Kecksburg UFO – GE Mark 2? MUFON researchers can't keep it up long enough

Due to the amount of nonsense circulating online at the moment about the Kecksburg “UFO crash” incident of December 1965, I thought I’d make a small contribution to the discussion. This minor contribution is limited to evaluating on a theory that has been published this month in the MUFON Journal (including on its cover page), outlined in Section B below, that the incident was probably caused by a GE Mark 2 capsule from a Program 437 rocket launch on 7 December 1965. At some point I may post a more general (and hence much, much longer…) discussion of the Kecksburg incident.



I’d like to compliment MUFON on making the content of the relevant article in the December issue of the MUFON Journal freely available on a new page on the MUFON website. Most MUFON Journal articles are not made freely available online. (MUFON did take the useful step a few years ago of working with the Blackvault website to make most older issues of the MUFON Journal and some other MUFON material freely available online, but that project seemed to come to an end for no good reason discernible to me. I viewed the ending of that project as unfortunate, particularly if MUFON’s goals include, as stated on MUFON’s website, to “promote research on UFOs” and “educate the public”). MUFON making this particular article freely available online allows much more open peer review of the content of this item than with most of the stuff that appears in the MUFON Journal. I think that makes it worth spending some time on this article and commenting on it, in the hope that feedback on it will encourage MUFON to freely share more of the articles from the MUFON Journal.

Having complimented MUFON for taking that step, however, for reasons explained below I consider the Program 437 capsule theory to be, quite simply, clearly fatally flawed. The capsule launched on 7 December 1965 could not have been the cause of the Kecksburg incident on 9 December 1965 due to the very limited (and very well documented) flight duration and range of the relevant single stage Thor rocket used for that launch.

In the few days since the MUFON article has been released, this has already been recognised (apparently independently) by several researchers ranging from prominent UFO skeptics to those, well, rather more inclined to accept extra-terrestrial explanations for UFO events. Items by those commentators have included:

(1) Information from Larry Lemke, a retired NASA rocket scientist, posted by David Rudiak in the comments section of Kevin Randle’s “A Different Perspective” blog on 8 December 2015 and subsequently, including the fact that “the smaller Thor rocket in this Dec. 7, 1965 test (and other Johnson Island tests) was incapable of attaining orbital speeds”;

(2) Emails by Michael Tarbell to the Current Encounters email discussion List making similar points on 12 December 2015 onwards;

(3) an item by Ted Molczan (a satellite expert, whose work has been praised, among others, by skeptic Robert Sheaffer in a post his Bad UFOs blog) making similar points on the Fotocat website on 18 December 2015. He concluded that the theory advanced in the MUFON article is "impossible, primarily because Kecksburg is beyond the range of the missile used by Program 437" and “There was zero possibility of anything ever reaching Kecksburg”.]; and

(4) Further shorter (and more dismissive) comments by other skeptics, including in discussion groups on Facebook;

(5) An article by prominent Kecksburg UFO researcher Stan Gordon on his website, which focused on softer issues (such as witness evidence) rather than relevant physics.

A relevant key argument made very briefly in the MUFON Journal article is shown to be, um, wrong (being polite) by reference to the various well documented characteristics of the relevant Thor single-stage rocket included in the sections below (particularly in Section C). In the section briefly considering the length of time that the capsule could remain airborne, the MUFON Journal article clearly treats the single-stage Thor rocket used on 7 December 1965 as being the same as a multi-stage Thor rocket used for a different project. That is a fatal flaw. When looking at the single stage rocket actually used on 7 December 1965, the conclusion is inescapable : the Mark 2 capsule would not have remained airborne for the duration required by the MUFON researchers’ theory. They simply can’t keep it up long enough.

Many readers of this forum will be familiar with the Kecksburg incident. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kecksburg incident, the relevant event(s) occurred on 9 December 1965. The incident involved many reports of a large fireball and also claims that something crashed in woods near Kecksburg in Pennsylvania. Most press coverage (and a scientific article) at the time reported that the fireball sightings were caused by a meteor. That remains the main sceptical theory regarding the incident (with many eyewitness reports being viewed as relatively recent fabrications and/or the result of the fairly common optical illusion that a distant meteor appeared to be descending nearby). Apart from speculation regarding an extra-terrestrial craft, other theories have focused on the re-entry of the Soviet Cosmos 96 (or “Komos 96”) space probe - although most UFO sceptics that originally considered that theory have subsequently largely abandoned it. Various other weird and wonderful theories have been proposed over the years, including the recovery of a Nazi device shaped like a bell called “Die Glocke”).

