Here's Your Kecksburg Acorn - Close the File

For those unfamiliar with the details of this incident then JKROg08's thread from 2009 is probably still the most definitive one on ATS. This gives details of the event and the major witness stories.

The Kecksburg UFO Crash: December 9th, 1965



Grant Cameron did some digging on this case as well to see if he could find any reference in 2003 at the Lyndon Johnson library in Austin Texas. The below are merely snippets from his full article.

The Kecksburg crash occurred around dinnertime on Thursday December 9, 1965. At the time of crash President Johnson was at his White House ranch outside of Austin, Texas. There was no significant call recorded at the time of the crash. In fact, at the time of the impact in Pennsylvania the president was taking his afternoon nap...........

The morning after the crash, however, showed some interesting appearances at the Johnson ranch. The names had direct connections to the groups reported at the Kecksburg crash.

These included: James Webb, Director of NASA.

On the day after the crash Webb left Washington at 7:15am and landed at the ranch at 9:50 the morning. Webb is important because Stan Gordon’s research indicated that a "NASA representative was sent to the site of the crash and interviewed some witnesses about the incident.

" Men in white protective suits with NASA patches were also reported at the crash scene. These strong indications of a NASA role in the Kecksburg recovery fly in the face of the Johnson White House NASA Records at the Johnson Library. They show no direct indication of a crash at Kecksburg, or any NASA involvement. "

....Furthermore, the records failed to even show any knowledge of the Soviet space probe Cosmos 96, which was proposed by some as the cause of all the recovery commotion at Kecksburg.....



...Strangely, the Kecksburg incident was not the first time Webb had met with the President following a rumored UFO crash. Webb also met with the President the two days following the July 8, 1947 Roswell press story of the recovery of a flying disk..........

.....Joint Chiefs of Staff The morning after the Kecksburg crash all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff flew into the ranch.... (officially this was recorded as for a budget meeting)....

William Scranton The Governor of Pennsylvania showed up in the afternoon. Scranton was one of a number of governors who came to the ranch on December 10, so his arrival was probably coincidental............

...On Sunday night, three days after the crash President Johnson arrived back at the White House. The next afternoon, Johnson met off the record for almost 30 minutes with Buford Ellington. Ellington was the head of the Office of Emergency Planning, is inside the Executive Office of the President. This was one of the groups that appeared to have been involved in the Kecksburg crash........

One of the key people under Buford Ellington was USAF Col. J. Leo Bourassa. He headed up the "Special Facilities Division" within the Office of Emergency Planning.

His name appeared in the Blue Book file dealing with the Kecksburg crash.


...........A week later, on December 16th, another meeting was held and in this meeting Bourassa made an announcement sounded interesting in light of the crash seven days before.

"The Chairman covered briefly the addition new responsibilities placed on OEP/SFD to secure and report information on significant incidents of possible national importance."



Full article : The Johnson White House and the Kecksburg Pennsylvania UFO Crash

I think the jury is still out on this case. Something came down in Kecksburg but as to what it was remains unknown.
Perhaps this time next year we will know some more with it being the 50th anniversary. If it was a secret experimental US craft or even something Soviet then surely we should be told 50 years after the date?

originally posted by: miragemanI think the jury is still out on this case. Something came down in Kecksburg but as to what it was remains unknown.
Perhaps this time next year we will know some more with it being the 50th anniversary. If it was a secret experimental US craft or even something Soviet then surely we should be told 50 years after the date?

Well, a lot of people still feel like the Roswell case is still open for debate too. A lot feel like whatever crashed, was a top secret military craft of some sort as well. You'll find a lot of people not buying the official stories of Roswell.

So Military craft or not, there is something amiss about the Kecksburg incident.

And yeah, I agree. I don't think this is "case closed" either and there is a lot more to it.

well i dismiss out right, two reasons.

first your own source says that the test were discontinued in 1963, well i should say damped. keckbreg happened in 1965.

from the source header.

Raw footage of early “nuclear pulse propulsion" tests aimed at inexpensive interplanetary travel; essentially nuclear bombs driving spacecraft via Newton’s laws. 1963’s Test Ban Treaty damped further experimentation.

and then a wiki, you all know why i use it.

