Kecksburg UFO Crash on Unsolved Mysteries

This post is one of a series that covers UFO cases shown on the Unsolved Mysteries TV show. Now available freely on Youtube.

This case is from Pennsylvania in late 1965. Centred around witness reports of an object coming down in the woods near Kecksburg, a military retrieval operation and a possible cover-up.

The full episode first aired on September 19, 1990

It is available to watch below.



Show notes are below.

Unsolved Mysteries Show Notes

On December, 9, 1965, a brilliant light streaked through the sky over Canada. It was also observed by people in the northeastern United States. Thousands of witnesses reported its trail, visible for hundreds of miles in every direction.

In Kecksburg, Pennsylvania Robb Landy and his brother Ray were outside riding their bicycles. Ray said:

“We were riding up the road and we just happened to look up into the sky and we saw this thing coming over the tops of the trees. It just glided right across the sky, like across the horizon of the trees. We were just, like, in awe, you know, as we watched it. Then it disappeared, and we ran.”

Robb said:

“You knew what an airplane looked like, you knew what a helicopter looked like, and that didn’t look like anything we had ever seen before. And the angle that was coming in, I mean, you knew that it had to hit the ground

Three miles away, another local boy, Randy Overly, also saw the object:

“I was playing by a creek at the time, and heard a deep hissing noise. And I looked up in the sky and saw an object coming at me from a pretty good distance away. It flew over the top of me, no higher in the air than 200 feet, and was going no faster than a small airplane would go.”

Nevin and Nadine Kalp were also playing outside as the object flew overhead and crashed in a wooded ravine, half a mile away. Never takes up the story:

“This ball of, like, fire came through. It’s something that I’ve never seen before. And never seen it since. Seeing the smoke then, at that time, down in the hollow there.”

The Kalp farm is located less than a mile from Kecksburg Village. The object appeared to have crashed in woods a half-mile from the Kalps’ home. Within minutes, Pennsylvania State Troopers descended on the site. By now, there was no smoke and the light was fading. Search teams were called in to locate the crash site.

Later, volunteer fireman Jim Mayes located the site from an overlook above the ravine:

“We went up this road and came to the brow of the hill and stopped, and down to the right, in the hollow, were these blue flashing lights. It wasn’t searchers, down in the woods, with flashlights or anything. It was a real bright blue. Real bright. Like a, electric welder. The flashes seemed to be timed, at what intervals, I don’t know. At that point the Troopers decided to close the area off. Close the roads off. So he brought the two of us that was with him back to the fire station.”

A call went out to all local fire departments with more than 30 volunteer firemen dispatched from the Kecksburg station. Volunteer fireman, James Romansky [pictured], was with a search team that found the crash site:

“Here was this humongous metal object, half buried in the ground. About six, seven, eight foot around, and it was every bit of eight, ten, twelve foot long. And to me the object looked like exactly like a fresh acorn that you’d pick off of a tree. There was no wings, there was no motors. There was no propellers. There was no identification whatsoever that would identify it as a aircraft that I would know. There was a bumper on the bottom part of it. On that bumper there was what I call, it looked to me like the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was markings like stars, and shapes and figures and circles, and lines, and what it was, I don’t know. To this day I’ve never seen anything like it. So we’re all standing around this thing, wondering what in the heck it could be, and finally here come two men down through the woods. And they took one look at the object, and immediately told us to leave. ‘We are in charge, we’re taking command, get out of here.’ So we left there, and by the time we got back down here to the fire hall, I mean, this place was wall to wall military.”

An hour later, military officers commandeered a farmhouse near the ravine owned by Lillian Hayes:

“Well the military was coming in and out of my house all evening. And they were making a lot of phone calls and they were standing around in groups talking. I have no idea who they telephoned. No calls turned up on my bill.”

