UFO smoking gun?

[Moontanman]

In the 1940's and beyond a peculiar type of UFO was sighted by many people including some famous scientists, to this day they remain unexplained and so far have defied any reasonable explanation.

 

The UFOs were colloquially called green fireballs and at first glance are not really compelling until you understand just how odd they really were.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fireballs

 

 

Meteor expert Dr. Lincoln LaPaz headed much of the investigation into the fireballs on behalf of the military. LaPaz's conclusion was that the objects displayed too many anomalous characteristics to be a type of meteor and instead were artificial, perhaps secret Russian spy devices. The green fireballs were seen by many people of high repute including LaPaz, distinguished Los Alamosscientists, Kirtland AFB intelligence officers and Air Command Defense personnel.^[5] A February 1949 Los Alamos conference attended by aforementioned sighters, Project Sign, world renowned upper atmosphere physicist Dr. Joseph Kaplan, H-bomb scientist Dr. Edward Teller, other scientists and military brass concluded, though far from unanimously, that green fireballs were natural phenomena. To the conference attendees, only the green fire ball source was unknown, their existence was unquestioned.^[6] Secret conferences were convened at Los Alamos to study the phenomenon^{[citation needed]} and in Washington by the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.^[2][3][4][7]

 

 

 

The "fireballs" could not be explained by natural phenomena and were clustered around US military bases and research facilities connected with Nuclear weapons, so tightly clustered around "nuke" facilities that even mainstream scientists considered them to be of high concern.

 

 

Edward J. Ruppelt, director of the USAF Project Blue Book UFO study, stated he visited the Los Alamos National Laboratory in early 1952 and spoke to various scientists and technicians there, all of whom had experienced green fireball sightings. None of them believed they had a conventional explanation, such as a new natural phenomenon, secret government project, or psychologically enlarged meteors. Instead, the scientists speculated that they were extraterrestrial probes "projected into our atmosphere from a 'spaceship' hovering several hundred miles above the earth." Ruppelt commented, "Two years ago I would have been amazed to hear a group of reputable scientists make such a startling statement. Now, however, I took it as a matter of course. I'd heard the same type of statement many times before from equally qualified groups."^[11]

 

 

While some considered them to be an unknown natural phenomena others disagreed but the the meteor expert Lapaz considered them to be unknowns.

 

Other astronomers besides LaPaz known to have sighted green fireballs in New Mexico during this period were Clyde Tombaugh, who in 1956 said he had seen three, and Dr. Donald Menzel, who sighted one in May 1949 near Alamogordo. In a letter to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, Menzel admitted the phenomenon must be real and expressed puzzlement, wondering why the fireballs should be so confined to New Mexico if they were natural phenomena.^[12] Menzel eventually became a famous UFO debunker, and in two of his books stated he was never puzzled by his sighting, instantly identifying the object as an ordinary meteor fireball.^[13]

 

 

Due to their unnatural behavior no realistic explanation has ever been suggested and the green "fireballs" remain in the unknown category despite numerous sighting and even retrieval of debris.

 

Early on they were thought possibly to be a weapon or spy system of the Soviets but nothing was ever confirmed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[arc]

When magicians don't want you to see what they are really doing in one hand, they do spectacular distractions with the other.

 

This could have been and probably was a simple distracting device by a high level intelligence gathering agency {fill in the blank]. Would it not be conceivable, and more likely than most other explanations, that when a most top secret aircraft, possibly involving spying, was encroached on or even in the vicinity of other military or civilian aircraft, a solid fuel rocket would be utilized. With phosphorus and a copper additive inside a lightweight casing that would oxidize away, maybe even using a drag chute or other devices to slow its flight.This would likely gather all eyes to its activity, leaving the top secret aircraft undetected. Meteors seem to have the same effect on spectators BTW.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fireballs

 

Their report stated that the light was "definitely larger and more brilliant than a shooting star, meteor or flare." The light lasted only a few seconds, moving "almost flat and parallel to the earth". The light's "trajectory then dropped off rapidly" leaving "a trail of fragments reddish orange in color" which then fell towards the ground.

Edited March 16, 2014 by arc

[Ophiolite]

How long have you been working for Government Disinformation?