The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 is generally acknowledged to have ended the project. However, from Project Longshot to Project Daedalus, Mini-Mag Orion, and other proposals which reach engineering analysis at the level of considering thermal power dissipation, the principle of external nuclear pulse propulsion to maximize survivable power has remained common among serious concepts for interstellar flight without external power beaming and for very high-performance interplanetary flight. Such later proposals have tended to modify the basic principle by envisioning equipment driving detonation of much smaller fission or fusion pellets, although in contrast Project Orion's larger nuclear pulse units (nuclear bombs) were based on less speculative technology.
Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

to the best of my knowledge no actual craft for testing have been built since then just studied.

second, there were no reports of radiation sickness, i i recall correctly there were many people that were very close to the said craft. if it was as highly radioactive as you claim, there surly would have been reports of some type of sickness infecting the people that saw it up close. after all it's one of the biggest events in the lore of the UFO community.

originally posted by: skyblueworld
You've showed us a lauch of a chestnut shaped rocket.
What you haven't showed us, is that rocket turn into a craft, come down decreasing it's speed whilst maneuvering itself in ways that several witnesses could not explain.

I have never seen this footage before, to the best of my knowledge its reasonably new or rare footage. Using this as my basis for arguing there is probably more around its very possibly versions 2 through to 8 would of been developed having substantially more additions of functionality. This footage may become available soon as has this one and to argue absence of evidence could weaken over time.

I think its highly possible before this project ended they advanced it to the point where an Acorn shaped vehicle could manoeuvre and land. This would be the most likely platform as it was around before Kecksburg and is real not some fantasy from outerspace.

a reply to: mazzroth

Hey I'm glad you drew attention to this film footage. It seems it's been around for a couple of years at least in a few different places.



There was even a BBC documentary about Project Orion




Still from Beeb documentary

And that does look like it fits the descriptions of the Kecksburg 'object' from at least some of the eye witnesses back in 1965.

However the problem is that the project appears to have been dampened in 1963. The problems with fallout would also have to be overcome. So although this has grabbed interest. What we lack is any sniff of proof that Project Orion had any link at all with what came down in Kecksburg in December '65.

My sole argument on the Kecksburg Acorn hinges on this, the US military where testing propulsion systems were the vehicle was acorn shaped and primarily used small nuclear detonations as the drive source.

Kecksburg craft was acorn shaped and it was around the time shortly after these videos were made, it could be strongly argued that these 2 are connected. The specifics of what witnesses and observers saw doesn't come into it as it would then become a "He said, She said" argument based on "Chinese Whispers" which would just blur the line and add nothing "Real" to the debate.

I purport there may be further evidence that this form of propulsion was developed further and that its yet to be made available to us. We may very well see directional nozzles and larger versions of the Acorn in footage declassified in future years but I will contend even without them there is enough evidence to ascertain the kecksburg Acorn was human made.

Then you have the story of how the Kecksburg craft resembled the Nazi Bell in shape and appearance. Lots of theories.

a reply to: Bloodydagger

The Nazi Bell story by Courtney Brown Mythologized the whole genre into something akin to the Kecksburg Acorn but like everything weird applying Occums Razor things become a lot simpler ( although in this case it is a compelx X-Ray Bombardment Experiment ). The Bell was the Metallic cover over a pair of centrifuges designed to bombard Thorium 232 with thermal neutrons changing it into Protactinium 233 in very early particle acceleration test's by European Scientist's and patents can be verified around this.

As for the Kecksburg "acorn", it is a possibility that it may have been an experimental craft, though, unless someone has verifiable records indicating as such, it is speculation.

As for Roswell, well, consider the following, there have been multiple "official" explanations, none of which actually correspond to the facts. Two, crashed balloons wouldn't leave burn marks and the level of destruction seen at the site. Third, the material recovered by the Ranchers does NOT correspond to any material used for balloons or to any material from common experience. Fourth, orders were placed for small caskets, and a nurse claimed she saw "little people". I seriously doubt the U.S. military takes flight test "dummies" to doctors to be attended by nurses, only to be placed in caskets. Fifth, a memo from Hoover indicates that something like a "Disc" was recovered, not a balloon.

