PROJECT BLUE BOOK

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PROJECT 10073 RECORD

"te DATE © Thad GROUP 2. LOCATION

: Aug or Sep 49 Oak Park

= SOURCE 10. CONCLUSION

Civilian | INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR EVALUATION

> 4 NUMBER OF CasECTs
‘ CNZ

5. LENSTH OF COSSERVATION |11. BRIEF SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Not Reported bserver signted an object flying over his house at 11 minute
; intervals. The object was flying NNW and flashing. Its color
G. TYPE OF OSSERVATION was bluish-white,.

Pag mnsee 3S nsen

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9 PAYSICAL EVIDENCE

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FORM
FTD sz? 63 0-522 (TDE) previous editions of this form may be used,

Office Memorandum * UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

JHZ/g jm
TO : MCIAXA-1, Mr. Rodgers | DATE:Y 27 March 1950

FROM : MCIAXA

—~) ee

SUBJECT: Incident - Unidentified Object

1. The following information is given as another report
of an incident which occurred between P. Me and ll P. Me in
August or September 199.

2. Mr Gime, Building QP ag 1, reported

that an unidentified object appeared over his house at Oak Park

on Watervaleit Avenue and appeared every 11 minutes and that he

timed five of these intervals. The object appeared to be 10° north

of the elliptic circle flying north, northwest. Five flashes ocur-

red during the time of passing over the house. The color of the ob- '

ject was bluish white, somewhat of the appearance of a "lightning ‘
. bug". The object appeared to be quite high.

3- This report should be filed with other such reports being
. held in the Performance & Characteristics Branch for future refer-

ence. ;
A. . MSTREET, JR.
Lt Colonel, USAF
Chief, Aircraft & Propulsion Sec
Technical Analysis Division
Intelligence Department
‘
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WA
(SION FILE
ANALYSIS DIVIs i.
os al i ;
FILE NUMBER RY |
- — .
—awirars «ATE. UNCLASSIFIED |
tee ;
Ly
C: UOTE f

The To’ haugh Rectangles

A remarkable phenomenon observed in New Mexico in the sum-
mer of 1949 has remained among the most puzzling of the Un-
Rrrow?is. As in the Chesapeake Bay case, the facts are not in dispute
The witness was an astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, at that time in
charge of the optical instrumentation of the rocket-firing program
at the White Sands Missile Range. He had thousands of hours of
experience in observing the night sky and when still a stadent,
had gained fame after months of patient searching of photographic
plates, by locating the image of the planct Pluto near the position
long predicted for it by Lowell and Pickering

On the night of August 20 Tombauch was sitting with his wife
and his mother-in-law in the yard of his horne in Las Cruces, wateh-
ing the stars. There was no moon, and the transpareney of the sky
was extraordinary, so that even the stars of sixth magnitude. usually
barely detectable by the naked eve, were clearly visible. About
10:45 P.M. a geometrically spaced group of six to eight rectanules
of light appeared almost directly overhead. Of low luminosity. thes
were “windowlike” in appearance and vellowish-¢reen in color, The
individual rectangles were quite small, not wider than four or five
minutes of arc, and the entire croup covered a span of about 4
degree (about twice that of the full moon). As they moved noise
lessly in a vertical circle path toward the south-southeast. the in-
dividual rectangles became foreshortened thre spun of the vroeep
became smaller, the Vights termed brownish aod faded fron view
some 35 to 40 degrees above the horizon They had been in sight
for about three seconds. Mrs. Tombaneh. who did not see the lubes
until they had moved some distance from the zenith, observed then
for only about 143 seconds before thes disappeared To her they
scemed a diffuse greenish glow. interconnecting a span of ereenish
spots of light. Iter evesiaht had always been less acute thon that
of her husband, and they attributed the difference in their descrip
tions to this difference in vision.

Although Tombaugh had been too startled te count the mnber
of rectangles or to note some other features he wondered about later
he immediately recorded the facts of the observation. sketched the
pattern of the formation, and noted his impression that the liqhts
had been part of a rigid structure, He added, “I have dome thou:
sands of hours of nicht sky watehine, but newer saw a sucht so
strange as this.” A report of this sighting was forwarded to Air Force
officials, who could find no explanation, UFO enthusiasts anhesitat-
ingly pronounced the phenomenon a hude flying saucer—an inter
pretation that the witness himself never made.