[Moontanman]

I think the idea of distraction is the most plausible explanation, but it of course begs the question of who was doing the distracting. The USAF couldn't admit to the Soviets doing it and there would seem to be no reason for the US to do it to themselves. It's interesting that quite a few "UFOs" are in this category, in fact some of the most puzzling are just glowing lights, and not all can be explained by flares and remain unexplained.

This series of UFO sightings over Washington DC were not any more than lights but they were picked up on radar and they traveled fast enough to keep up with jets...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

[arc]

How long have you been working for Government Disinformation?

 

If I told you I'd have to kill you. But first I'd have to get the OK from my counterpart in MI6. But, I don't think your wife will give me the thumbs up. . . . . until your done with the chores.

 

 

I think the idea of distraction is the most plausible explanation, but it of course begs the question of who was doing the distracting. The USAF couldn't admit to the Soviets doing it and there would seem to be no reason for the US to do it to themselves. It's interesting that quite a few "UFOs" are in this category, in fact some of the most puzzling are just glowing lights, and not all can be explained by flares and remain unexplained.

This series of UFO sightings over Washington DC were not any more than lights but they were picked up on radar and they traveled fast enough to keep up with jets...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

 

These domestic sightings happened over areas common to the flights of secret aircraft, specific spy planes were not acknowledged or even known to anyone below military top secret status. There observation by regular military pilots would be as much avoided as that of civilian pilots. I would think if the spy plane pilot detected, or was informed, of other aircraft they would drop a rocket that would fall several thousand meters before igniting. Long before anyone could get close enough to the spy plane to even see it, or at the very least to describe it in any detail later. That bright green fire ball would probably make you forget any distant plane you observed shortly before.

[Moontanman]

 

If I told you I'd have to kill you. But first I'd have to get the OK from my counterpart in MI6. But, I don't think your wife will give me the thumbs up. . . . . until your done with the chores.

 

 

 

These domestic sightings happened over areas common to the flights of secret aircraft, specific spy planes were not acknowledged or even known to anyone below military top secret status. There observation by regular military pilots would be as much avoided as that of civilian pilots. I would think if the spy plane pilot detected, or was informed, of other aircraft they would drop a rocket that would fall several thousand meters before igniting. Long before anyone could get close enough to the spy plane to even see it, or at the very least to describe it in any detail later. That bright green fire ball would probably make you forget any distant plane you observed shortly before.

 

 

I have to ask, did you bother to read the link I provided?

[arc]

 

 

I have to ask, did you bother to read the link I provided?

 

What are the options regarding an explanation? I know that as information disseminates people start seeing things. The mass hysteria over Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast suggests people will take little provocation to believe, and more importantly imagine, the objects in the sky, real or not, are what they heard through the media were there. A navy blimp or even rigid airship in and around the east coast would not be uncommon in those days.

 

1952 was a time when people were suppressing a lot of pent up hysteria about the Russians and their acquisition of nuclear weapons. Very similar to the Oct. 31, 1939 broadcast of the War of the Worlds' timing with the rise of Nazi Germany and its invasion of Poland Sept. 1, 1939, and the subsequent expectations of another world war. These incidences seem to be a mass psychological phenomena. Don't underestimate the boarder line paranoia people would have in and around the capital, living within the primary target of a Russian nuclear bomb, people were building bomb shelters in their back yards. The timing to me seems to ideal to be ignored.

 

I would next say it was the pentagon seeing how crazy people might act during an event of this scale and then use it to extrapolate out to larger scales for a war game simulation.

 

And that's all I have short of going to the alien UFO stuff. I just think people are very susceptible to social pressures and even group hysteria, and that explanation works well enough for me.

[Moontanman]

The link about the 1952 sightings is far from hysteria and has nothing in common with flares, it was seen by multiple independent witnesses in the air and on the grand, tracked on radar, out performed jets that had very close up visuals, doesn't make them alien space craft but it does require a bit more than simple dismission as hysteria or flares...

[arc]

The link about the 1952 sightings is far from hysteria and has nothing in common with flares, it was seen by multiple independent witnesses in the air and on the grand, tracked on radar, out performed jets that had very close up visuals, doesn't make them alien space craft but it does require a bit more than simple dismission as hysteria or flares...