Finally, crashes of the same type of balloons with the same type of equipment, as claimed by the government, occurred before the Roswell incident. In fact one balloon was stolen by kids and never recovered. Yet, there was no cover up, no massive military response, no claims of discs or balloons or dummies, or aliens for that matter. So, if the Roswell incident was simply another balloon crash, just like before, then why the overwhelming response?

Over the years I have become a total skeptic, anything bordering on weird and un-explainable to me now gets thrown into the "Bogus" category. For 30 years now I've been reading all this garbage about sightings and unexplained encounters, the fact is this...people embellish stories and exaggerate to at minimum gain attention and at worst gain money as is the case with so many of the last 15 years that have come and gone.

Until I can touch one I don't believe in "Other Worldly" craft being present in our current Dimension/Reality, this does not discount the possibility they are real but "Ours" and mistaken for the latter.

a reply to: mazzroth

The "It cannot be, therefore it isn't" attitude isn't the right way to go either. Writing off every single report/encounter as a hoax is very shortsighted and narrow-minded.

Keeping an open mind is the best way to go. Otherwise, the real deal could be poking you in the face but you're too busy screaming hoax to realize it.

Extreme "debunkers/skeptics" are every bit as bad as the extreme believers are. Swinging the pendulum too far in either of these directions isn't the way go.

So its best to ride the fence and keep an open mind.

originally posted by: mazzroth

I think its highly possible before this project ended they advanced it to the point where an Acorn shaped vehicle could manoeuvre and land. This would be the most likely platform as it was around before Kecksburg and is real not some fantasy from outerspace.

I think it's possible that the Kecksburg object was something like Project Orion, but a working nuclear one of these in 1965 sounds like fantasy to me.

originally posted by: mazzroth
My sole argument on the Kecksburg Acorn hinges on this, the US military where testing propulsion systems were the vehicle was acorn shaped and primarily used small nuclear detonations as the drive source.

What's your source that they actually used nuclear detonations in the tests? They didn't as far as I can tell. All the videos I've seen of the tests look like conventional explosives. The final version was supposed to use nuclear explosions, but I've seen no evidence they ever got that far, and here is supposedly a list of US nuclear tests where I don't see any related to project Orion:

United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992 (Revision 15)

This talks about the tests using conventional explosives:

Project Orion

Numerous model flight tests (using conventional explosives) were conducted at Point Loma, San Diego in 1959.

This also infers that it was never tested with nuclear detonations:

One issue that remained unresolved at the conclusion of the project was whether or not the turbulence created by the combination of the propellant and ablated pusher plate would dramatically increase the total ablation of the pusher plate. According to Freeman Dyson, during the 1960s they would have had to actually perform a test with a real nuclear explosive to determine this; with modern simulation technology, this could be determined fairly accurately without such empirical investigation.

So it sounds to me like project Orion tests with nuclear devices never happened but if you have any source that suggests otherwise I'd be glad to review it.

originally posted by: deloprator20000
As for Roswell, well, consider the following, there have been multiple "official" explanations, none of which actually correspond to the facts.

The military lied in 1947 saying it was a weather balloon. That wasn't consistent with the facts which indicate a much larger balloon, which is pretty consistent with the facts, Even Marcel's description of the debris field where he said he was sure it wasn't a weather balloon (and he was right, it wasn't).

Fourth, orders were placed for small caskets, and a nurse claimed she saw "little people". I seriously doubt the U.S. military takes flight test "dummies" to doctors to be attended by nurses, only to be placed in caskets.

The military wasn't the only party lying. You apparently still believe this lie told by Glenn Dennis even though Kevin Randle who also used to tell this same story has admitted Dennis is not credible so he doesn't tell this story anymore, and likewise your other claims are either mistaken or out of context:

The Missing Nurses of Roswell

Randle, who has used Dennis’ tale in his books, has now abandoned Dennis as a credible witness. When he was asked:

"Who do you think is the least credible of the Roswell witnesses and why?"

Randle replied: "Jim Ragsdale for changing his story. Gerald Anderson for inventing his and getting caught in his lies. Glenn Dennis for changing the name of the nurse once we had proved she didn't exist."

There was never any nurse named Naomi Maria Self as he claimed and since that is now proven beyond doubt, there's no reason to believe the rest of the story either. Also see Mazzroth's signature...I wouldn't say "automatically lose credibility", but if he changed that to "credibility should be questioned" I'd agree with that.