There is a relatively concise summary of the Kecksburg incident on Wikipedia. Also, “Mirage Man” recently posted a very interesting multi-media overview of the facts and theories relating to it in his recent thread here on ATS entitled “Kecksburg : 50 Years after the ‘Strange Object in the Woods’”. Jkrog08 also posted a multi-media overview back in 2009 (in a thread entitled ”The Kecksburg UFO Crash: December 9th, 1965”).

For ease of reference, I’ll also embed below a few documentaries about the Kecksburg incident:

This item is split into the following sections:

Section A : The brief introduction above

Section B : The MUFON Journal cover article

Section C : Can’t keep it up long enough

Section D : Conclusion

Section E : References


I hope that the commentaries by various people on the content of the relevant article from the MUFON Journal will cause MUFON to make more articles freely available online to enable them to be subjected to wider peer review.

Section B : The MUFON Journal cover article

The December 2015 issue of the MUFON Journal includes an article on various pages (including its cover page) entitled “Has a top 5 UFO case been solved?” by John Ventre with Owen Eichler. This article proposed that “the most scientific explanation for Kecksburg” is that it was a GE Mark 2 Reentry Behcile launched as part of Program 437 on 7 December 1965.

The relevant article appears in the MUFON Journal issue of 2015 December on the cover page (page 1) and pages 11-15.



(As noted above, the content of the article has kindly been made available by MUFON on a new page on the MUFON website. That content has also been republished on Jimmy Church’s website and also as on the Future Theater website).

John Ventre is the MUFON State Director for Pennsylvania. Owen Eichler has, according to the relevant article, “spent 10 years researching his theory and believes he is correct”.

The article highlights alleged similarities between eye witness descriptions of an “acorn” shaped object being recovered from the woods near Kecksburg and the shape of the General Electric Mark 2 reentry vehicle.

A webpage on the Smithsonian National Air and Space Musuem’s website includes the following photograph of the General Electric Mark 2 reentry vehicle:



The MUFON article refers to a the Mark 2 reentry vehicle and, specifically, the Program 437 launch on 7 December 1965 of Thor missile Number J8-2299 and states:

The outcome of this mission is a prime candidate for the Kecksburg UFO!

The article concludes (on page 15) “we have the most scientific explanation for Kecksburg”.



The Program 437 theory has gained considerable publicity for John Ventre and Owen Eichler in recent days.

For example, an article appeared on the website Pittsburg Post-Gazette with the title “Five decades later, the Kecksburg UFO is identified (probably)”:



The Program 437 theory has also been discussed by for John Ventre and Owen Eichler with Jimmy Church in Episode 339 of the “Fade to Black” podcast:

www.youtube.com...

Stan Gordon (probably the most prominent researcher of the Kecksburg incident) also discussed the Program 437 theory on Coast to Coast AM on 9 December 2015:

Section C : Can’t keep it up long enough

Putting aside all the other issues with the Program 437 theory, could an item launched on 7 December 1965 explain sightings, and an alleged crash, on 9 December 1965?

This crucial timing issue is dealt with very briefly in the MUFON article. That article includes the following (at page 15):

Could it stay in orbit for over 39 hours? The answer is yes: it could take two hours to three days to come down from low earth orbit. For example, the December 9, 1965 launch from Vandenberg AFB of a Thor Agena-D took two days to recover after an erratic attitude. More complete analysis is required of the RV/rocket separation which altered descent characteristics since the Air Force said they lost track of it at 7:45pm on December 7th. There is no question that the MK2 RV was capable of extended orbital capabilities and controlled landing.

The argument in the MUFON article as to the potential duration of the flight of anything launched on the Thor rocket on 7 December 1965 therefore rests on (among other things) treating that launch as being equivalent to with the Thor Agena D launch on 9 December 1965. However, a single stage Thor rocket is very significantly different to a multi stage Thor Agena D launch.

Basically, the Thor rocket is just an intermediate-range ballistic missile. It can, however, be used in conjunction with other rockets that increased its capacity. The launch on 9 December 1965 included another such rocket (i.e. an “Agena” upper stage),whereas the launch on 7 December 1965 was merely a single stage Thor rocket.

