17.05.2021

The source of this information is from the project Blue Book files. The table summarizes the event as, “one silver dsic-shaped (sp) with a dark cable and a sphere underneath.“1

The Project Sign File

Unlike many of the early Blue Book case files from this time period, this one is pretty complete. The basic sequence of events were2:

Lt. Colonel Robert Hughes was flying a P-51H from Tyndall AFB in the Florida Panhandle.

When he reached Montgomery, Alabama, Hughes lowered his altitude to 16000 feet (about 4900 meters) and began a 180 degree left turn.

As he was completing his turn, he saw an object, described as a silver disc, off his left wing at the 10 O’Clock position. 

The pilot then banked to follow the object, which appeared to be moving in a northwest direction. 

Now that he could get a better look, he described it as an silver parachute-like object that was about 8-foot in diameter with a cable underneath, which was about five-feet long. Attached to that cable was a large cannister, or ball, which was silver in color. 

He lost sight of the object after about 5 seconds. His air speed was 310 mph and he was still banking. The time was 1510 hours CST (2110Z)

The object disappeared horizontally and not vertically.

Lt. Colonel Hughes returned to Tyndall AFB, where he was interviewed by two people and gave both the same story.

Hughes made the following sketch of the object:

Project Sign determined this object to be a balloon and classified it as such. In Hynek’s review of the case, he also classified it as probably a balloon based on the description.

Analysis

If this was a balloon, we have to determine what the winds were at the time. Unfortunately, Project Sign did not obtain any data and the RAOBS site does not have any data from Montgomery. The closest locations for winds data was from Apalachicola, Florida (200 miles away), Atlanta (150 miles away), Nashville (250 miles away), and New Orleans (280 miles away). The closest time for these balloons were 1500 and 1600Z and the values for close to 4900 meters were:

Note: Apalachicola did not have any winds data from their balloon. All they had were temperatures.

The impression from this data is that the winds were coming from the general direction of West-Northwest at around 30-40 knots. 

The witness stated it was moving Northwest, which is against the wind if the above interpretation of the winds data is correct. However, he only saw the object for 5 seconds from an aircraft that was turning and flying at 310 mph. I don’t think he could have made an accurate assessment of direction of movement or this motion could be due to his direction of flight. 

The pilot stated that it moved horizontally and away from him. Assuming Hughes flew along an azimuth of about 345 degrees from Tyndall AFB, his 180 degree turn would have put him on return azimuth of 165 degrees. Lt. Col. Hughes stated he first saw the object at 10 O’Clock (300 relative) near the end of his turn. Hughes also added that once he had completed his turn he got a better look at it, indicating he probably was closing the distance. This suggests the pilot thought it was moving in the opposite direction he was traveling as he came out of his turn. If this is true, it may have been traveling slow or was stationary and Hughes’ rapid motion towards the south-southeast gave the apparent motion of traveling in the opposite direction. One can make the case he simply flew past it. There is no indication Hughes even circled around to see if he could regain the object’s position. All it states is he returned to base once it was lost. 

Blue Book classified this as a balloon and there is nothing in this report that rules out some sort of balloon. Even the sketch looks like a balloon with a payload. It could have been a simple weather balloon launched from nearby Maxwell AFB but there are other potential sources. 

Project Mogul reports releasing nine balloons in April 1948 from Alamogordo, New Mexico.5 They were not tracked by aircraft (only being tracked by radio direction finders in New Mexico) but four of these were recovered in early April and all of them went eastward. Flight #44 (launched on April 6) was recovered only about 100-150 miles from Montgomery. 

Missing from these early April flights is flight #46, which, apparently, was not recovered. It would have been launched between April 7 and 13. It is possible that flight #46 could have been launched early on April 9 and ended up over Montgomery. At this point in the program, the flights included a device to rip the balloon so its descent would be faster as it passed through the air lanes. This could have produced a rather unusual looking balloon with payload. It would also make it difficult to reacquire once somebody flew past it at high speed.

Additionally, in May of 1948, the NYU was flying balloons out of Maxwell AFB in Montgomery.6 It is possible they were flying test flights prior to this in April.

All of this is mostly speculation about what the source of the balloon might have been. The bottom line continues to be that it resembled and acted like a balloon with a payload. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, I think Blue Book got this one correct. There seemed to be no reason to reject the balloon explanation. This should be removed from the Weinstein catalogue. 

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A near miss with an airliner?

On February 21, an American Airlines aircraft, flying over New Mexico, reported to air traffic control that a “long cylindrical object” had just flown over them and it looked like a cruise missile. The media would report that there was no other air traffic in the area and that it was an “unidentified”. My initial impressions was that, due to the short duration of the observation, it may have been a daylight meteor. However, there were no such reports in the American Meteor Society database. Still, an aircraft at 36,000 feet might be high enough to see meteors under conditions that ground observers might not have been able to see. I really did not give it much more thought until I saw that the metabunk forum began to look at the case.

After a bit of back and forth, the group decided that the most likely explanation was a Lear jet flying at 41,000 feet and in a direction almost opposite of the airliner. The image above comes from the Metabunk discussion. The intersection of the two aircraft was about eight to nine minutes before the air crew reported the event. Listening to the audio, the aircrew did not appear overly alarmed and they were not making a frantic report as if it had just happened. It seems that they probably took the time to think about what they had seen before making an inquiry about air traffic in the area. As a result, it is not unreasonable for there to be a delay of several minutes in making their report. Mick West posted a short video that demonstrating how the two aircraft flew near each other. 

In my opinion, West’s video makes a good case that this was nothing more than a Lear jet. It should be now listed as “probable aircraft” and not be entered into any UFO database like the Weinstein catalogue.

Quelle: SUNlite 2/2021