Ellsworth AFB Radar-Visual Case and F-84 Pursuit, South Dakota, 1953

Summer 1953. Civilian volunteers of the Ground Observer Corps kept watch across the plains for enemy bombers. One of their posts stood at Black Hawk, South Dakota, about 10 miles west of Ellsworth Air Force Base. Ellsworth had an Air Defense Command radar. It also had F-84 jets.

August 5, 1953, at 8:05 p.m. The spotter at Black Hawk, named in most accounts as Phyllis Killian, saw "an extremely bright light low on the horizon, off to the northeast." Ellsworth radar found a target. The duty controller, a warrant officer, called it "well defined, solid, and bright." The height-finder put it at 16,000 feet.

"It's starting to move," she said over the phone, and then, "it's moving southwest toward Rapid." According to the Blue Book file, the light swung some 30 degrees to her right, shot straight up, and returned to its original position. It turned from red to green as it sped up. Three airmen sent outside at Ellsworth saw a light moving north to south at a high rate of speed.

An F-84 already in the air was sent toward the blip. The pilot saw a light "brighter than the brightest star I've ever seen." Ruppelt later wrote that the controller, the spotter and the pilot all saw it begin to move at the same time. Whenever the jet closed to within 3 miles, "it would put on a burst of speed and stay out ahead." About 120 miles to the north, fuel ran low. The pilot turned back and readily admitted to being scared.

A second F-84 was scrambled. Its pilot switched off the cockpit lights, rolled the aircraft and checked the light against the stars. According to Ruppelt, he "swore that it moved across them." His radar gunsight showed a possible target beyond its 4,000-yard range. Ground radar held the target 5 to 10 miles ahead of the jet, out to 80 miles. Around 11:42 p.m., it left the scope.

Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, head of Project Blue Book, went to Ellsworth to interview the witnesses. Status Report 12 said the controller "saw targets on the scope, there is no doubt about it, but whether they acted exactly as stated is unknown." The radarscope camera had malfunctioned. The report suggested the star Capella might explain what the pilots saw. Still, the case was carried as "Unsolved."

In 1969 the Condon Committee took it up as Case 15-B. Gordon D. Thayer judged that the first pilot was "probably chasing a star," Pollux, and the second perhaps Mirfak. The spotter's light was "just the red tower light" of an FM transmitter. The airmen "saw what was undoubtedly a meteor." His verdict: "a combination of: stars seen through an inversion layer, at least one meteor, AP echoes on a GCI radar, and possible ghost echoes."

The debate never settled. J. Allen Hynek stressed that the witnesses were "trained observers." James E. McDonald called it "one of the most puzzling cases I have studied." Patrick Gross argued that Condon left out the pilot's report of the light moving against the stars. He also faulted pro-UFO writers who cited the lock-on and ignored the suspected gunsight fault. At NICAP, Fran Ridge calls it "one of the best."