The 701 club: Case 8654: 16 December, 1963 Pacific

Don Berlinner’s list describes the case as follows:

Dec. 16, 1963; 800 miles north of Midway Island (40* N., 175* 54’ W.). 5:05 p.m. Witness: unspecified persons aboard a military aircraft. One white light blinked 2-3 times per second as it moved very fast across the sky for 15 seconds.1

Brad Sparks has no additional information. 2

The Blue Book file

The Blue Book file only contains the CIRVIS report, which contains only seven lines of information. The only additional information beyond what Berlinner wrote is that the light went from west to east. The record card states:

....Reports of this nature listing alt as unknown are interpreted to mean that the obj is at considerable height, usually in the atmosphere, at least they are a considerable distance above the reporting a/c. Such items as intensity and manner of disappearance are omitted from the CIRVIS format. Were these items included there is a slight possibility that an evaluation might be made, however, a light blinking a few times a second crossing a considerable segment of the sky in 15 sec when it is assumed that the obj is far away does not fall into any known category of sightings....3

Analysis

Project Blue Book was not correct in their evaluation of the sighting. There is one category that can apply to this type of sighting. A bright meteor can appear to “blink” as it varies in brightness and fifteen seconds is not excessively long for a bright meteor. There seems to be little reason to reject this possibility but, for some reason, Blue Book did. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, this case can be listed as “possible” meteor and should be removed from the list of Blue Book unknowns.

Notes and references

Quelle: SUNlite 6/2021