Nineteen-year-old Bill Weaver was one of many spectators who tried to catch a glimpse:

“I looked down in there myself. I seen there was something down in there, that had bright lights on it. But I couldn’t see the object itself. Some time later, I seen a van type truck pull up there. There was some men dressed in moon suits, we called them at the time, and they had a light colored box, roughly five foot square. They carried it down into the ravine.”

The box seemed too small to hold the object itself. Maybe there was something inside the object that the military wanted to remove?

Back at the Kecksburg fire station, Jim Romansky and the other volunteers waited for orders:

“We looked up and here comes this Jeep down over the hill with its red light on. And right behind the Jeep was a large flatbed truck. And on the back of the flatbed was this covered object. And on down the road they went, and where they went, I have no idea.”

U.F.O. researcher, Stan Gordon, believes the government knows what happened:

“Whatever came down in Kecksburg that night, is of high importance to the military agencies. The most mysterious thing about the whole case is the fact that after 25 years, the government still refuses to give us any actual information on what occurred.”

Stan Gordon interviewed dozens of Kecksburg eyewitnesses and has examined several theories:

“Astronomers who looked into the case at the time basically felt that the object in question was a bolide, which was a very bright fire-ball type meteor. But we now know the thing basically was coming down from the tip of Ontario, and appeared to have made about a 25 degree turn to the east, near Cleveland, Ohio. And the interesting thing is, now that the new data suggests that the object made a turn towards the south, and then the object made another turn towards the village of Kecksburg where it was proceeding towards the northeast. Within several miles of the crash site, multiple witnesses tell us that this object was coming in at a very, very slow speed of descent. Meteors do not make controlled turns. They do not come in at a slow speed like this. And they in fact do not glide in, which this thing apparently did.”

Jim Mayes is still baffled by what fell from the sky that night:

“My personal opinion, what landed in Kecksburg that night was a capsule of some kind, from where, whether it was one of ours, or foreign, I have no idea.”

Another theory put forth by Stan Gordon is that the object was space debris. The government has always monitored not only U.S. space activity, but also launches from other countries:

“Going back into the records we have from NASA, and documents we have from other agencies, they apparently have no loggings for any type of space debris on that date and the time of this observation. So we also have to look to the other possibility. Could this indeed have been an extraterrestrial spacecraft?”

Stan Gordon obtained through the Freedom of Information Act the official Air Force record of the Kecksburg incident:

“The report indicated that there was quite a lot of interest by government agencies as to what the object may have been. There were memos there and requests for information from Houston Space Center, from NORAD, from the Air Force Command Post, the Pentagon, even the Chairman of the Office of Emergency Planning requested information. The official Air Force explanation was that it was likely a meteor. And basically, what it goes on to say is, the fact that the search was called off around 2:00 A.M. and that nothing was found. But evidence indicates that something indeed was found at the site.”

Bill Weaver was one of the eyewitnesses:

“The military’s idea of finding completely nothing is completely false. There was something down in that ravine that night. There was something that glowed an awful bright light. And they took something out of there that night.”

Many eyewitnesses reported seeing the military convoy coming out of the ravine. John Hays was only ten years old when a flat-bed truck with a large, covered object on the back rumbled by his bedroom window:

“What was on the back of it I had no idea. But it was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle from the distance I was at.”

According to Stan Gordon, eyewitnesses identified the military unit as an Air Force radar squadron based in Pittsburgh. Gordon believes the unit was part of a top-secret operation investigating UFOs:

“There is no entry at all for December 9th of 1965 in the December log of all activities for that squadron. That tells us that somebody apparently wanted to keep all the information associated with the unit’s involvement in that site away from public information. We can see the fact that the government has not told us everything they know about the Kecksburg case.”

James Romansky, a volunteer fireman didn’t believe the government reports:

“Official reports that the military and the government put out, as far as I’m concerned, are a bunch of bull. If this thing was a meteorite, then why didn’t they just bring it out and say, ‘Here it is,’ let the reporters take pictures of it, let the firemen see it, let the people in this area see it… why the big mystery?”

