RB-47H from Mississippi to Oklahoma

What the file holds

Project Blue Book’s papers on this flight are in the National Archives catalogue under “Forbes AFB, Kansas, July 1957” (NAID 28970538, 56 images):

• the record card (image 1);
• the message of the 745th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at Duncanville, Texas, sent at 1445Z on 17 July 1957 (images 2–6, filed out of order);
• an analysis by AFCIN-4E1 of the Air Technical Intelligence Center, 30 October 1957 (image 7);
• a letter from the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), 8 November 1957 (image 9);
• the Air Defense Command’s request of 15 August 1957 for the aircraft commander’s report, with the indorsements returning it (images 10–11);
• an undated handwritten summary by Project Blue Book (images 12–13);
• copies of James E. McDonald’s article in “Astronautics & Aeronautics”, July 1971 (images 14–19), and of Philip J. Klass’s paper “The RB-47 UFO Case -- A New Explanation”, 30 December 1971 (images 21–38);
• a letter of 14 January 1972 from the Chief of the Historical Research Division to Klass (image 39);
• a message from the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing that “AMPLIFY CIRVIS REPORT SENT BY ADC SITE UTAH” (images 41–44). Its form, DD Form 173, carries no date. The 38th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron’s indorsement of the Air Defense Command’s request lists “1 Incl added DD Form 173, DD Form 173-1” (image 10); we read that inclosure as this message;
• the Airborne Observer’s Data Sheet that the aircraft commander, Maj. Lewis D. Chase, completed on 10 September 1957 (images 45–56).

The flight, as the wing reported it

The wing’s message (images 41–44), from its intelligence officer, gives the times to the minute, in Zulu. It begins before the light:

“ECM RECONNAISSANCE OPERATOR #NR 2 OF LACY 17, RB-47H AIRCRAFT, INTERCEPTED AT APPROXIMATELY MERIDIAN, MISSISSIPPI, A SIGNAL WITH THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISITCS: FREQUENCY 2995 MC TO 3000 MC; PULSE WIDTH OF 2.0 MICRO-SECONDS; PULSE REPETITION FREQUENCY OF 600 CPS; SWEEP RATE OF 4RPM; VERTICAL POLARITY. SIGNAL MOVED RAPIDLY UP THE D/F SCOPE INDICATING A RAPIDLY MOVING SIGNAL SOURCE; I.E. AN AIRBORNE SOURCE. SIGNAL WAS ABANDONED AFTER OBSERVATION.” (images 41–42)

• 1010Z. “AIRCRAFT COMDR FIRST OBSERVED A VERY INTENSE WHITE LIGHT WITH LIGHT BLUE TINT AT 11 O’CLOCK FROM HIS AIRCRAFT, CROSSING IN FRONT TO ABOUT 2:30 O’CLOCK POSITION”; the co-pilot saw it too. The position is given as “APPROX 32-00N AND 91-28W” (images 41–42).
• 1030Z to 1038Z. Operator No. 2 searched for the signal again and found it at relative bearings of 070, 068 and 040 degrees (image 42).
• 1039Z. The commander “SIGHTED HUGE LIGHT WHICH HE ESTIMATED TO BE 5000 FEET BELOW AIRCRAFT AT ABOUT 2 O’CLOCK”, at 34,500 feet, “WEATHER PERFECTLY CLEAR” (image 42).
• 1040Z. Two signals, at 040 and 070 degrees; the commander and co-pilot “SAW THESE TWO OBJECTS AT THE SAME TIME WITH THE SAME RED COLOR.” The commander got permission to leave his flight plan, “NOTIFIED ADC SITE UTAH AND REQUESTED ALL ASSISTANCE POSSIBLE” (image 42).
• 1042Z to 1050Z. The object “PULLED AHEAD”. The crew gave its position as “10NM NORTH WEST OF FT WORTH, TEXAS, AND ADC SITE UTAH IMMEDIATELY CONFIRMED PRESENCE OF OBJECT ON THEIR SCOPES.” At about 1050Z it “APPEARED TO STOP”; Utah lost it and so did operator No. 2 (images 42–43).
• 1052Z to 1058Z. Signal, light and scope contact came and went. At 1055Z, near Mineral Wells, the crew told Utah they had to go home for fuel; at 1057Z operator No. 2 “HAD SIGNAL AT 300 DEGREES RELATIVE BEARING BUT UTAH HAD NO SCOPE CONTACT” (image 43).
• 1102Z to 1140Z. Heading home, operator No. 2 kept the signal “BETWEEN 180 AND 190 DEGREES RELATIVE BEARING UNTIL 1140Z WHEN AIRCRAFT WAS APPROXIMATELY ABEAM OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA. AT THIS TIME SIGNAL FADED RATHER ABRUPTLY.” (images 43–44)