Anyone unfamiliar with the concept of multi-stage rockets may be interested in the basic video below:



So what?

Well, a multi-stage “Thor Agena” rocket using Thor rocket in conjunction with an Agena upper stage (such as the configuration used on 9 December 1965) could launch objects into orbit. Those objects would become artificial satellites orbiting the Earth until re-entry (which could be a significant period). However, a single stage Thor rocket alone would merely propel an object upwards and it would then fall back down to Earth, rather than entering orbit (i.e. the flight would be sub-orbital).

The relevant distinction is clear from the information in various documents and websites, including (at the most basic) a list on Wikipedia.



Other websites also make the distinction clear, sometimes listing the Thor launch on 7 December 1965 on pages relating to Thor launches WITHOUT upper stages while listing the 9 December 1965 launch on separate pages relating to Thor launches WITH upper stages.

The capabilities of the respective configurations of single-stage Thor rockets and multi-stage Thor-Agena rockets are well documented, as are configurations used for the launches on 7 December 1965 and 9 December 1965. They are clearly very substantially different.

A former Launch Control Officer on the Program 437 crew has confirmed that the Program 437 was a single-stage rocket without thrust augmentation.

“As a former Launch Control Officer on the Program 437 crew that rotated between the 10th Aerospace Defense Squadron (ADCOM) at Vandenberg AFB and our Detachment One at Johnston Island, I take exception to your quoted statement that the Program 437 Thor launch vehicle was “a thrust-augmented Thor-Delta with three strap-on solid rockets…”

The Program 437 vehicle was not a Thor-Delta, and it did not have any strap-on solid motors! It was a single-stage rocket without thrust augmentation.

In fact, the P437 Thor was simply a modified SM-75 Thor IRBM that was refurbished for space duty after being returned from the United Kingdom in 1963. The modifications included the addition of a Bell Telephone Labs guidance system, a telemetry system, and a flight termination system. The P437 Thor was designated by Douglas Aircraft Company as “DSV-2J” and by the Air Force as “LV-2D.” A total of 18 LV-2D Thors were launched from JI between 14 Feb 64 and 06 Nov 75.

Regards,
Eric
Eric G. Lemmon, Principal Engineer
Boeing Delta II Facilities Engineering”

The MUFON article itself appears to acknowledge the limitations of the Thor rocket on page 13 (where the authors acknowledged that “The Thor rocket could only deliver a sub-orbital payload”), but then ignores those limits by equating the Thor rocket alone with the Thor Agenda-D combination which could deliver orbital payloads.

To understand the significance of the differences, I think it is important to have an idea of the purposes of the launches on 7 December 1965 and 9 December 1965. The launch on 7 December 1965 was part of Program 437. The launch on 9 December 1965 was part of the Corona project.

The Program 437 was an early anti-satellite program in the USA. Its aim was to launch nuclear weapon to the vicinity of an enemy satellite and destroy the satellite through a nuclear explosion or disable it through the resulting electromagnetic pulse. It did not launch the nuclear weapon into orbit. Instead, it merely launched it to a high altitude so that it was close enough to passing satellite to destroy it. A detailed history of Program 437 by Dr Wayne Austerman noted an analogy between Program 437 and “a skeet shoot on a global basis”, albeit one requiring great accuracy. Because the nuclear weapon was not launched into orbit, an interception point had to be launched on time, with “a launch window of plus or minus one second”. (See page 23 of Wayne Austerman’s history of the project, entitled “Program 437 – The Air Force’s antisatellite system”, i.e. on page 41 of the 128 page PDF version freely available online).





In the technical languages used in some of the documents relating to Program 437, it was a “dire ascent” interception project rather than one involving “co-orbital” weapons. It was in effect a quick and dirty solution, which was “not blazing any new trails” and involved “no new technology”. See page 23 of Wayne Austerman’s history of the project, entitled “Program 437 – The Air Force’s antisatellite system”, i.e. on page 41 of the 128 page PDF version freely available online):




This type of “skeet shoot” system had serious limitations, including in relation to the range of potential targets from the base of operations of Program 437 on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. Those limitation are noted on page 25 of Wayne Austerman’s history of the project, entitled “Program 437 – The Air Force’s antisatellite system”, i.e. on page 43 of the 128 page PDF version freely available online).