 

One has to ask, why the bright lights? Why would aliens always need to have intensely bright colored lights that can be seen from great distances. You would need them for what? This would seem to be a cry for attention, a flying "look at me look at me". But again, why?

 

When magicians don't want you to see what they are really doing in one hand, they do spectacular distractions with the other.

 

Andrews Air Force Base is 16 km away and likely connected to this ruse. Would this distraction be used to cover the arrival or departure of secret aircraft?

Possibly something to do with evacuating the president in the time of nuclear attack? I can come up with many reasons they may want to distract air traffic control. Maybe these mystery aircraft were using technology to confuse the radar. Are they testing this technology during these events? Maybe they had observers to check the actual location of the lights to the presumed location detected by the civil and military radar.

 

I think there are enough reasons due to the cold war's influence on government and military secrecy to give these events a more plausible and likely explanation than aliens. These lightshows give eyewitness accounts to bolster the radar evidence, If the aircraft didn't have the blazing lights then the public would have no involvement in the events other than the media accounts of the civilian air traffic control. The bright lights allow public involvement and multiple eye witness reports of the events. This would lead me more to the ruse argument. These are a few of the possible reasons as to why these UFO's would have the bright lights without the need for an extraterrestrial cause.

[Moontanman]

 

One has to ask, why the bright lights? Why would aliens always need to have intensely bright colored lights that can be seen from great distances. You would need them for what? This would seem to be a cry for attention, a flying "look at me look at me". But again, why?

 

When magicians don't want you to see what they are really doing in one hand, they do spectacular distractions with the other.

 

Andrews Air Force Base is 16 km away and likely connected to this ruse. Would this distraction be used to cover the arrival or departure of secret aircraft?

Possibly something to do with evacuating the president in the time of nuclear attack? I can come up with many reasons they may want to distract air traffic control. Maybe these mystery aircraft were using technology to confuse the radar. Are they testing this technology during these events? Maybe they had observers to check the actual location of the lights to the presumed location detected by the civil and military radar.

 

I think there are enough reasons due to the cold war's influence on government and military secrecy to give these events a more plausible and likely explanation than aliens. These lightshows give eyewitness accounts to bolster the radar evidence, If the aircraft didn't have the blazing lights then the public would have no involvement in the events other than the media accounts of the civilian air traffic control. The bright lights allow public involvement and multiple eye witness reports of the events. This would lead me more to the ruse argument. These are a few of the possible reasons as to why these UFO's would have the bright lights without the need for an extraterrestrial cause.

 

 

It could have indeed have been a ruse, the pilots of the jets in question could have been in on it and were lying about the lights surrounding one of the jets, the military representative who's job was to explain away sightings could have been in on it when he said he was now convinced of the reality of UFOs, the airline pilots could have been in on it as well and the fast moving lights could have been secrete technology. The movements of the lights was not something we were capable of in 1952.

 

In 1952 it would seem unlikely that such lights would have been secrete US technology as such things would have been part of our regular lives by 60 years later.

 

As for the idea of UFOs being bright lights... the possibilities are almost endless, they wanted to attract attention, the light maybe a side effect of their technology like heat from a jet exhaust are just two. They certainly did seem to be tweaking the nose of our military by over flying restricted air space, it's quite possible they were trying to get a handle on what we were capable of, it's all speculative.

 

I am not going to defend the idea that they were alien space craft or assert they could not have been. In 1952 technology was somewhat limited compared to today, the military certainly reacted as though they were both surprised and concerned by the sightings. The POTUS was involved and demanded some explanations.

 

The military answers were weak and obviously not descriptive of what actually happened and in fact were actually deceptive.

 

This sighting has been on my radar before but I have always dismissed it because of the lights in the sky is hardly compelling on the face of it but after looking into it and reading as much info as is available I realized this sighting was inexplicable unless of course as you pointed out it was a deliberate act of the military to lie and deceive.

 

Since this wave of sightings is not a singular event but was part of a long train of sightings that went down the east coast over a period of weeks and the military was scrambling to explain them long before they appeared over Washington I have to ask what did the military have to gain form such a series of sightings that only made them look inept and impotent...