The message ends: “55SRW DOI HAS NO DOUBT THE ELECTRONIC D/F’S COINCIDED EXACTLY WITH VISUAL OBSERVATIONS BY A/C NUMEROUS TIMES THUS INDICATING POSITIVELY THE OBJECT BEING THE SIGNAL SOURCE.” (image 44) The Duncanville message adds that the Hensley tower “STATED THAT THEY SAW BLUE LIGHTED OBJECT IN SKY IN VICINITY OF DALLAS TEXAS”; the time of that report cannot be read with certainty on the scan (image 3).

On the commander’s data sheet, under disturbances on the compass or radio: “OBJECT TRACKED WITH D/F EQUIPMENT ABOARD THIS TYPE AIRCRAFT - SIGNAL ANALYZED.” (image 48) The direction finder gave relative bearings, which the message lists. As McDonald put it in 1971: “the DF receivers are not radars and do not emit a signal for reflection off a distant target. They only listen passively to incoming radar signals” (image 15).

The radars

The aircraft’s own radar. The Duncanville message says that “AIRBORNE RADAR WAS BEING USED ON B-47 TO TRACK OBJECT AIRCRAFT STATED THAT THEY HAD OBJECT IN GOOD CONTACT” (image 4), and the card that the “Object was picked up by B-47 radar” (image 1). The commander’s own data sheet asks: “Was an attempt to detect the object on airborne radar made?” He circled “Yes” and described it: “UNSUCCESSFUL” (image 45). The wing’s message reports no contact on the aircraft’s radar; every bearing in it comes from operator No. 2’s direction finder.

The ground radar. The wing’s message has site “Utah” confirm the object, lose it, regain it and lose it again (images 42–43), and the commander’s data sheet says: “‘UTAH’ GCI WAS CONTACTED AND TRACKED OBJECT” (image 45). The Duncanville message, sent at 1445Z on the same day, goes on after the words on the airborne radar: “HOWEVER [one word that cannot be read on the scan] HAD NEGATIVE CONTACT WITH OBJECT” (image 4). Someone has written “GROUND RADAR” above the unreadable word. Klass, who identifies the Duncanville station as “Utah”, quoted the line in 1971 as “UTAH (Duncanville radar) HAD NEGATIVE CONTACT WITH OBJECT.” (images 22, 33) The card: the object “could not be seen by ground radar” (image 1). No record made by site “Utah” itself is in the file.

Photographs. The data sheet answers “Were photographs taken?” with “No”; beneath it is written “OBJECT WAS TRACKED ON ECM EQUIPMENT AND RADAR SCOPE PICTURES TAKEN” (image 45). The card marks “Photos” as “No” (image 1). No picture is in the file.

What the file says about its label

The record card (image 1) marks the conclusion “Was Aircraft”. Its summary reads: “A blue light was seen in sky that stayed with a/c for 420 NM. Object was picked up by B-47 radar but could not be seen by ground radar.” Its comment: “Identified as american Airlines flight 655.” Beside the comment a handwritten note, by an unknown hand and of unknown date, reads “Hogwash”.

