Project Blue Book file: Trinidade Island, 16 Jan 1958

ROB MERCERI
Page 2
THE A. P. R. O. BULLETIN
Published by
THE AERIAL PHENOMENA RESEARCH
ORGANIZATION
171 2 Van Court
Alnlllogordo, New Mexico, U .S.A.
COl'YnlGIIT 1960, ConAL E. LORE NZEN
Editor and Director
Information appearing in this bu lleti n may be
used by other UAO research periodicals provid -
ing name and add.·ess credit is properly given
to this o.·g;mization and periodical.
Coral E. Lorenzen_Jntemat'l Director and Editor
A. E. Brown, B.S.E.E~_ Director of Research
Paul FleC!twood, B.S. Ch. E.-Asst. Dir. Research
L. J . Lorenzen___ Dlrector or Public Relations
Gerald S. Clarke-.Asst. Director Public Relations
Leonard W. Meeks, B.S.l'vI._____ Data Analyst
Loi s Duke .Secretary and Librarian
John T . Hopf Photographic Consultant
Oliver Dean Photographic Consultant
SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVES
(The followin g listed individuals par-
ticipilte in plnnn in g il nd policy-maki ng
as Stnff Members, in addition to coordi·
IUlting investigative cffOl1.s in the areas
indicated following thei .· names.)
DR. OLAVO T. FONTES, M.D . ......... Braz il
K. GOSTA RU£N .. ................. ......... Sweden
I3F.:.JINAIIOO PASSION .. .... Argentina
G"AnAi\1 CONWAy ..•.. .... Eastern Canada
TOA ME BUI\ATI __ ...... _France
HOII ,\CIO GONZAt.],:S G ,\UTEAUi\IE
Vene::.uelfl
Pt:T1m E. N()IIIIlS, L.L.D ............ Auslralia
.J UN' leI([ T AK ,\N ASHI.. ...... ... _.Jnpan
SECOND ~ LASKA SIGHTING
IN THREE :, WEEKS
On the 14th~ of February a "flame-
belching" object, tubular in shape, hur-
tled through Alaskan sk ies over Nome.
The silvery object was sighted later at
Unalakleet and St. Michael about 150
miles across Norton Sound from Nome.
This s ightin g, with more than the usual
amount of physical description of the
object, went out on the press wires. On
the 16th of February, a spokesman for
the North American Air Defense Com-
mand, Colorado Springs, Colo., confirmed
that " un identified flying OBJECTS" were
seen over Alaska early on the 15th.
Althou gh other wire stories revealed no
great amount of information, it seems
likely that at least one object was seen
on Sunday, the 14th, which would be the
object which triggered the initial story,
and one or more early the next morning
on the 15th.
The NORAD spokesman said that Ent
AFB at Colorado Springs received a re-
port at 3 a.m. on the 15th, that two
unidentified objects were moving in op-
posite directions across Alaska. Also
revealed by NORAD was the fact that
the object which was sighted at Unalak-
leet wa s rapidly moving northwest at a
speed sufficient to produce contrails, The
object reportedly produced a flash which
THE A. P . R. O. BULLETIN '---'~
was assumed to have been an explosion.
Of added interest is the fact that Pete
Walsh, a Wien Alaska Airlines employee
at Nome, observed the object and said
it appeared to be a manned aircraft
traveling at tremendous speed about
2,000 to 3,000 feet above the earth, and
was monitor ed by two radar stations
ncar Nome, Although monitored by
radar , no estimates of speed were given
by officials. We cannot overlook the pos-
sibility that this object or these objects
may be Soviet aircraft, but if they arc,
it is difficult to explain the close resem-
blance betwee n these objects and the
object observed at Willoughby, Ohio, on
Thursday, 10 December. See page 3,
column 2 of The Bulletin for January
1960.
On the 6th of MarCh, Mr. Walsh again
sighted an unidentified object in the
Nome area. In a telegram to Governor
William A. Egan, Walsh said that a
bri ght flash in the sky was sighted at
8:51 p.m., followed by an explosion,
After the flash, the bright object was ._
seen "drifting" to earth from the east,
Walsh told the governor. The Alaska Air
Command forwarded the report to NO-
RAD at Colorado Springs, Colo., and on
the 8th a NORAD spokesman sa id the
report had been r eceived but routed to
USAF headquarters and the Secretary
of the Air in Washington, D. C. "This is
more in the nature of an intelligence
item than an operations problem," the
spokesma n said.