 

As i said earlier, they suggest an unknown phenomena, and i can't assert what they were or were not but dismissing them as unimportant seems a bit rash...

[Popcorn Sutton]

Why do these discussions always seem to be "discredited" or "discarded" as simple, explicable phenomena? I've heard that ridiculous argument (about flares and distractions) so many times that it never ceases to amaze me when it is speculated. OK, yes, you may be able to describe 1% of UFO sightings as simple flares, and I'll even let you bask in the glory of your argument when it is concluded that it is, in fact, a flare, but when you (like COUNTLESS others) go on to say that it's a flare not only in this case, but in every case, you gotta be sucking the fart right outta my. It's ridiculous, and it's on the verge of offensive, really. Not so long ago, the Science Channel decided to air a series about UFOs, but it wasn't the typical speculative documentaries that are normally on channels like that. This one was literal, declassified, undeniable evidence that UFOs do exist. They had BLATANT video and pictures and unclassified documents. The USA was shooting an H-Bomb (that was 300x(?) more powerful than the hiroshima/nagasaki warhead) into space. While someone was recording the departure, there was, VERY OBVIOUSLY, a UFO that was keeping up with the rocket EASILY flying over 10,000MPH performing maneuvors that no known aircraft can perform. Not only did it do exactly what I described in the previous sentence, but it ALSO shot 2 beams of light at the warhead from one end to the other (circling around it) until the warhead dropped off of the rocket. This was declassified footage from the 90's (I believe). I saw it, with my own two eyes, on behalf of the military/government/NASA, documented, on an episode on THE SCIENCE CHANNEL (they don't fool around with what they air), CLAIMING that it was newly released footage (declassified). No, they weren't lying, it was real. Not only that, but they also aired another 7 or so episodes of the same show which ALSO stated (very matter-of-factly), "yes, they declassified these documents, these photos, these videos, they are now available to the public and we chose to put them here (on the science channel)." Case closed. They recovered bodies, they reverse engineered the utilities on the space crafts that they also recovered, and they released the names of the companies that got to reverse engineer the spacecraft as well as all the footage, documentation, and photographic evidence.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Popcorn Sutton

[Moontanman]

Why do these discussions always seem to be "discredited" or "discarded" as simple, explicable phenomena? I've heard that ridiculous argument (about flares and distractions) so many times that it never ceases to amaze me when it is speculated. OK, yes, you may be able to describe 1% of UFO sightings as simple flares, and I'll even let you bask in the glory of your argument when it is concluded that it is, in fact, a flare, but when you (like COUNTLESS others) go on to say that it's a flare not only in this case, but in every case, you gotta be sucking the fart right outta my. It's ridiculous, and it's on the verge of offensive, really. Not so long ago, the Science Channel decided to air a series about UFOs, but it wasn't the typical speculative documentaries that are normally on channels like that. This one was literal, declassified, undeniable evidence that UFOs do exist. They had BLATANT video and pictures and unclassified documents. The USA was shooting an H-Bomb (that was 300x(?) more powerful than the hiroshima/nagasaki warhead) into space. While someone was recording the departure, there was, VERY OBVIOUSLY, a UFO that was keeping up with the rocket EASILY flying over 10,000MPH performing maneuvors that no known aircraft can perform. Not only did it do exactly what I described in the previous sentence, but it ALSO shot 2 beams of light at the warhead from one end to the other (circling around it) until the warhead dropped off of the rocket. This was declassified footage from the 90's (I believe). I saw it, with my own two eyes, on behalf of the military/government/NASA, documented, on an episode on THE SCIENCE CHANNEL (they don't fool around with what they air), CLAIMING that it was newly released footage (declassified). No, they weren't lying, it was real. Not only that, but they also aired another 7 or so episodes of the same show which ALSO stated (very matter-of-factly), "yes, they declassified these documents, these photos, these videos, they are now available to the public and we chose to put them here (on the science channel)." Case closed. They recovered bodies, they reverse engineered the utilities on the space crafts that they also recovered, and they released the names of the companies that got to reverse engineer the spacecraft as well as all the footage, documentation, and photographic evidence.

 

 

I saw that too but it was not the actual footage it was a recreation of the footage not the actual footage.

