer was reported to NICAP Board Member, the Rev. Albert Baller: [See photostat].

ANDREW A. TITCOMB. ARCHITECT

"HILLWINGS"

PERKINSVILLE, VERMONT

TELEPHONE: 2300

MEMBER AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

April 4,1955

Rev. Albert Baller Hunson Street Greenfield, Mass.

Dear Mr. Baller:

Re: "Flying Saucer"sighting.

The circumstances of the sighting of an unknown flying object by me were as follows:-

It was in May 1946, at my wife's family home, at La Grange, 4 miles north of Titusville, Florida, where I was spending my terminal leave as Lieutenant j.g. U.S.N.R., having just returned from the Pacific and Far East.

I had spent over a year aboard a destroyer escort as senior watch officer, gunnery officer and radar officer, and was very familiar, both in training and practice to ship and aircraft recognition, night and day under combat circumstances.

I was picking oranges in the forenoon about 100 feet from the house, when a distinct wavering whistling noise of a fast moving body through air made me look up.

Directly overhead I saw a dark "Flying football" shaped thus:-

flying from west to east at about 1000 feet elevation, possibly less, at the speed of a light plane - say 125 m.p.h. It appeared dark against the bright cloud layer which had a ceiling of perhaps 1500 feet - there was no blue sky showing. The sight astonished me, as the only sound was its passage through the air. There was no sound of any engine, it had no wings or other appendages, no props, and no trail of smoke in back. It appeared about 15 or 20 feet long, perhaps less, and as I watched it curved smoothly in an arc to the southeast and vanished forever in a lower cloud bank.

My wife and the rest of the family heard this queer noise and all rushed out to see what it was, and my wife glimpsed it as it vanished in the clouds, confirming my story.

I had never heard of flying saucers and had no idea what we had seen, but assumed that it was some secret device of the Air Force, and so never reported it.

It was not a MAD (magnetic airborn detector) used for anti-submarine work, as it was attached to no cable to a plane above, and there was the noise of no other plane or blimp at the time that could have been hidden, say, in the clouds above.

So that is the story of my "Flying Football", still as much a mystery today as it was to me 9 years ago.

sincerely yours,

Andrew A. Titcomb