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Don’t set the snooze alarm for the Kecksburg Crash
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Recently pro-UFO writer Leslie Kean wrote an article reciting what she claims are important details surrounding the Kecksburg UFO incident. This is the saucer crash tale from western Pennsylvania which sprang up years later after a December 9, 1965 brilliant meteor fireball visible from 10 states and Ontario.
Popularized by “Unsolved Mysteries” and other TV shows during the 1990s, some saucer believers seem to be increasingly desperate to keep the story going. Like many crash stories, each whiff of publicity has the chance of bringing some new “witness” into the daylight to keep the fun alive. When asked for the most important UFO incidents of all time in a survey of well-known UFOlogists a couple years ago, Kecksburg no longer made the cut. So, almost every year as the anniversary of the event approaches the tiny handful of UFOlogists who still pay attention to the event throw out another snare. In her latest piece, Kean just regurgitates the same old stuff while neglecting to mention key aspects of the incident which point to a prosaic explanation. She didn’t even mention that astronomers soon after the event analyzed photographs of the fireball’s cloud train and determined that it was a meteor and even determined a possible orbital path out to the asteroid belt, source of many bright rocky fireballs.
Investigators managed to locate several former members of the USAF 662 Radar Squadron, which sent three men from a nearby radar site near the Pittsburgh airport.
These airmen thus came from the closest Air Force “base”, which is what was prescribed for UFO reports in Air Force Regulation 200-2. Kean called attention to the fact that one mentioned a written report, which was not in the Blue Book file of the incident, but neglected to tell readers that the witness said they didn’t find anything, which matches written notes of a phone report contained in the file.
Instead, Leslie Kean tries to make it sound like she has found conflicting stories from the former USAF personnel, because one said three men were involved and another
thought it was four. For a memory that’s 44 years old, this doesn’t register more than a 1 or 2 on my 10-point Weird Stuff-o-Meter, how about you?
The real scientific evidence regarding Kecksburg. One of the photographs of the debris trail left behind used to deduce the meteor’s actual path, which was not towards Kecksburg!
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In another “bait and switch” investigativetidbit, she mentions the deceased news director of a local radio station, but never reveals that in a special radio report broadcast
the week following the incident this newsman reported that the only military personnel that he saw that night at the site were in the back seat of a State Police car. This, too, fully supports the Blue Book record and the official version. Of course, the “acorn” shaped UFO was mentioned. The UFOlogists’ version of the crash never mentions anymore that for the first ten years the claimed eyewitnesses who reported seeing the object, itself, described it as like a 17-foot long rocket shape. Hey, what did they know?
Rockets always look like rockets after they endure flaming reentry and hard landing, don’t they? I’ve been following this story for about 20 years, now, and I think I can make a firm prediction. Next fall there will be yet another attempt to revive the Kecksburg UFO crash tale. Go to Robert Sheaffer’s webpage for accurate details on the oldsolved mystery of the Dec. 9, 1965 meteor.
If you asked me, I would say that Leslie Kean and the Sci-Fi channel have accomplished absolutely nothing in their investigation into the Kecksburg story. We are told that hundreds of soldiers and their equipment were used to locate, cordon off, retrieve, and transport a large exotic object. However, the only thing Kean and her cohorts can produce is what has been known over the years. That being several airmen and an officer from the 662nd radar squadron were sent to investigate the event and found nothing. She has yet to identify any other units involved. The obvious reason for this is because there were no other units involved. Additionally, Kean has yet to demonstrate that the scientific investigation done in 1965 is wrong. Using David Rudiak’s effort to do so is inadequate. In June of 2006, I pointed Dr. Von Del Chamberlain towards Rudiak’s commentary on his work and asked if Rudiak contacted him. He responded:
No, Mr. Rudiak did not contact me. This is the first I have heard of his “analysis.” The paper is a classic case of “proving” what one wants to believe and shows lack of understanding of the fireball event. There is simply NO question about this being a meteoric event. From start to finish it is a perfect example of one, including all the confusion regarding interpretation, especially at the boundaries of observation where the fireball appeared to go to or beyond the horizon. It was not just the photographs we used which confirmed the trajectory area and endpoint. We worked with many observers, going to the site where they made the observations to interview them. ALL
the data came together -- fireball observations, sonic booms, etc. -- to confirm that the event was over SW Ontario and that the meteoric body was headed as we indicated in our paper.
Instead of evaluating the true evidence available, Leslie Kean chose to use NASA as a scapegoat. It is obvious that her effort was only to perpetuate the Kecksburg mystery. I have presented my opinion and evaluation of the case at my website. Until UFOlogists find real facts that can be presented to confirm these stories, this case can be considered identified as a bright daylight fireball and some vivid imaginations.
Quelle: SUNlite 1/2010