Stan Gordon, U.F.O. Researcher concludes:

“Either, one, we’re dealing with some highly advanced space probe, probably of a foreign nation, that appears to be very highly technical for what we knew about 1965. Or, the possibility exists that we may indeed be dealing with an extraterrestrial spacecraft.”

Beyond Unsolved Mysteries

The Unsolved Mysteries show left out several witness stories relating to the heavy police and military presence and also the involvement of a local radio director, John Murphy, of WHJB.

Murphy had decided to visit the alleged crash site. He interviewed the Kalp family while the State Police searched the woods. Murphy was disappointed when the police refused to comment, and the case was handed over to the military. There were also claims from his wife that Murphy had photographed a cone like object in the woods, but it had been confiscated by the military.

After the incident Murphy worked on a documentary “Object in the Woods” including interviews with eye the witnesses at the scene. He was supposedly visited shortly afterwards by a couple of ‘official looking’ men. The resulting documentary was heavily sanitized. However, it still reveals some important details surrounding the Kecksburg case.

At around 8:30pm Murphy reports that State Police Fire Marshal Carl went into the woods with a Geiger counter and flashlight, returning 15 minutes later. Murphy questioned Metz only be told to speak to the Army.

Later in the show Murphy reports from Greensburg State Police barracks where he saw members of the US Army and Air Force along with Metz. The Captain there gave him an official statement that there was nothing in the woods. Metz then agreed that Murphy could accompany them to the woods. As Murphy went to his car a state police officer tells him that the object was blue with a pulsating light. On arriving at the woods Metz appeared to have changed his mind and told Murphy not to enter the woods. John Murphy was sadly killed in a ‘hit and run’ road traffic accident in California in 1969.

Media Reports
Despite John Murphy’s investigations, the authorities reported that the searches in the Kecksburg area had found nothing. The press suggested that the most likely explanation was that the unidentified object was nothing more than a bright meteor.



Presidential Reaction
Thursday December 9, 1965 - 4:45pm - At the time of crash, President Johnson was at his ranch outside of Austin, Texas. Nothing significant resides on record in the Presidential archives regarding the matter.

Next morning, however, shows some interesting visitors to the Johnson ranch. All members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff flew into the ranch (officially for a budget meeting). James Webb, then Director of NASA being another. The Kecksburg incident was not the first time Webb had met with a President following a rumoured UFO crash. Webb had also met with the President over the two days following the July 8, 1947 Roswell press story of the recovery of a flying disk. Coincidence?


James Webb with President Johnson

On December 10th, 1965, Webb left Washington at 7:15am arriving at the Johnson ranch around 9:50 am. A NASA representative was supposedly sent to Kecksburg. However, the Presidential records make no reference to the Soviet space probe Cosmos 96 which has been blamed for the incident. All of the above, however, is merely circumstantial evidence of any Presidential involvement.

Project Blue Book
The Project Blue Book file on the Kecksburg case is a short one. But it confirms that ‘USAF Defense Command’ was receiving reports from the Detroit to prepare for UFO sightings. It also fails to mention Cosmos 96.

Media reports coming from the Kecksburg area encouraged Blue Book to dispatch a three man team from Oakdale radar station (some 50 miles from Kecksburg).




NASA Court Case
In 2003, Leslie Kean led a lawsuit against NASA seeking release of files they held on the case. NASA claimed files were missing.

What was released did not make things clearer. Reports from the 662nd Radar Squadron at Oakdale could not be found. However, the service personnel were tracked down and interviewed. Only one of the officers admitted to a search of the area. The officer involved claimed there was neither an Army presence nor excess civilian activity in the area.

Another officer said there was no search at all, and that the reports coming in to the Oakdale base concerned only an object in the sky and not an object on the ground. A third officer claimed that the object was a Russian satellite, but his conclusion came from newspaper and television reports and had no first-hand knowledge himself.