Anyway this isn't a Roswell thread, so if you want to explore those other claims further, post them in one of the many Roswell threads, and I can explain the other ways in which you were misled by people with books to sell, but it's not on topic in this thread.

originally posted by: mazzroth
I always thought the Kecksburg acorn was something explainable, here's the most likely scenario ...military does a test of this new propulsion system and blast the thing into space accidentally then they find it and the secrecy around it is actually the fact its highly radioactive.

www.space.com...

no. the orion test articles are accounted for. one fellow actually took one down from his attic rafters storage to show the son of the original head guru. the son had become a reporter and was investigating project orion because of his dad.

EDIT: oh and the orion tests used conventional explosives not atomic bombs. because that would have been baaaaaaad. so there is no radiation involved in the test articles.

BTW there is the problem of scale. the orion test articles were quite small; maybe the size of a beach ball. no need for a low boy or even a deuce and a half to retrieve them. plus they did not get farther than a few hundred yards high above the test site.

Tim Printy produced a lengthy report on the Kecksburg incident and how it may well have been nothing at at all that landed in the woods back in 2011. He cites a number of sources in his free magazine "Sunlite" including the official Bluebook report and many news reports from the days after the incident.


If you want to read up on it for yourself it can be downloaded here : Sunlite 3_6 : Kecksburg

Others like Stan Gordon have also accumulated 40 years of research on the incident and are convinced something came down in the woods.

Whether the Orion project is in the mix here is questionable as we simply have nothing to go on other than a visual similarity to something we haven't actually seen. We only have a handful of witnesses descriptions to go on.

Thanks guys for your responses here it looks like I may have to pull back from my position with the topic content, seems like a lot of stuff on here ( ATS ) very grey.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
While I tend to think that the Kecksberg Crash had something to do with the military, I don't think there are enough dots to connect it to the Orion Project. As far as I know, the tests never got as far as using actual nuclear explosions to drive anything. The ones in the videos are obviously conventional explosives.

My guess would be that it was some kind of malfunctioning Russian space probe that crashed. Possibly nuclear powered, but not using it for propulsion. It kind of even explains why some witnesses saw it change course, as its landing retro-rockets fired.

I could be wrong. Maybe it was aliens. Only the guys who took it know for sure.

My personal guess is that it was a reentry module of some variety, probably Russian. Oberg would be the one to ask - I'm curious if the Zenit would fit the bill or if they were still using Vostok components at the time...

Project Orion is one of my interests. I've never heard of any test hardware actually being flown. The Kecksberg object was too small for a orbital test Orion.

originally posted by: 1ofthe9
My personal guess is that it was a reentry module of some variety, probably Russian. Oberg would be the one to ask.

You can read what Oberg wrote in 2008 here (pdf).

His view seems to echo what mirageman pointed out a few posts up, regarding Tim Printy's view that "it may well have been nothing at at all". Well the meteor was real, and so was the soviet spacecraft, and they did both come to Earth a few hours apart that day, but it's quite possible that neither of them landed in Kecksburg, nor did anything else. Printy and Oberg do make interesting cases and we can't rule out that possibility, and some of the Kecksburg locals insist the other Kecksburg locals are lying about what happened, so who to believe with conflicting stories?

Also see the photograph of the meteor at Robert Schaeffer's article, and note how the trail is a little zig-zaggy.



This could account for witnesses claiming that it made "course changes", however in certain conditions I notice that jet contrails can also zig-zag like this, but it's due to varying wind speeds, not because the jet is zig-zagging through the sky. So I take those witness accounts of a zig-zagging object with a grain of salt, since what they saw may lead them to believe that's what happened, but it doesn't mean that's what happened. Here's an example of a jet contrail which I'm pretty sure doesn't reflect the path that the jet traveled, though a naive observer might make such a presumption:

cloud-maven.com...

originally posted by: deloprator20000
As for the Kecksburg "acorn", it is a possibility that it may have been an experimental craft, though, unless someone has verifiable records indicating as such, it is speculation.

www.russianspaceweb.com...

take a look at the lower right picture.

a reply to: mbkennel
A soviet nuke?
Jkrok08's thread showed an American nuke as one hypothesis.
Neither looks much like an acorn shape to me, though the origin of that acorn-shaped claim is itself suspect.