[Popcorn Sutton]

I saw the recreation of the footage though and unless they recreated it again then what they showed on the science channel was the real deal.

[Moontanman]

I saw the recreation of the footage though and unless they recreated it again then what they showed on the science channel was the real deal.

 

 

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the actual footage, I saw the show and the footage was turned over the the USAF and never seen again...

[arc]

Why do these discussions always seem to be "discredited" or "discarded" as simple, explicable phenomena? I've heard that ridiculous argument (about flares and distractions) so many times that it never ceases to amaze me when it is speculated. OK, yes, you may be able to describe 1% of UFO sightings as simple flares, and I'll even let you bask in the glory of your argument when it is concluded that it is, in fact, a flare, but when you (like COUNTLESS others) go on to say that it's a flare not only in this case, but in every case, you gotta be sucking the fart right outta my. It's ridiculous, and it's on the verge of offensive, really. Not so long ago, the Science Channel decided to air a series about UFOs, but it wasn't the typical speculative documentaries that are normally on channels like that. This one was literal, declassified, undeniable evidence that UFOs do exist. They had BLATANT video and pictures and unclassified documents. The USA was shooting an H-Bomb (that was 300x(?) more powerful than the hiroshima/nagasaki warhead) into space. While someone was recording the departure, there was, VERY OBVIOUSLY, a UFO that was keeping up with the rocket EASILY flying over 10,000MPH performing maneuvors that no known aircraft can perform. Not only did it do exactly what I described in the previous sentence, but it ALSO shot 2 beams of light at the warhead from one end to the other (circling around it) until the warhead dropped off of the rocket. This was declassified footage from the 90's (I believe). I saw it, with my own two eyes, on behalf of the military/government/NASA, documented, on an episode on THE SCIENCE CHANNEL (they don't fool around with what they air), CLAIMING that it was newly released footage (declassified). No, they weren't lying, it was real. Not only that, but they also aired another 7 or so episodes of the same show which ALSO stated (very matter-of-factly), "yes, they declassified these documents, these photos, these videos, they are now available to the public and we chose to put them here (on the science channel)." Case closed. They recovered bodies, they reverse engineered the utilities on the space crafts that they also recovered, and they released the names of the companies that got to reverse engineer the spacecraft as well as all the footage, documentation, and photographic evidence.

 

I rest my case.

[Moontanman]

 

I rest my case.

 

 

You have no case, the signal to noise ratio is quite high but that doesn't mean there is no signal..

[arc]

 

 

You have no case, the signal to noise ratio is quite high but that doesn't mean there is no signal..

 

OK, but it does emphasize that if you were to announce through any media an occurrence on the previous night, you will have dozens of eye witness accounts for days after. Planets, stars, commercial and civilian aircraft all become part of the story. Most people will look out at the night sky and hope to see what they heard about in the media accounts, but after many "whats that over there" moments they figure out that its an aircraft or stars or possibly planets. But then there's that small contingent of "experts" who know they are looking at UFO's and any attempt to explain it otherwise is a coverup. And that noise has no doubt made its own reality separate of whatever phenomena really is at work here.

 

I've been occasionally watching some of those shows that have examples of how your brain is tricked by optical effects, they explain how and why but I had no idea the degree that we are susceptible to optical tricks. It is truly amazing how vulnerable our minds are to what we see. Or think we see.

[Moontanman]

 

OK, but it does emphasize that if you were to announce through any media an occurrence on the previous night, you will have dozens of eye witness accounts for days after. Planets, stars, commercial and civilian aircraft all become part of the story. Most people will look out at the night sky and hope to see what they heard about in the media accounts, but after many "whats that over there" moments they figure out that its an aircraft or stars or possibly planets. But then there's that small contingent of "experts" who know they are looking at UFO's and any attempt to explain it otherwise is a coverup. And that noise has no doubt made its own reality separate of whatever phenomena really is at work here.

 

I've been occasionally watching some of those shows that have examples of how your brain is tricked by optical effects, they explain how and why but I had no idea the degree that we are susceptible to optical tricks. It is truly amazing how vulnerable our minds are to what we see. Or think we see.

 

 

I agree that the "me too" factor is quite high, I try to stick to old sightings due to the this effect. Faking UFO sightings have practicality become a contest to see who can be the most convincing.

