The Report on Unidentified Flying ObjectsRuppelt, Edward J.
History
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
Ruppelt, Edward J.
Unidentified flying objects
It was interesting to note that during the whole Iron Curtain Flap,
not one sighting or complimentary comment about the UFO's was made
over the radio or in the newspapers; yet the flap continued. The
reports were obviously being passed on by word of mouth. This fact
seems to negate the theory that if the newspaper reporters and
newscasters would give up the UFO's would go away. The people in
Russia were obviously seeing something.
While the European Flap was in progress, the UFO's weren't entirely
neglecting the United States. The number of reports that were coming
into Project Blue Book were below average, but there were reports.
Many of them would definitely be classed as good, but the best was a
report from a photo reconnaissance B-29 crew that encountered a UFO
almost over Dayton.
About 11:00A.M. on May 24, 1954, an RB-29 equipped with some new
aerial cameras took off from Wright Field, one of the two airfields
that make up Wright-Patterson AFB, and headed toward the Air Force's
photographic test range in Indiana. At exactly twelve noon they were
at 16,000 feet, flying west, about 15 miles northwest of Dayton. A
major, a photo officer, was in the nose seat of the '29. All of the
gun sights and the bombsight in the nose had been taken out, so it
was like sitting in a large picture window--except you just can't get
this kind of a view anyplace else. The major was enjoying it. He was
leaning forward, looking down, when he saw an extremely bright
circular-shaped object under and a little behind the airplane. It was
so bright that it seemed to have a mirror finish. He couldn't tell
how far below him it was but he was sure that it wasn't any higher
than 6,000 feet above the ground, and it was traveling fast, faster
than the B-29. It took only about six seconds to cross a section of
land, which meant that it was going about 600 miles an hour.
The major called the crew and told them about the UFO, but neither
the pilot nor the copilot could see it because it was now directly
under the B-29. The pilot was just in the process of telling him that
he was crazy when one of the scanners in an aft blister called in; he
and the other scanner could also see the UFO.
Being a photo ship, the RB-29 had cameras--loaded cameras--so the
logical thing to do would be to take a picture, but during a UFO
sighting logic sometimes gets shoved into the background. In this
case, however, it didn't, and the major reached down, punched the
button on the intervalometer, and the big vertical camera in the aft
section of the airplane clicked off a photo before the UFO sped away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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