Apart from the fact that it could be put into operation quickly, one advantage of Program 437 was that since it did not put nuclear weapons into orbit it could be argued that it did not violate relevant United Nations resolutions. (See pages 40-51 of Wayne Austerman’s history of the project, entitled “Program 437 – The Air Force’s antisatellite system”, i.e. on page 58-59 of the 128 page PDF version freely available online).




The launch on 7 December 1965 relied upon on in the MUFON article was a minor variation of Program 437, i.e. Program 437AP.

Instead of launching a nuclear weapon to the vicinity of a satellite, the “AP” designation related to an Alternate Payload of a camera system intended to take photographs of the satellite. It was a “a non-orbital inspection system”. See page 54 of Wayne Austerman’s history of the project, entitled “Program 437 – The Air Force’s antisatellite system”, i.e. on page 72 of the 128 page PDF version freely available online

Thus, Program 437 and Progam 437AP involved “non-orbital” (or “sub-orbital”) launches of items to a high altitude, from which they would immediately come back down to Earth.

Anyone unfamiliar with the distinction between sub-orbital launches of items and the launches of satellites into orbit may find the basic illustration in the video below helpful:



The launch on 9 December 1965 was part of the Corona satellite project. That project was quite different to Program 437. The Corona satellite project involved the launch of reconnaissance satellites. That involved putting objects into orbit. The Coronas were launched by a Thor-Agena rocket, which used a Thor first stage and an Agena booster (which served as the second stage of the rocket lifting the Corona into orbit).

So, was Kecksburg within range of the Thor rocket launched as part of Program 437AP on 7 December 1965 relied upon in the MUFON article?

Well, we have seen from the documents above that the relevant rocket had a range of 1,500 nautical miles. A nautical mile is 1.852 kilometers. Thus, 1,500 nautical miles is 2,778 kilometers.

The Program 437AP launch on 7 December 1965 was from Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. (Note : The MUFON article refers repeatedly to “Johnson Island”, but it is easier to find relevant information online if the correct spelling of “Johnston” is used).

Is Kecksburg within 2,778 kilometers of Johnston Island? The short answer is nope, not even close.

There are various online tools that can be used to measure the relevant distance. I have used a tool on the website called Free Map Tools. Entering the locations of the Johnston Atoll and Kecksburg results in the map and information at this link, which indicates the distance between the two is a little over 8,800 kilometers – i.e. far more than the range of less than 3,000 kilometers the Thor rocket.

Could there be advanced features of the rocket used in Program 437 that are secret? Well, as noted above, Program 437 was a quick and dirty solution which did not push the boundaries of science. Indeed, while the MUFON Journal article states that Program 437.

Indeed, a history of Program 437 by Clayton Chun entitled “Shooting Down a Star” mentions on pages 21-22 (i.e. pages 35-36 of 99 in the PDF version freely available online) that President Lyndon B Johnson disclosed the existence of the existence of Program 437 and its anti-satellite capabilities during a re-election campaign trip to Sacramento in September 1964.



Dr Austerman’s history of Project 437 makes similar comments at page xii and page 33 (i.e. pages 17 and page 51 of 128 in the PDF version freely available online.

Section D : Conclusion

I’d like to compliment MUFON on making the content of the relevant article in the December issue of the MUFON Journal freely available on a new page on the MUFON website. Most MUFON Journal articles are not made freely available online. (MUFON did take the useful step a few years ago of working with the Blackvault website to make most older issues of the MUFON Journal and some other MUFON material freely available online, but that project seemed to come to an end for no good reason discernible to me. I viewed the ending of that project as unfortunate, particularly if MUFON’s goals include, as stated on MUFON’s website, to “promote research on UFOs” and “educate the public”). MUFON making this particular article freely available online allows much more open peer review of the content of this item than with most of the stuff that appears in the MUFON Journal. I think that makes it worth spending some time on this article and commenting on it, in the hope that feedback on it will encourage MUFON to freely share more of the articles from the MUFON Journal.

Having complimented MUFON for taking that step, however, for reasons explained below I consider the Program 437 capsule theory to be, quite simply, clearly fatally flawed. The capsule launched on 7 December 1965 could not have been the cause of the Kecksburg incident on 9 December 1965 due to the very limited (and very well documented) flight duration and range of the relevant single stage Thor rocket used for that launch.

