April 24, 1949
3 miles N of Arrey, N.M. [50 miles west of White Sands] , 10:30 a.m.
[Project Blue Book unknown ]

--General Mills/Mogul balloon expert Charles B. Moore, while tracking a test balloon with a theodolite, made important UFO sighting with 4 Navy technicians, (Akers, Davidson, Fitzsimmons, Moorman). After tracking it across the sky, the whitish-silver, elliptical object, roughly 100 by 40 feet, disappeared in a sharp climb, calculated at 18,000 to 25,000 mph [5-7 miles/sec] , at an altitude estimated at 60 miles. At one point the UFO climbed about 25 miles in only 10 sec [or about 80 G's acceleration!!]. The object left no trail and was observed for about 1 minute. Moore still believes it was not a conventional object. In 1986, responding to a question posed to him about Dr. Donald Menzel's debunking of the sighting as a mirage of their own balloon, Moore wrote, "What I saw was not a mirage; it was a craft with highly unusual performance. It was not a balloon; at the time we were the innovators and manufacturers of the new balloons and I certainly would have known about any new developments as I was newly in charge of General Mill's Balloon operations. It was not the X-1 that was in its hangar at Muroc [Edwards AFB, California] that Sunday. It was nothing from White Sands nor from Alamogordo. ...We were in contact with Range Control and were informed our operation was the only one active on Sunday. For these reasons I am cynical about Dr. Menzel and his approach to science." According to Dr. Allen Hynek, Moore also told him he was "disgusted" with the Air Force for its lack of attention to the sighting.

[Cmdr. Robert McLaughlin, in charge of the guided missile program at White Sands, later wrote an explosive article about the incident in TRUE Magazine, March 1950, stating it was a space-craft from another planet guided by intelligent beings. Sighting detailed in Cmdr. McLaughlin's letter to Dr. James van Allen (also mentions McLaughlin's own saucer sighting during a V-2 launch around May 10, 1949, and astronomer Clyde Tombaugh detecting an explosion on Mars in 1941). Moore quote in Dr. Bruce Maccabee's article "Still in Default." Full sighting report by Moore sent to CIA (Fawcett/Greenwood, The UFO Coverup); reprinted in Richard Hall, "Uninvited Guests". Cited in 8/14/52 CIA study and LIFE Magazine, 4/7/52; Ruppelt, Ch. 6, pp.70-71; Hynek, Ch. 5; ]