The Associa ted Press report of the
latest incident also noted that the object
sig hted in February was later listed as
a white hot meteor. Who listed it as
such, or how they arrived at that con-
clus ion, wa s not annou nced, but the fact
that at least one of the objects sighted
in February was flyin g at low speed
wa s not explained, It could not have
been a meteor, if the description of the
speed is accurate. Also, the Ohio object
which strongly resem bles the object ob-
served in Alaska, wa s seen to ascend at
gl'eat speed, disappearing in to the sky,
RAAF Statement on
Gill Sig hting s
Representative Peter Norris of Aus-
tralia has forwarded a copy of a letter
from Squadron Leader F. A. Lang, in
answer to his letter of 25 January 1960,
requesting information to th e RAAF's
conclusions about the Gill sightings (AP-
RO Bulletin, Page 1, November 1959
issue ). The following is the text of Lang's
letter of 22 February; "Dear Sir, Thank
you for your letter of the 25th January
1960. An officer of this Directorate has
investigated Reverend W. Gill's report
of V.F.O. activities in the Boianai area
of Ne w Guinea, and copics of his find·
ings have been submitted to proper au·
thorities. As mentioned in our 114/ 1/ 201
(22) dated 14th February, 1957,_ such
March, 1960
reports are not r eleasa ble to the public.
However, although it is not possible to
reach a ny positive conclusions, we do
not believe that the phenomena observed
by the Reverend Gill a nd his party were
manned space vehicles. An analysis of
bearings and angles above the horizon
does suggest that at least three of the
li ghts were planets, e.g., Jupiter, Saturn
and Mars. Li ght refraction, the chang-
ing position of the planets relative to
the observers and the unsettled tropical
\.... eather could give the impression of
size and rapid movements. (Signed),
Yours Faithfully, F. S, Lang." (Read
again the r eport of Mr. Nor r is and Hev-
crcnd Gill and sec if you can stretch
you r imagination to the point where
Mars, Saturn and Jupiter will fly pcll
mell across the sky at great speeds,
and with men sta ndi ng on them and wav-
ing, yet! There's something wrong with
the astronomy textbooks! ... the Edilor)
Agencies in Disagreement
On Mystery Lights
A press release by UPI, datelined
Ma rch 8, reveaJ ed that the Air Force
was investigatin g reports of a mysteri-
ous strea m of lights that flashed ac ross
eastern U. S. on the 7th of March. Ac-
cording to the U. S. Defense Department,
the li ghts were seen as far north as
Lake Erie a nd as far south as Key West,
Florida.
Air Force officials in Washington said
the ligh ts were believed to ha ve bcen
caused by a meteor. Missi lcillen at Cape
Canaveral, however, sa id the lights "def·
initely looked" like a satellite as it fell
baek to carth and burned in the atmos-
phere.
The National Space Agency in Wash·
ington confirmed the fact tha t Lunik III,
the hu gc Soviet rocket which put the
picture·takin g satellite around the moon,
was expected to fali into the earth's
atmosphere in Marcil.
But officials at the Smithsonian
astrophysical .iaboratol·Y at Cambridge,
j\'fas sachusetts, whieh keeps track of sat-
ellites once they ar c launched, said that
the lights, which were reported by airline
pilots, Air Force pilots, state police and
co ntrol towers, had not been explained
by the m-they s imply couldn't explain
them away.
Observed through binoculars, the ob-
jects appeared to be fast· moving balls of
molten substance, perhaps metal, which
were falling apart, and which sp read out
a~ they proceeded into the southeast.
They were obscrved at Cape Canaveral
at 8:10 p.m., 10 minutes after they were
spotted over North Carolina. The display
at Canaveral lasted for three minutes
before disappearing into the b l acknes~
of the ni ght. The three minute' observa-
tion takes the objects out of the category
of meteors, and since Smithsonian could
(Sec Agencies, page 4)