Kirtland AFB control-tower sighting

November 1957 was a restless month in American skies. Days earlier, drivers around Levelland, Texas, had reported vehicles disabled by a large, egg-shaped UFO. On the night of Monday, November 4, two Civil Aeronautics Administration controllers were on duty in the tower at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. R. M. Kaser and E. G. Brink. Between them, 23 years of control tower experience.

About 22:45, under an overcast sky, a white light moved east across the airfield and seemed to manoeuvre. Then a dark object descended steeply at the end of Runway 26. It crossed runways, taxiways and unpaved ground, heading southwest toward the tower at less than 100 feet. Through 7x binoculars it was egg-shaped and elongated vertically, with no wings, tail or fuselage. It stood fifteen to twenty feet tall, about the size of an automobile standing on its nose, with a single white light at its base.

It came within about 3,000 feet of the tower and hovered there for up to a minute. Then it passed behind some buildings. Out of sight, it appeared to reverse direction. It climbed suddenly, headed away from the field, and went into a steep climb into the overcast. J. Allen Hynek later wrote that it "rose abruptly at very high angular rate and disappeared."

Radar operators at Albuquerque Radar Approach Control had it too. On the CPN-18 set, the target turned south at very high speed and circled for several minutes near the Albuquerque Low Frequency Range Station. It came back north and hovered over the outer marker. An Air Force C-46 took off. The target fell in about half a mile behind it and followed for about 14 miles. Then it hovered over the outer marker again, and faded. Radar contact lasted about 20 minutes.

A few days later, Captain Shere of Ent AFB interviewed the two men for Project Blue Book. He called them "completely reliable, competent" and "somewhat embarrassed at their report." He found no performance beyond an ordinary private plane, and radar returns "identical to those of a small plane." The verdict: "Possible Aircraft." The same file said the object "does not meet identification criteria for any other phenomena."

The Condon Committee agreed. Its answer was a small, powerful private aircraft, flying without a flight plan, that became confused and attempted a landing at the wrong airport. The pilot, in this reading, realised the mistake and left in a hurry.

In 1969, Hynek brought the case before the AAAS as an example of a logical fallacy: "Possible aircraft" had been chosen for an object that was "unidentifiable as any other phenomenon." James E. McDonald went further, finding Kaser and Brink and showing them the official conclusions. They called them "amusing." Each said separately that the object had no wings, fuselage or tail. McDonald also learned that the Colorado Project had never contacted either man. It had worked only from the Blue Book file.

McDonald judged the explanation completely unsatisfactory and set out the case in "Science in Default." NICAP files it under its Nuclear Connection Project. Two trained observers. Binoculars. Radar. And an official answer the men in the tower found amusing.