The accounts given to the public unfortunately suffer from various
distortions of fact. In its Cassandra-like warning of possible visitors
from other plancts, Life Magazine included the Tombaugh sivhting
as one of the key cases and in a ten-sentence description managed
to include at least six misstatements, some of which added to the
“uncanny” nature of the incident. According to this summary [11]
the year was 1948 (it was 1949); the time was about 11:00 Pat.
(it was 10:45 P.at.); the lights were traveling south to north (they
were moving northwest to southeast); the object had an oval shape
(Tombaugh did not specify a shape); the lights exhibited a glare
(they were of low luminosity); their speed was too fast for a plane,
too slow for a meteor (no estimate of speed was given). On a nation-
wide TV show broadcast in 1958 the director of NICAP stated spe-
cifically that Tombaugh had observed a cigar-shaped object with
lighted portholes [12]. An “artist's conception” of the UFO in one
publication [13] depicts a long, tapered ship with a line of lighted
windows, wholly unrelated to Tombaugh's own sketch, which shows
no unifying structure, merely six small rectangles arranged as though
each one were at the corner of a hexagon (see Figure 18).

FINAL GALLEY PROOF

Galley 99~THE WORLD OF FLYING SAUCERS

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Figure 18. Searchlight shining on clouds. (4) throwgh sliahtly fowey or
dusty atmosphere, light cone plainly visible, (i) theowah multiple thin
cloud layers and fogey or cists atmosphere, ie) on clowd layer throwsh
clear atmosphere, no light cone visible, (Co) on multiple thin cloud Layers
no light cone visible.

While keeping an open mind on the possibility of interplanetary
travel, Tombaugh himself has never supported the spaceship iter
pretation so often attributed to him in print but has considered
various possible explanations—inseets or birds illuminated by gronmnd
lights, or reflections of grownd lights against the boundary of an
inversion layer in the air. OF these, the iverion theory seen the
most probable. The layer in such a case must have been extremely
thin or extremely weak, otherwise it would have dimmed the briaht:
ness of the faint stars he was observing. As in the Chesapeake Mos
case, the mysterious rectangles were undoubtedly the special effect
of some unique combination of circumstances, unlikely to be re-
peated. Conditions were ideal for the formation of small sharply
localized inversions: the weather was clear, the dav had been het
A small temperature inversion existing at a relatiwely low elevation
and smoke, haze, or dust collecting ina very thin laver at a relatives
low altitude were the prerequisites that almost certainly existed
Some unknown catise—in the vicinity of an airficld there are mins
possibilities—could have produced a ripple in the thin haze laver
This ripple, tipping the haze layer at a slight angle, could have
reflected the lighted windows of a house, as the ripple progressed
in a wavelike motion along the layer, the reflection would have
moved as did the rectangles of light. Conditions of refraction at
the interface would have reflected the wave upward.

Tombaugh has recently summarized his convictions on the entire
UFO phenomena as well as on his own sighting:

“From my own studies of the solar system | cannot entertain
any serious possibility for intelligent life on the other planets, not
even for Mars (the planet to which I have devoted considerable
observation and study over the past thirty-five years). The logistics
of visitations from planets revolving around the nearer stars is stag-
gering. In consideration of the hundreds of millions of years in the
geologic time scale when such visitations may possibly have oc-
curred, the odds of a single visit in a given century or millennium
are overwhelmingly against such an event.

“A much more likely source of explanation is some natural optical
phenomenon in our own atmosphere. In my 1949 sighting the faint-
ness of the object, together with the manner of fading in intensity
as it traveled away from zenith towards the southeastern horizon,
is quite suggestive of a reflection from an optical boundary or surface

‘ of slight contrast in refractive index, as in an inversion layer.

“I have never seen anything like it before or since, and I have
spent a lot of time where the night sky could be seen well. This
suggests that the phenomenon involves a comparatively rare set
of conditions or circumstances to produce it, but nothing like the

L444]

1 - 30 SEPTEMBER SIGHTINGS

LOCATION OBSERVER EVALUATION
Grand Rapids, Mishigan (NO CARDS)  “7SaiR@m Astro (METEOR)

Knoxville, Tennessee AIRCRAFT
Alexandria, Lousiana Astro (METEOR)
Lebec, California Military (PHOTOS) 1. BALLOON
2. Other (MISINTERPRE-
TATION OF

