One of the best radar confirmed sightings - so stated by Captain Ed Ruppelt,who headed the Air Force saucer investigations for several years - occurred near Rapid City, South Dakota, the evening of August 12, 1953. The events of that night started out like this. Shortly after dark, a woman spotter of the local Ground Observer Corps rang up the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AEB just east of Rapid City, and reported an extremely bright light to the northeast. The radar swung to the area the spotter had designated, and picked up a solid blip moving slowly. The heightfinding radar also picked it up and established the UFO at 16,000 feet. The warrant officer on duty at the radar station got a direct wire to the spotter, and they compared notes for about two minutes. In the middle of a sentence, the woman suddenly said that the object was starting to move towards Rapid City. The radar scope confirmed this, and the warrant officer sent two men outside for a visual check. They reported a large bluish-white light moving toward Rapid City. The three groups - the radar people, the outside men, and the woman spotter - watched the UFO make a swift sweep around Rapid City and then return to its original position. The warrant officer then called a jet fighter on patrol and put him on an intercept course. The light was still at l6,OOO feet. The pilot spotted the light visually, and had moved to within three miles of it, when the light took off north towards the Badlands. The pilot followed it 120 miles, with the light staying a couple miles ahead; and then, with fuel running low, the jet returned - with the UFO trailing him.

The jet squadron at the air field then stated that they were scrambling another F-84, with a skeptical combat veteran of World War II and Korea at the controls. Once he was airborne, radar worked him toward the UFO. The pilot quickly reported visual contact, and maneuvered to get above the light. The light headed northeast, with the F-84 behind but several thousand feet above it. The pilot, even though getting radar reports and seeing the light, was still skeptical. Once away from the Rapid City area, he turned off all his lights to see if it was a reflection on his canopy. The light was still there. Next he rolled his plane, to see if some unnoticed ground light was causing it. The light's position didn't change. Next he checked its motion against three bright stars - it moved with relation to them. He then figured, if it is real, my gunsight radar should pick it up. He activated his gun cameras, turned on his radar and got a solid blip. At this point he got scared - and remember, this was a man who'd fought Hitler's best airplanes and tangled with Mig 15's over Korea. But that large, bright, bluish-white light was more than he cared to chase any longer. He requested and received permission to abandon the chase. The UFO headed off toward Fargo, North Dakota, and a check minutes later showed that spotter posts between Rapid City and Fargo had seen and reported a fast-moving, bluish-white light. So there you are - two serial visuals, an aerial radar lock-on, two ground radar sightings, numerous ground visuals from several locations, and gun camera film which, when developed, showed a blurry object. No details - just a light source.

1991: Paraguay.

A radar/visual UFO sighting was reported on the night of June 8 from two airplanes: a private Cessna 210 carrying three passengers, and a Paraguayan Air Lines flight from Asunción to Miami. Air traffic control at Asunción's airport detected an unknown radar track and also saw an object hovering over a runway. An official document from the Civil Aeronautical Agency of the Ministry of Defense confirms the radar detection. The Cessna's automatic direction finder (ADF) malfunctioned during the sighting. Pilot César Escobar reported:


"During close approaches, the Cessna instruments 'went crazy'... The (ADF) was moving around indiscriminately, without any sense of direction. When the light moved a little farther away, everything returned to normal. It repeated this 'game' several times. It seemed to be under intelligent control."

Illinois Pilot Says He Saw 60-Foot Disk-Shaped Plane

Duquoin, Ill., March 15 (AP)--A Duquoin pilot entered on his air log that he 'encountered unidentified aircraft' on Feb. 22, but fearing ridicule, he didn't say much about it until yesterday. Richard Lemmon said friends insisted that he tell about the mystery ship.

So Lemmon, a Duquoin airport mechanic, gave this account:

He was flying with his wife from Wood River, Ill. At about 2000 feet over Pinckneyville he sighted a strange object, which appeared to be at about 5000 feet. He motioned to his wife and she indicated she also saw it.

He flew higher to investigate and saw what he said appeared to be a disk-shaped craft about 60 feet across and 10 feet thick. He said the disk tilted in the direction it was going to turn flew away at 'great speed,' leaving Lemmon's craft, which was doing 150 miles per hour."

HEADQUARTERS FOURTH AIR FORCE
Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, A-2
Intelligence
Hamilton Field, California

27 August 1947

SUBJECT: Flying Disc

TO: Headquarters, Sixth Army, San Francisco, California.
ATTENTION: G-2


1. Following is extract from the Weekly Intelligence Summary, Air Transport Command, Washington 25, D.C., dated 20 August 1947, Copy No. 120, Article I, pg 1:


"FLYING OBJECTS IN GUAM": Unidentified flying objects have been observed by three American enlisted men of the 147th Airways and Air Communications Service Squadron at Harmon Field, Guam. The men report that at 1040 hours on 14 August 1947 the two objects, which they describe as small, crescent shaped and traveling at a speed twice that of a fighter plane, passed over them on a zig-zag course in a westerly direction at an approximate altitude of twelve hundred feet.The objects disappeared into clouds and a few seconds later a similar object possible one of those previously observed, emerged from the clouds and
proceeded west. No further details have been reported."


DONALD L. SPRINGER
Lt. Colonel, GSC
AS of S, A-2

"In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press. This is distressing to [Dr] Jones because he realises that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities."

This report describes a rather up-close and personal UFO encounter on July 9, 1951, by the pilot of an F-51 fighter plane from Lawson Air Force Base in Georgia. The pilot, a combat veteran from World War Two, provided quite a bit of detail, which was recorded in the report:

“Object described as flat on top and bottom and appearing from a front view to have rounded edges and slightly beveled. From view as object dived from top of plane was completely round and spinning in clockwise direction.... Object did not appear to be aluminum. Only 1 object observed. Solar white. No vapor trails or exhaust or visible system of propulsion. Described as traveling [at] tremendous speed....Pilot states object was 300 to 400 feet from plane and appeared to be 10 to 15 feet in diameter....Pilot states he felt disturbance in the air described as ‘bump’ when object passed under plane....Pilot is considered by associates to be highly reliable, of mature judgement and a creditable observer".

Object Description:

Red and white at a distance of five feet outside the rotor disk and 200 feet over the airstrip at DaNang. No photo but I'll never forget what it looked like.


Additional Information:

This is from memory but it was just after lunch. About 1300 on a July day. Sunshine and clear skies. Unlimited visibility. We took off and slowed way down at 200 feet. From 7 o'clock this thing comes up and starts to pace us about five feet outside of the rotor disk. The pilot called back to the field but radar said he saw nothing on the scope. Just us. We accelerated to the point that the aircraft shook and the thing stayed right there. Maybe a minute, then it just left us like we were backing up. You could hear it like an artillery shell over the noise of the aircraft. Best I recall it headed due north across the bay from DaNang.