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This Project Blue Book file, released through The Black Vault, collects US Air Force records from 1950 to 1959 on the movie film Nicholas Mariana shot at Great Falls, Montana on 15 August 1950. It includes the OSI interview report, letters about borrowing and copying the film, and a 1956 Douglas Aircraft analysis. Blue Book's own findings were not consistent: one letter lists the cause as unknown, while later memos conclude the objects were probably two F-94 jets.
jet aircraft based here at that time, so that if any were in the air, they would have been transients." That the bright photographed spots could have been the jet exhausts of the two aircraft seen from the rear has been sug- gested but this explanation is not convincing, the contrast against the blue sky being much greater than could be expected of jet exhaust under the film exposure conditions.
The objects left no observable trail and their tracking for 16 seconds and reported observation for about 50 seconds makes the assumption that they were two fragments of a shattered meteorite rather untenable *. Their shape, brightness, speed, almost precisely rectilinear path, steady motion, and separation cannot be reconciled with the supposition that they were birds. These same facts together with the weather report also seem to rule out various forms of optical atmospheric mirages or cloud reflections (10).
It is apparent that the most possible natural phenomenon which could account for these film effects would be airplane reflections. There are, however, several factors which make such a hypothesis quite strained. First, it is not certain that there were jet planes or other aircraft flying in formation at this particular time and place. Second, the reflection from the moving planes must have persisted for at least 50 seconds (Mr. estimated that it took him 30 seconds or more after first observing the UFO's to run to his car, set the camera and start filming. His secretary, also at the scene, testifies that the objects remained in view throughout the period between the first sighting and filming.) It would require a very rare coincidence of airplane maneuver for reflections to persist this long. The possible parabolic flight paths of the airplanes which would result in such long persistent reflections are presented in figure 11. These parabolic flight paths completely abandon the $ 1 7 1^{0} $ azimuth heading hypothesis. (The maximum speed (dive) of the F94 is 602 mph, landing speed is 130 mph, stalling speed is 108 mph.) ** Observed airplane reflections have lasted less than 20 seconds. Third, assuming a $ 1 7 1^{0} $ azimuth heading, the orientation of the airplane and the sun is some $ 5 2^{0} $ off in the horizontal direction and Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 114 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.