 

In the Early years the extraterrestrial option was found to be a likely answer by the USAF and many sightings to this day defy explanation.

 

I think they represent something important, doesn't have to be extraterrestrial or even technological but the phenomena deserves better than the slow moving meteor level of debunking.

[arc]

 

 

I agree that the "me too" factor is quite high, I try to stick to old sightings due to the this effect. Faking UFO sightings have practicality become a contest to see who can be the most convincing.

 

In the Early years the extraterrestrial option was found to be a likely answer by the USAF and many sightings to this day defy explanation.

 

I think they represent something important, doesn't have to be extraterrestrial or even technological but the phenomena deserves better than the slow moving meteor level of debunking.

 

I saw something last year on a phenomena that is essentially the same as a mirage that you would see in hot localities on land, but has been a phantom occurrence of folklore in the cold waters of ocean environments like the North Atlantic. It occurs on calm water at or near freezing air temperatures. It reflects an artificial horizon and can really distort distances between viewers and objects.

 

This give a good outline; http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-the-titanic-sink-because-of-an-optical-illusion-102040309/?no-ist

 

"The Titanic was sailing from Gulf Stream waters into the frigid Labrador Current, where the air column was cooling from the bottom up, creating a thermal inversion: layers of cold air below layers of warmer air. Extraordinarily high air pressure kept the air free of fog."

 

"A thermal inversion refracts light abnormally and can create a superior mirage: Objects appear higher (and therefore nearer) than they actually are, before a false horizon. The area between the false horizon and the true one may appear as haze."

 

I really feel that these phenomena may occur at other elevations, it just takes these conditions with these inversions to set the stage. A warm July night near the ocean that could provide a layer of cooler air may be what provide unknown radar returns and even the visual illusions of objects and bright lights from sources outside of the area.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

 

"Ruppelt did speak with an Air Force radar specialist, Captain Roy James, who felt that unusual weather conditions could have caused the unknown radar targets."

 

"After midnight on July 27, Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a US Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport. During the night, Lt. Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radarscopes. Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects. There had been weather targets on the scope too, he said, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them." Two more jets from Newcastle AFB were scrambled during the night. One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other pilot moved towards a white light which "vanished" when he closed in. A Capital Airlines flight leaving Washington spotted "odd lights" which remained visible for about twelve minutes. As on July 20, the sightings and unknown radar returns ended at sunrise.

 

It would be conceivable that the airport beacons which were the primary navigational aid in those days and were quite massive and powerful, may have been brought from outside the area by refraction as described in the Smithsonian article. The Andrews Air Force Base beacons may have been the bright white lights the pilots were chasing. Or they may also be one or more of the many navigational airway beacons that formed the visual guidance system surrounding the city along the airline corridors.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airway_beacon

An airway beacon is a rotating light on a tower once used extensively in the United States for visual navigation by airplane pilots along a specified airway corridor. Approximately 1,500 airway beacons were constructed to guide pilots from city to city,covering 18,000 miles (29,000 km).

 

 

An airway beacon has two distinct light characteristics: A revolving narrow white light beam about 5 degrees wide in azimuth and a set of fixed colored course lights of about 15 degrees width.

 

White rotating beacon

The rotating beacon features a 24 inch (610 mm) parabolic mirror and a 110-volt, 1 kilowatt lamp. spinning at 6 rpm, creating a quick 1/10 second flash every 10 seconds. In clear weather they could be seen for 40 miles (64 km).

 

We have enough scientific understanding of these inversion phenomena to at least provide a credible hypothesis to build from and counter the extraterrestrial causes.

Edited March 21, 2014 by arc

[Moontanman]

That would not explain the visual sightings by both ground personnel and fighter pilots

[arc]

That would not explain the visual sightings by both ground personnel and fighter pilots

 

http://en.wikipedia....C._UFO_incident

Among the witnesses who supported Samford's explanation was the crew of a B-25 bomber, which had been flying over Washington during the sightings of July 26–27. The bomber was vectored several times by National Airport over unknown targets on the airport's radarscopes, yet the crew could see nothing unusual. Finally, as a crew member related, "the radar had a target which turned out to be the Wilson Lines steamboat trip to Mount Vernon...the radar was sure as hell picking up the steamboat."

