Project Blue Book file, RB-47, July 17, 1957

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

the RB-47's navigation radar (AN/APS-23). This was confirmed by the navigator himself, McDonald reported. However, ECM (Elint) Monitor #2, Frank B. McClure, told me that he was sure that the UFO had produced an echo on the RB-47 navigation radar, based on his recollection of interphone conversations between the pilot and navigator which he overheard. In this case, it seems appropriate to accept the recollection of the pilot and navigator, especially since the pilot noted in his original Airborne Observer's Report that the UFO was not detected on the RB-47 navigation radar.

Another example: McClure is positive that the mission on July 17, 1957, was intended to check out the RB-47 equipment prior to the airplane's being sent overseas and that it was not a regular training mission. RB-47 pilot Chase disagrees. In this instance there is circumstantial evidence to support McClure's recollection. During a normal training mission, the ECM Monitors make a very detailed log of each measurement and the time it was taken. If such a log were available, it would have been turned over to the Wing Intelligence Officer when he interviewed the crew about the UFO incident following their return to home base. Yet the Wing Intelligence Officer's report to Strategic Air Command Headquarters contains only spotty data. Further, McClure says that if the flight had been a regular training mission, the ECM equipment cameras would have been loaded with film to photograph the equipment displays and such film would have been turned over to the Wing Intelligence Officer. Yet there is no reference to such film in any of the contemporary reports.

None of the discrepancies between the crew members' original and recent accounts, or between different members, are thought by this investigator to be the result of an intentional effort to alter the facts. Rather, they are believed to be the result of the "ravages of time."

Were it not for the initiative of Dr. James E. McDonald in locating the original reports in the UFO archives at Maxwell AF Base, Ala., this case almost certainly would remain inexplicable because of the discrepancies that have crept into the recent recollections of the crew and the extreme difficulty of trying to reconstruct the details of what actually happened. The original (contemporary) reports include the following:

1. Report by Wing Intelligence Officer Elwin T. Piwetz, based on interview with the crew shortly after they returned to home base. The date when Piwetz actually wrote his report and transmitted it to SAC Hdqtrs. is not known. A "Received" stamp on the last page is illegible except for the date "Oct. 11, 1957." This is believed to be the date that the report was received by UFO Project Blue Book in Dayton, Ohio. Unfortunately, Piwetz did not show his report to the RB-47 crew members to check its accuracy--so far as is known--before filing it with SAC Hdqtrs.

2. Airborne Observer's Report, prepared by RB-47 pilot (then Major) Lewis D. Chase. The report is dated Sept. 10, 1957, nearly two months after the incident.

3. Teletype message from the Commander of the Duncanville radar station (Code name: "Utah") to Air Defense Command Headquarters. The message was dispatched at 14:45Z, or approximately four hours after the UFO incident involving the Utah radar.

So far as is known, there are no other contemporary reports of this UFO incident that were prepared by the RB-47 crew members or by others with their assistance.

The RB-47 had departed from its home base at Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kan., and headed south to the Gulf of Mexico. Turning to the east, the tail turret was tested over a gunnery range set aside for this purpose in the Gulf. This was followed by a celestial navigation test/mission. Then the RB-47 turned north toward Meridian. Its flight plan called for the airplane to turn west at Meridian and fly to Waco, Tex. During this