In the few days since the MUFON article has been released, this has already been recognised (apparently independently) by several researchers ranging from prominent UFO skeptics to those, well, rather more inclined to accept extra-terrestrial explanations for UFO events. Items by those commentators have included:

(1) Information from Larry Lemke, a retired NASA rocket scientist, posted by David Rudiak in the comments section of Kevin Randle’s “A Different Perspective” blog on 8 December 2015 and subsequently, including the fact that “the smaller Thor rocket in this Dec. 7, 1965 test (and other Johnson Island tests) was incapable of attaining orbital speeds”;

(2) Emails by Michael Tarbell to the Current Encounters email discussion List making similar points on 12 December 2015 onwards;

(3) an item by Ted Molczan (a satellite expert, whose work has been praised, among others, by skeptic Robert Sheaffer in a post his Bad UFOs blog) making similar points on the Fotocat website on 18 December 2015. He concluded that the theory advanced in the MUFON article is "impossible, primarily because Kecksburg is beyond the range of the missile used by Program 437" and “There was zero possibility of anything ever reaching Kecksburg”.]; and

(4) Further shorter (and more dismissive) comments by other skeptics, including in discussion groups on Facebook;

(5) An article by prominent Kecksburg UFO researcher Stan Gordon on his website, which focused on softer issues (such as witness evidence) rather than relevant physics.


I hope that the commentaries by various people on the content of the relevant article from the MUFON Journal will cause MUFON to make more articles freely available online to enable them to be subjected to wider peer review.

It goes without saying (or at least it should go without saying…) that the fact that the Kecksburg incident was not caused by a Mark 2 capsule does NOT, of course, mean that the incident was caused by an extraterrestrial spaceship.

I do wonder whether some people have been attracted to this theory as a result of the logical fallacy known as the “Argument to moderation”. Some researchers that have suggested that particular “UFO” events were caused by secret government projects seem to encounter less resistance (and fewer demands for supporting evidence) than those that claim at one extreme that the relevant “UFO” reports were caused by nothing more than misperception of naturally occurring events or, at the other extreme, that the reports related to sightings of an alien spaceship.

Just because a theory may appeal to those seeking some sort of middle ground does not, however, excuse overlooking basic factual problems with a proposed solution.

Section E : References

Further information on Program 437 and the Corona project can be found in the following online sources (c ited in the relevant MUFON article, but without relevant links being included there):
(1) PROGRAM 437: THE AIR FORCE’S FIRST ANTISATELLITE SYSTEM by Dr. Wayne R. Austerman May 1991:
preview.tinyurl.com...


(2) Shooting Down a “Star” Program 437, the US Nuclear ASAT System and Present-Day Copycat Killers by CLAYTON K. S. CHUN Lieutenant Colonel, USAF April 2000:
fas.org...

Further information on the Corona project can be found online in the following source (again cited in the relevant MUFON article, but without relevant link being included there):
Intelligent Revolution 1960 : Retrieving the Corona Imagery that Helped Win the Cold War by Ingard Clausen and Edward A. Miller:
www.nro.gov...

As part of a potential wider item about Kecksburg, I have recently started pulling together details of relevant books, documentaries, newspaper articles, websites and articles in UFO journals.

Just in case it helps others going down this particular rabbit hole, I will paste below my current rudimentary draft list of articles in UFO journals about the Kecksburg incident. I will refine this list and post an updated version (together with the separate details I have collated of relevant books, documentaries, newspaper articles and websites etc) when, or if, I ever get around to that wider item about Kecksburg.

(NOT YET OBTAINED : MODERATE PRIORITY) 1966 March – Ivan T Sanderson article entitled “ ‘Something’ Landed in Pennsylvania” in Fate 19, 3 at pages 33-35

1966 November – Jerome Clark article in FSR Volume 12 Issue 6 pages 11-12 (pages 14-15 of PDF version) –includes about 1 page on events of 9 December 1965 (including a couple of paragraphs relating to the Kecksburg incident)

1980 January : Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report II” – pages 19-20 (pages 22-23 of 41 in PDF version) under title “Item B-1 (Revised)” containing a report by Clark McClelland

1982 June : Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report III” – page 42 (page 45 of 56 in PDF version) briefly states that an “Insider” known as “Unclear” stated that the Kecksburg case involved “a crashed spy plan, not a UFO”.

1983 March – FSR Volume 28 Issue 4 pages 4 to 5 (pages 7-8 of PDF version) – Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report II” partially republished.