CONVENT IONAL
OBJECTS )
East of Reno, Nevada (Mountain Home Military AIRCRAFT
AFB, Idaho)
Clark AYB, Philippines Military Other (CONTRAILS ) |
Goose Bay, Labrador Pilot Astro (MBTEORS)
| Boston, New York (NO CARDS) tr eenmemmmall |
_ West Paris, Maine (NO CARDS) it Probable AIRCRAFT eg
Lubbock, Texas (NO CARDS) ee Probable Other (DUCKS) i
Savannah, Georgia (NO CARDS) NLT Probable AIRCRAFT
Scottsblurf, Nebraska (NO CARDS) OER.
Scottsbluff, Nebraska (NO CARDS) RRS |
lbelS - 120.228 (Japan) (NO CAFDS) Military
32.05N = 106.50 (Las Cruses, New Mexico Military
. (NO CARDS)
Griffis AFB, Rome New York (NO CARDS) Military
Hooksett, New Hampshire (NO CARDS) Military
Winchendon, Mass. (NO CARDS) ed
Lexington, Nebraska (NO CARDS) eae.
Enid, Oklahoma (NO CARDS) aie
Humboldt, Nebraska (NO CARDS) en
35-O7N - 138.525 (Japan) (NO CARDS) Military
Camp Holabird, Maryland (NO CARDS) Military :

Honolulu, Hawaii (NO CARDS) Military

ADDITIONAL REPORTED SIGHTINGS (NOT CASES)

LOCATION SOURCES OBSERVER

CASE MISSING

_COORDINATION ATSC for= Ne 10-508 “
@ OR DEP CG (Rev. . Oct 15)

PRINT SYMBOL 4*'D
NITIALS IN APPRO-
PRIATE BLOCK)

” BuUTANT inte NCLASSIFIEM

H”’S/ed

AIR INSPECTOR

} PUBLIC RELATIONS Vr. Ce ereriararigitees

1,70 University Terrace
Ann ‘rbor, “ichigan

. JUDGE ADVOCATE

Dear Sir:

ee. eee Receipt of your letter, dated 11 January 1959, is
acknowledged.
; You may be assured the infornation you provided
will be given proper consideration.
: ELLIGENCE (T-2)
Fla Your action in writing this Conmand is appreciated.

aoe

ta weave
ne (T-3)

EN oe

Yours truly,

~

7B WE

BRUNO” ®, FFITLING
Colonel, USAF

PO See

SUPPLY (T-4) Chief, Tech analysis Division
Intelligence Department
PLANS (1-5) “
BASE C.O. aa
ANALYSIS DIVISION FILE
ene, fat < oe IFIED
OTHER FILE NUMBER UNCLASS
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INITIALS DATE
= = ——
WF-L-8 NOV 45 500M CENTRAL FILE COPY

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Dear Sir, 422%
BR 3
With regerd to your letter of Jeng 40, 195f&,| I chouTd
like to sive en account of two strange qbgprvSnces, = Le @
at =
The first occurred in 1944, yd Ze probebfy|neve &
information on it already, It wes in th Beepran iA errly
summer. I wes in the srmy at Camp LSrecki Ee lor, , when x:

iin %he sizy overllesd, “|
lvery end mete lic, Ss,
ed( ebout 700 Minh)

at least fifty of us soldiers observed

a diriszible sheped wingless aircraft, s
(rocket shaved) flying north at hish sp
It was noon, The Chicazo Tribune carried '
week about reports of the craft. It seemed to have come from
the direction of Tennessee, thru Yentucly, Illinois and wes

last seen heedins out over Lake lichisen,.

The other was this summer Sent, 1, 10 p.m. on U.S. 16
10 miles west of orend sspics, in the s Sin to the South. iv wife
end I sighted momentarily in the si a sndden flesh of Licht
end e red and sreen cone of flemes shooting across the sy,
There are no airports, searchlizhts, cnd there were no planes
in the vicinity. The trail of flame seemei to be from ter out
in space, and originsted near the moon which wes hizsh in the

sky at this time,

I have heerd many reports of ssucers snd green cones
of fleme as seen by many of my friends, who were very serious
and reliable in their reports,

Two weeks eso the report came over the redio that
a craft of the tyne I mention in my first preresreph had been
seen flyins ecross Alaska at speeds faster than creditec to
any of our planes, This news never sot any further,

I am zlsed to be of service whenever possible in the
investigation of these phenomena which have intrisued me,

; ot eet eo #8)
- Sincere

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