Bellefontaine Radar-Visual and Gun-Camera Intercept

Summer 1952. A wave of sightings was under way, from the radar-visual events over Washington, D.C. to a film shot at Tremonton, Utah. In Ohio, the 664th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron ran a ground-controlled intercept station at Bellefontaine Air Force Station, on Campbell Hill, 1,549 feet up.

Friday, 1 August 1952. At 10:51 a.m., the Bellefontaine radar picked up a target 20 miles north-northwest of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It was heading west-southwest at 400 to 450 knots. About 500 mph.

Two F-86s of the 97th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron were vectored in from Wright-Patterson. Maj. James B. Smith flew one. Lt. Donald J. Hemer flew the other. At 10:55 a.m. they had it in sight. It was silver. Round. Ruppelt later described a silver-colored sphere that at times looked like a disk. Smith estimated it at 24 to 40 feet across, 12,000 to 20,000 feet above his own altitude of 48,000 feet.

The jets climbed to 48,000 feet, fell off, and climbed again. By Ruppelt's account the object slowed from about 525 mph until it hung almost motionless. On the second climb Smith hauled the nose of his F-86 up into a stall and exposed several feet of gun camera film. His radar gunsight light came on, a sign of something solid ahead. Visual contact ended at 11:13 a.m., after about 18 minutes.

Donald Keyhoe told it with a sharper ending. In his version both pilots circled and climbed to make sure the object was solid and not a reflection. When Smith tried to film it in a steep climb, it accelerated and vanished at tremendous speed. No other source describes how the chase ended.

The film showed a fuzzy, small image in the upper right corner, moving toward the lower left. Project Blue Book's analysts worked through the options. A balloon? Too fast, and moving against the wind, while a rawinsonde released that morning drifted east. A known aircraft? Too high. Something astronomical, or a mirage? The dual radar returns ruled those out. The case was stamped Unknown.

Later, Edward J. Ruppelt reopened the file. Lt. Andy Flues spent a day at the Bellefontaine site. He found that a 20-foot radiosonde balloon from Wright-Patterson had been near the intercept area. Its transmitter box can register on an F-86 gunsight radar, and at the right distance the balloon would match the size of the image on the film. The fast radar target, he concluded, was a low-flying jet whose flight plan the station never received. Two unrelated events.

In 1969 the Condon Committee reached a similar answer. Its investigators recalculated the object's true heading at about 111 degrees, averaging 44 knots, and said this matched the upper winds. Their conclusion was a weather balloon, probably Wright-Patterson's own radiosonde.

Not everyone was convinced. Blue Book's original analysis had the object moving against the wind while the balloon drifted east. James E. McDonald, in Science in Default, put the case on a short list of Condon explanations he did not trust. Ruppelt's version also depends on the ground radar losing its target just as the jets arrived. How the radar track and the object the pilots saw relate is still disputed.

Keyhoe obtained the case through the Pentagon's Chop Clearance List, where it was item 20. He told it in TRUE magazine in December 1952 and again in Flying Saucers from Outer Space in 1953. NICAP files it under Troy, Ohio, and the Center for UFO Studies counts it among its radar-visual cases. No public copy of the gun camera film has been found.