 

This is an extremely good eyewitness account. It is trained Air Force personnel vectored to a position that the radar said had a bogey target, and they identified a surface ship as the radar's target. This is with little doubt the work of refraction of the radar signal.

 

"At 3 a.m. on July 27, an Eastern Airlines flight over Washington was told that an unknown object was in its vicinity; the crew could see nothing unusual. When they were told that the object had moved directly behind their plane, they began a sharp turn to try to see the object, but were told by National Airport's radar center that the object had "disappeared" when they began their turn. At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported." Project Blue Book would eventually label the Washington radar objects as "mirage effects caused by double inversion" and the visual sightings as "meteors coupled with the normal excitement of witnesses." In later years two prominent UFO skeptics, Dr. Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Philip Klass, a senior editor for Aviation Week magazine, would also argue in favor of the temperature inversion/mirage hypothesis."

 

And optically, that same inversion will produce the effects of fast moving white lights as the beams of various airway beacons are refracted to great distances, chasing across the heat dome above the city, a veritable bubble that the optical effects play out on throughout the night.

 

"A thermal inversion refracts light abnormally and can create a superior mirage: Objects appear higher (and therefore nearer) than they actually are, before a false horizon."

 

​ The ground personnel viewed the same optical effects that the Air Force personnel did. And I think the claims of saucer shapes are the typical noise that accompany such media accounts. These people are viewing a night sky illuminated by natural phenomena and imagining the missing portions that complete a narrative they can comprehend.

 

This is a very rational explanation of these events, but it requires the gleaning of the accurate accounts like the B-52 crew and the interpretation of what the fighter pilots had seen and chased, which were likely the projection of the airway beacons from the thermal inversion on the atmospheric layers and water vapor or mist that would accompany these transitional zones. It simply comes down to this explanation being the most logical and supportable answer to this event.

[Moontanman]

Atmospheric refraction surrounded the jet fighter and flew around the other fighters? You can't cherry pick, if you want to cherry pick then I can do the same thing, yes some of it might have been refraction some of it obviously was not. The sightings took place over many hours and two days a week apart.

Where does a B-52 figure in to this?

Phillip Klass was the guy who came up with the slow meteor explanation of particular good sighting. Both Klass and Menzel are both well known for pelicanism and they gave their explanation years after the fact. People who were there, military people, saw some of the objects both on radar and visually, the objects that surrounded the jet in flight were not temperature inversions.

Again any explanation shouldn't be as unlikely as supersonic pelicans.

From the wiki link...

At this point, other objects appeared in all sectors of the radarscope; when they moved over the White House and the United States Capitol, Barnes called Andrews Air Force Base, located 10 miles from National Airport. Although Andrews reported that they had no unusual objects on their radar, an airman soon called the base's control tower to report the sighting of a strange object. Airman William Brady, who was in the tower, then saw an "object which appeared to be like an orange ball of fire, trailing a tail . . . [it was] unlike anything I had ever seen before." As Brady tried to alert the other personnel in the tower, the strange object "took off at an unbelievable speed." Meanwhile, another person in the National Airport control tower reported seeing "an orange disk about 3,000 feet altitude." On one of the airport's runways, S.C. Pierman, a Capital Airlines pilot, was waiting in the cockpit of his DC-4 for permission to take off. After spotting what he believed to be a meteor, he was told that the control tower's radar had picked up unknown objects closing in on his position. Pierman observed six objects — "white, tailless, fast-moving lights" — over a 14-minute period.[3] Pierman was in radio contact with Barnes during his sighting, and Barnes later related that "each sighting coincided with a pip we could see near his plane. When he reported that the light streaked off at a high speed, it disappeared on our scope."