1987 Fourth Quarter – Stan Gordon’s article “The Military UFO Retrieval at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania” in Pursuit Number 80, pages 174-179 (pages 500-505 of 520 of PDF version)

1989 First Quarter - Stan Gordon’s article “An Update on the Kecksburg, PA UFO Crash/Retrieval Case” in Pursuit Number 85, pages 34-36 (pages of 260 of PDF version)

1994 May/June – IUR Volume 19 May/June 1994 at page 19 (page 67 of 144 in PDF version) includes

1989 January : Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report V” – pages 12-13 (pages 13-14 of 22 in PDF version) briefly states that an “Insider” known as “Unclear” stated that the Kecksburg case involved “a crashed spy plan, not a UFO”.

1989 September : Stan Gordon’s cover article “The Kecksburg UFO Crash” MUFON Journal Issue 257 at pages 3-6 (pages 3-6 in PDF version).

1989 October : Stan Gordon “Kecksburg Crash Update” MUFON Journal Issue 258 at pages 3-5, 9 (pages 3-5 and 9 in PDF version).

1990 December : Bob Gribble “Looking Back - 1965” MUFON Journal Issue 272 at page 17.

(NOT YET OBTAINED : LOW PRIORITY) 1991 January/February – Stan Gordon and Vicki Cooper article “The Kecksburg Incident” in UFO 6,1 at pages 16-19.

1991 February : Stan Gordon’s cover article “The Kecksburg UFO Crash : An Interim Report” MUFON Journal Issue 274 at pages 3-5 (pages 3-5 of 24 in PDF version).

1991 February : Sharon Santus “Kecksburg UFO seen at A. F. Bases” MUFON Journal Issue 274 at pages 6-7 (pages 6-7 in PDF version).

1991 Spring – Robert Young’s article entitled “ ‘Old Solved Mysteries’ : The Kecksburg Incident” in Skeptical Inquirer Volume 15 Issue 3 at pages 281-285 (of 116 in PDF version)

1991 May – Phil Klass at page 8 of SUN 09 (page 8 of 8 in PDF version)

1991 July : Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report VI” – pages 56-66 (pages 57-67 of 144 in PDF version).

1992 Spring : Stan Gordon “The Kecksburg UFO Crash : An Interim Report” in FSR Volume 37 Issue 1 at pages 2-4 (pages 5-7 of 28 in PDF version)

1992 Spring : Sharon Santus “Kecksburg UFO Seen at A. F. Bases” in FSR Volume 37 Issue 1 at pages 5-6 (pages 8-9 of 28 in PDF version)

1994 February : Leonard Stringfield’s “Status Report VI” – pages 42-49 (pages 43-50 of 68 in PDF version).

1994 May/June – Letter by Robert Young entitled “A Hoax Retold?” in IUR 19, 3 at page 19

1997 Winter – Anomalies Zone (edited by Stan Gordon) Volume IX Number 1 at pages 1-4.

1998 June : Dwight Connelly review of Stan Gordon’s “Kecksburg : The Untold Story”, MUFON Journal at page 20 (page 20 of PDF version)

2000 MUFON Symposium Proceedings, Stan Gordon at pages 85-92, 108-110 in his paper “In Pursuit of Pennsylvania’s Mysterious Encounters” (pages 84-91, 107-109 of 273 in PDF version)

2002 Winter – Phil Klass in SUN 74 at page 6 (page 6 of 8 in PDF version)

2003 Spring – Phil Klass in SUN 75 at page 7 (page 7 of 8 in PDF version)

2004 MUFON Symposium Proceedings, Leslie Kean at pages 150-155 (pages 151-156 of PDF version)

2004 January : George Filer “CFi sues NASA for Kecksburg records” page 6 (page 7 of PDF version)

2004 May/June : Robert Sheaffer in his Psychic Vibrations column in Skeptical Inquirer Volume 29 Issue 3 at page 25 (page 25 of 72 in PDF version)

2005 October : Leslie Kean cover article in IUR Volume 30 Issue 1 at pages 3-9 and 28-31 (pages 3-9, 28-31 of 120 in PDF version)