Project Blue Book’s undated handwritten summary (images 12–13) gives the reasoning. The signals “had all the characteristics of ground radar equipment”; “there was no firm correlation between the ground intercept and the visual sightings”; the colours, “blue, white and red, are suggestive of aircraft lights”. And:

“In joint review with the CAA of the data from the incident, it was definitely established by the CAA that object observed in the vicinity of Dallas and Ft. Worth was an airliner.” (image 13)

The CAA’s letter in the file, of 8 November 1957, answers a request of 7 October for its reports on “two incidents involving commercial airliners and the sighting of unidentified flying objects, which had been previously reported in local newspapers” (image 9). The second:

“The second incident mentioned occurred on July 17, 1957, near El Paso, Texas, and involved American Airlines’ Flight No. 655. Investigation of this incident definitely established the fact that the unidentified flying object was American Airlines’ Flight No. 966, which had previously departed from El Paso, Texas, en route to Dallas, Texas.”

Our reading: the letter describes a sighting by an airliner near El Paso and does not mention the RB-47, Dallas, Fort Worth or Oklahoma. In it, flight 655 is the airliner whose crew saw the object, and the object is flight 966.

Before the CAA’s letter, the Air Technical Intelligence Center’s AFCIN-4E1 had answered Blue Book’s request for an analysis (image 7, 30 October 1957):

“This report is difficult to evaluate because there is such a mass of evidence which tends to all tie in together to indicate the presence of a physical object or UFO.”

“The electronic data is unusual in this report in that radar signals (presumably emanating from the ‘object’) were picked up. These intercepted signals have all the characteristics of ground radar equipment, and in fact are similar to CPS-6B. This office knows of no S-band airborne equipment having the characteristics outlined.”

“Since the type equipment on the ground (at ‘Utah’) is not known, and since there are no ‘firm’ correlation between the ground intercept and the sightings from the aircraft, it is impossible to make any determination from the information submitted. On the other hand, it is difficult to conclude that nothing was present, in the face of the visual and other data presented.”

The Air Defense Command had forwarded the papers on 17 October 1957: “This Command is unable to offer any explanation for the sighting. Therefore, this sighting is being carried as unknown.” (image 11)

The case does not carry the mark ◆ (see the methodology). What the file measured first-hand is the operator’s: the signal’s frequency, pulse and bearings. The same file reads the signal as having “all the characteristics of ground radar equipment” (image 7), and bearings are angles, which alone do not count. The aircraft’s own radar did not hold the object (“UNSUCCESSFUL”, image 45), and the only track from the ground, by site “Utah”, is known from the wing’s message and contradicted by the Duncanville message (images 42–43, 4).