 

 

Meanwhile, Albert M. Chop, the press spokesman for Project Blue Book, arrived at National Airport and refused several reporters' requests to photograph the radar screens. He then joined the radar center personnel.^[12] By this time (9:30 p.m.) the radar center was picking up unknown objects in every sector. At times the objects traveled slowly; at other times they reversed direction and moved across the radarscope at speeds calculated at 7,000 mph. At 11:30 p.m., two jet fighters from Newcastle AFB in Delaware arrived over Washington. Capt. John McHugo, the flight leader, was vectored towards the radar blips but saw nothing, despite repeated attempts.^[13]However, his wingman, Lt. William Patterson, did see four white "glows" and chased them. Suddenly, the "glows" turned and surrounded his fighter. Patterson asked the control tower at National Airport what he should do; according to Chop, the tower's answer was "stunned silence". The four lights then sped away from Patterson's jet and disappeared.^[14]

After midnight on July 27, Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a US Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport.^[15] During the night, Lt. Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radarscopes.^[16] Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects. There had been weather targets on the scope too, he said, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them."^[17] Two more jets from Newcastle AFB were scrambled during the night. One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other pilot moved towards a white light which "vanished" when he closed in. A Capital Airlines flight leaving Washington spotted "odd lights" which remained visible for about twelve minutes.^[18] As on July 20, the sightings and unknown radar returns ended at sunrise.

 

 

 

Again, I do not assert what they were but clearly they were not temperature inversions...

[arc]

Atmospheric refraction surrounded the jet fighter and flew around the other fighters? You can't cherry pick, if you want to cherry pick then I can do the same thing, yes some of it might have been refraction some of it obviously was not. The sightings took place over many hours and two days a week apart.

 

I'm not cherry picking, I'm taking the reports that have the clearest evidence of a natural explanation, a scientific explanation to these events.

 

Where does a B-52 figure in to this?

 

That was a typo B-52 should have been B-25. As in the B-25 that was sent to the radar target's location and identified a surface ship.

 

as a crew member related, "the radar had a target which turned out to be the Wilson Lines steamboat trip to Mount Vernon...the radar was sure as hell picking up the steamboat."

 

This is a crew of six trained personnel reaching a definitive conclusion, a very accurate identification of a wayward radar signal.

 

The jet pilots were seeing the optical effects of the same inversion phenomena that relocated the radar signals. The optical light phenomena (white lights) and radar signals are trapped within layers of atmosphere that carry the channeled and concentrated radar signal far away to remote locations and even to the surface as was the case of the B-25's observation.

 

Again, this was during the summer's highest temperatures, the heat dome over the city would produce the best conditions for these layers to form against the cooler night air to take and receive signals in a layer that likely followed the heat dome's radius to the Earth's surface. The steamboat's vector is a good example of this effect.

 

The jet pilots were within the layer, within the vapor that would be present due to the colder and warmer layers reaction with each other, this is the vapor that the airway beacons were illuminating. Think of it like a planetarium's dome. The airway beacons were projecting onto and more importantly within the layer of vapor which is transparent to the night sky when at 90 degrees to its surface, but refracts the brighter sweeping airway beacons that are entering this vapor dome at higher degrees of angle. These lights were coming through,sweeping the area and illuminating the vapor. They would have the erratic behavior similar to that of headlights on an interior wall of a building, sweeping and seemingly moving erratically withing the theater of the rooms interior.

 

​ I do not want to commit copyright infringement, but if you look closely at the images at;

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/did-the-titanic-sink-because-of-an-optical-illusion-102040309/?no-ist

 

They show very convincingly how inversions can relocate optically. And within these layers radar would also travel to the surface as in the steamboat example above.The article give's a very good outline of the phenomena and how it can project visual objects great distances, and, as in the Titanic's case over and in front of an iceberg, hiding it behind a mirage of a clear horizon.

 

Again, eliminating the background noise of questionable accounts, the available understanding of this phenomena can give resonable explanation of these events without resorting to more tenuous explanations.

 

[Moontanman]

People on the scene familiar with the temperature inversion said it was a mild one and couldn't have been responsible for the phenomena seen on those two days of sightings.

 

Also the lights that surrounded the jet at quite close range couldn't have been a temp inversion, neither could the people in the control towers that saw the objects.

 

On of the military men was quoted as saying the objects acted as though they were aware of the military communications.

 

From the wiki link

 

After midnight on July 27, Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a US Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport.^[15] During the night, Lt. Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radarscopes.^[16] Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects. There had been weather targets on the scope too, he said, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them."

 

[Moontanman]

Yet another unknown...

 

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case665.htm

A short video about this sighting...