2007 December : Kecksburg Records, MUFON Journal page 5

2010 January-February : Robert Young in SUNlite Volume 2 Issue 1 at page 6 (page 7 of 25 in PDF version)

2010 January-February : Tim Printy in SUNlite Volume 2 Issue 1 at page 6 (page 7 of 25 in PDF version)

2011 November-December : Tim Printy in SUNlite Volume 3 Issue 6 at pages 0-34 (pages 1-35 of 45 in PDF version)

2011 November-December : Robert Young in SUNlite Volume 3 Issue 6 at pages 12-13, 26-31 and 35-37 (pages of 13-14, 27-32, 36-38 of 45 in PDF version)

2014 March-April : Tim Printy in SUNlite Volume 6 Issue 2 at page 4 (page 4 of 31 of PDF version)

2014 May-June : Tim Printy in SUNlite Volume 6 Issue 3 at pages 12-13 (pages 13-14 of PDF version)

2015 July-August : Tim Printy in SUNlite Volume 6 Issue 4 at page 9 (page 40 of PDF version)

2015 December : John Ventre in MUFON Journal at pages 1 and 11-15.

2015 December : Ted Molczan in 18 December 2015 Fotocat update: fotocat.blogspot.com.es...

Excellent work Isaac.

So it wasn't Cosmos 96 and it wasn't the GE Mark II.

I am also not sure how many witnesses claimed to have seen an 'acorn' shaped object in the woods. Perhaps a handful at most. The question is are they reliable and did they really see an object in the woods? There are also, supposedly, photographs of the object somewhere but they have never materialized.

After 50 years where does that leave this case?

originally posted by: mirageman
Excellent work Isaac.

Thanks Mirageman.

So it wasn't Cosmos 96 and it wasn't the GE Mark II.

Well, Cosmos 96 isn't _quite_ ruled out as completely as the GE Mark II. But the Cosmos 96 explanation is, indeed, pretty unlikely for reasons previously given by various skeptics (including Jim Oberg) and also by the British Ministry of Defence.

After 50 years where does that leave this case?

I might get around to writing a general review of the case, rather than this minor thread about the flaws in just one proposed explanation. However, I think it worth noting (as I mentioned in my OP) that most press coverage (and a scientific article) at the time reported that the fireball sightings were caused by a meteor. I think it is fair to say that that remains the main sceptical theory regarding the incident (with many eyewitness reports being viewed as relatively recent fabrications and/or the result of the fairly common optical illusion that a distant meteor appeared to be descending nearby).

Great work as usual Issac. Not sure how you find the time, but keep doing what ur doing. Much appreciated.

John Ventre has responded to my item by asserting that I'm wrong and that I ignore the duration of the launch on 9 December.

It seems that he has not actually read my item, since It is simply untrue to say that I ignore the 9 December launch. The entire point of my item is to explain (in detail) the rather basic differences between the single-stage Program 437AP launch on 7 December 1965 and the multi-stage Corona launch on 9 December 1965.

UFO historian Jerome Clark gives almost every rumor a chance, but thinks Kecksburg fizzles:

"...a complex but ultimately unconvincing series of claims focused on the proposition that a strange construction crash- landed near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in the late afternoon of December 9, 1965. …it probably is safe to say this is not a ufo incident. More likely… a spectacular bollide… triggered the imaginations of the impressionable and loosed the tongues of the yarn-spinners." Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopdeia Vol 3, 1996

It was a meteor. Since there was no spacecraft to have been recovered, Ventre and Eichler claiming there was is just as bad as suggesting alleged bodies at Roswell were crash test dummies.

Isaac, your insAAAAne:
This is what you said yourself ok....

"I thought I’d make a small contribution to the discussion. This minor contribution is limited to evaluating on a theory that has been published this month in the MUFON Journal (including on its cover page)"

Small contribution, MINOR contribution.....

You used almost an ENTIRE page

But as allways i suspect it will be very interesting
to read....

originally posted by: Miccey
Small contribution, MINOR contribution.....

You used almost an ENTIRE page

Exactly. Only one page. Pffft.



A full thread on all the potential explanations for Kecksburg (rather than just on the recently proposed GE Mark 2 explanation) would a lot longer.

But as allways i suspect it will be very interesting
to read....

Cheers. I hope this thread is useful to some of those interested in Kecksburg and the theory advanced in the recent MUFON Journal article.

More importantly, I hope that the comments by various people on the relevant MUFON Journal article encourages MUFON to resume its old practice of putting more MUFON Journal articles online to enable much more peer review of the stuff that it publishes.