How the story grew

• 1957, the records. The Duncanville message has the light stay “WITH AIRCRAFT FOR APPROXIMATELY 420 NM” (image 5) and gives “APPROXIMATELY 520 NM, BY A/C” elsewhere (image 4). The signal is “2995 MC TO 3000 MC” (image 41). The commander calls the airborne radar attempt “UNSUCCESSFUL” (image 45).
• 1968, the Condon report. Its staff learned of the case at a conference in June 1967 from the pilot, who remembered “a glowing source of both visual and 2,800 mHz. electromagnetic radiation”. The case study is headed “Fall 1957” and says: “Project Blue Book had no record of it.” In the report’s chapter on radar and optical analyses Thayer dates it “19 September 1957”. The case study ends: “Moving pictures of radar scope displays and other data said to have been recorded during the incident apparently never existed. Evaluation of the experience must, therefore, rest entirely on the recollection of crew members ten years after the event.” The 1957 records, the wing’s message with its times to the minute among them, are in the Blue Book file under 17 July; Klass wrote in 1971 of “the initiative of Dr. James E. McDonald in locating the original reports in the UFO archives at Maxwell AF Base, Ala.” (image 22)
• 1971, McDonald. The article in “Astronautics & Aeronautics”, built on the 1957 file and on interviews with the crew, has the aircraft “followed by an unidentified object for a distance of well over 700 mi. and for a time period of 1.5 hr.” (image 14). It quotes the 1957 figures, “2995 mc to 3000 mc”, and says of the operator: “his recollection was that the frequency was near 2800 mcs” (image 15). The AIAA subcommittee that introduced it added: “The aircraft Commander, Lt. Colonel Lewis D. Chase, USAF (Ret.), has confirmed the accuracy of this report in a letter to the Subcommittee.” (image 14)
• 1971, Klass. His paper attributes the signals to ground radars and the first up-scope signal to a possible fault in the receiver (image 26), and quotes the operator: “I do not believe any UFO was emitting these signals.” It also quotes Chase: “Congratulations, and my thanks, for giving me a plausible explanation for the events that happened to my crew that night in 1957.” (image 36)
• 1972, the Historical Research Division. Its chief wrote to Klass: “I lack the technical background for full appreciation of your detailed account of the RB-47 UFO case, but the explanation you derive from your detailed analysis of the evidence provides a reasonable explanation.” (image 39)
• 1999, COMETA. “This case, which appears as ‘unidentified’ in the Condon report” (p. 17). At about 1050Z the object “disappeared from the view of the radar(s) (Utah and the onboard radar that had just detected the object when the RB-47 had approached it)” (p. 18). The commander’s data sheet of 1957 calls the attempt with the onboard radar “UNSUCCESSFUL”.

Where it was

The pin is the point where, by the wing’s message and the commander’s data sheet, the light was first seen: “32-00N” and “91-28W”, rounded by us to 32.00° N, 91.47° W. OpenStreetMap places it in Tensas Parish, Louisiana (relation 1838161). The signal had been picked up earlier near Meridian, Mississippi; the chase ended near Fort Worth and Mineral Wells, Texas; the signal faded near Oklahoma City. The pin marks where the sightings began, not a position of the light.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses: 4. The aircraft commander and co-pilot, an ECM operator and a ground radar site, and the commander’s own data sheet. Not 5: the operator and the site speak in the file only through the wing’s message, which, Klass wrote in 1971, Piwetz “did not show his report to the RB-47 crew members to check its accuracy--so far as is known” (image 22); and the Duncanville message contradicts the site’s confirmation.

Radar: 3. The signal’s frequency, pulse width, repetition rate and sweep, and its relative bearings with times, as the wing reported the operator’s readings. Not higher: no recording; the Air Technical Intelligence Center found the signals to have “all the characteristics of ground radar equipment”; the attempt with the aircraft’s radar was unsuccessful, and the ground radar’s contact is reported in one message and denied in another.

Optics: 0. No photograph or film is in the file; the card marks “Photos” as “No”.

Physical trace: 0. None.

Multi-channel: 3. A light seen by two crew members, a signal on the direction finder, and a ground site’s reported contact. Not higher: AFCIN-4E1 found no “firm” correlation between the ground intercept and the sightings from the aircraft.

Documentation: 4. The card, two messages of 1957, the commander’s data sheet and the analyses of 1957 can be opened. Not 5: the records of site “Utah” and the CIRVIS report are not in the file, and the Duncanville message is partly unreadable.

Anomaly: 3. A signal whose bearings, by the wing’s message, coincided with the light “NUMEROUS TIMES”. AFCIN-4E1: apart from “rather abrupt disappearance of returns on the electronic equipment and indication that the object traveled at relatively high speed, there are no abnormal electronic indications”.

Data today: 2. No ECM recording, no ground radar log, no track of the aircraft minute by minute.

The overall is 2.3: class C, material gaps.

What would settle it

• The records of site “Utah” for 17 July 1957 between 1040Z and 1100Z, and the CIRVIS report it transmitted.
• Any record from the aircraft’s ECM positions, and the “RADAR SCOPE PICTURES” the data sheet mentions.
• The aircraft’s position minute by minute, against which the bearings could be compared with the ground radars of the region.