Whilst the lawsuit was going on in 2005 NASA claimed debris was examined from the object in Kecksburg, and it came from a failed Soviet Cosmos 96 craft. But files had since been lost. This conflicts with NASA expert Dr. Nicholas L. Johnson’s assessment. He stated that the Cosmos 96 probe actually crashed in Canada earlier in the morning of December 9th 1965 after the rocket boosters failed in earth orbit. The tracking data may have been tracking the booster rockets as they re-entered the atmosphere but the probe itself would not have stayed in orbit for 12 hours and then headed into Kecksburg woods.

The Russians have continually denied one of their craft crashed and maintained that it was some form of failed US technology.

Unresolved?
Over the years various scenarios and theories have been put forward :

▪ Nothing more than a meteor was seen falling to Earth and the case can be dismissed for that reason alone. Nothing turned up in the woods near Kecksburg and everything else was speculation and fabrication.

▪ The Cosmos 96 Venus probe, coincidentally re-entered the atmosphere during December 9th. NASA actually confirmed that this was the object recovered in a 2005 report but this was also contradicted by NASA expert Dr. Nicholas Johnson who claimed the probe had crashed in Canada).


The Cosmos 96 Probe

▪A secret experiment gone wrong. (Spy satellites, Soviet/US Missiles, Secret Space Launches, Project Orion, even the Nazi Bell???)


Above an acorn like craft tested during Project Orion

▪ An object of non-terrestrial origin under some kind of intelligent control

So far none of these theories have been proven and after almost 60 years what happened in Kecksburg remains unclear.

a reply to: mirageman


Wierd I was thinking of this case out of the blue for no reason for the last week.

Great write up, unfortunately I know all I know of this case because of Unsolved Mysteries. I'm still not convinced it was the Engine From an SR-71, but something came down I'm convinced of that

About a year later in April 1966, the Ravenna Ohio sighting came through here, but a different looking aircraft from what I was told.

Oakdale Pa is south of Pittsburgh international airport. There was an active Nike Site there. Some of the Radar tower is still there.

Tense times, with the Cold War making people uneasy. They were watching the sky expecting a nuke.

Real Event.

Last thing we needed was a UFO mucking the works.👍

Edit: Thanks again for putting Kecksburg back in the spotlight again. I could use the lesson.👍

a reply to: mirageman

I'm with Jim Mayes on this one. Based on the descriptions, it sounds like a capsule, and most likely related to Project Orion. It had markings resembling stars and Egyptian hieroglyphics on it, as well as a bumper, as one of the firefighters stated.

I've always enjoyed this incident. Years back I read an account, and I don't remember where, nor can I verify the source, but it stated that the object was tracked as having come from over the North pole, heading due south, ulimately crashing in Kecksburg.

Just kicking a can here. Its "acorn" description, or capsule, would such not be in the same side of shape town as....a "bell".

Food for thought.

Here's a possible explanation that came out in December 2015...

Researchers Are Claiming UFO was a U.S. Spy Vessel

www.dailyamerican.com...

a reply to: Deetermined

Yep that was an interesting theory back at the time but I left it out of the OP. The specific GE Mark 2 Re-entry Vehicle was launched from Johnston Atoll Island. Kecksburg is around 8,800km away. The Thor rocket used only had a range of 3,000km on that particular mission.

For full details see : Kecksburg UFO – GE Mark 2? MUFON researchers can't keep it up long enough.

John Ventre, of MUFON Pennsylvania also had some rather controversial views s that caused ructions within the organization.

a reply to: mirageman

Fred Saluga. m.facebook.com...

This gentleman was a police officer down in the Fayetteville area. He was big on UFO cases for this area.

He may be somebody with more information.

a reply to: mirageman

I didnt see it mentioned, but there was evidence and witnesses of the Army Corp of Eng coming in, cutting a road to and back out of the woods to transport the object.

Then the back hoes came in and made it look like nothing happened.

a reply to: mirageman

I haven't yet watched the episode but from your summary I didn't read where anyone brought a camera along when they went to investigate the crash site. Am I missing something? Was the site secured and guarded all day and night?

a reply to: quintessentone

Local have said there was a window of of 10-20-30 mins BEFORE the military got in there. Some stood on high ground looking down into the site....others went into the woods.

Cameras? Well. I dont believe there were any cell phones then. Still, no excuses. Everybody had a camera then.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: quintessentone

Local have said there was a window of of 10-20-30 mins BEFORE the military got in there. Some stood on high ground looking down into the site....others went into the woods.

Cameras? Well. I dont believe there were any cell phones then. Still, no excuses. Everybody had a camera then.

I mean, really, they were watching the UFO streak through the sky and could estimate it's crash site, so how much time did they really have to get their cameras after it crashed? Even I had a Polaroid camera back then with film packs, we kids used those instant cameras as toys.

Food for thought……

Some previous postings in the www

Right hand bottom corner…I guess are supposed trajectory streaks in the sky of the Kecksburg object….


👽

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: mirageman

I didnt see it mentioned, but there was evidence and witnesses of the Army Corp of Eng coming in, cutting a road to and back out of the woods to transport the object.

Then the back hoes came in and made it look like nothing happened.

Is there any source that you can link to for this?

originally posted by: quintessentone
a reply to: mirageman

I haven't yet watched the episode but from your summary I didn't read where anyone brought a camera along when they went to investigate the crash site.

The director of WHJB radio in the area visited the site with a camera and is alleged to have shot photos but all but one film roll were confiscated by the military.

....A reporter and news director for the local radio station WHJB, John Murphy, arrived on the scene of the event before authorities had arrived, in response to several calls to the station from alarmed citizens. He took several photographs and conducted interviews with witnesses. His former wife Bonnie Milslagle later reported that all but one roll of the film were confiscated by military personnel. WHJB office manager Mabel Mazza described one of the pictures: "It was very dark and it was with a lot of trees around and everything. And I don't know how far away from the site he was. But I did see a picture of a sort of a cone-like thing. It's the only time I ever saw it."....

John Muprhy's Object in the Woods

Am I missing something? Was the site secured and guarded all day and night?

Depends what story you believe. Media reported nothing found and a search called off. Other witnesses say the place was crawling with police and military.

Have always enjoyed the Kecksburg UFO incident... my favorite triple tin foil hat with a chin strap and optional mouthpiece theory remains

mysteriesrunsolved.com...

Here's a good thread from the ATS archives circa 2009, again not supporting or denying the possibility, just know it has been discussed and is a fascinating case.

LOL saw this fantastical speculation below somewhere else over the years and I'll try and find it and link it.

But the gist was Kecksburg was the Nazi Bell, amazing enough, but there were occupants, 3 men 2 bodyguards and now queue the dramatic music ...... Hitler, the theory says this is where Hitler divulged loads of Nazi secrets and was held till 1970 when he was sent incognito to live in South America, Argentina I believe. Remember this is 1945 Hitler in 1965 America, it was obvious the Nazi has lost he had no option, Death or life in prison, or squeal like a pig and give up Nazi secrets.

One was the Nazis had a crashed UFO from the mid-30s, and though they couldn't make it work, they had one alien occupant still living that helped them for a while till it died.

They got enough information and got new ideas. One reason they were obsessed with air power, and once Hitler came into power and learned all of this. He resolved to become the World leader and believe it fervently it was his destiny

Sure it's likely something mundane, just the military covering up its secrets. But

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Experiments in time travel?
Before their deaths, the scientists who conducted the Bell experiments reportedly suffered from various ailments such as nerve spasms, loss of balance, and a metallic taste in the mouth. During various experiments, dozens of plant and animal test subjects were also killed by radiation exposure. So what exactly was the purpose of the Bell?

According to Sporrenberg’s testimony, Die Glocke was associated with “magnetic fields separation” and “vortex compression.” Witkowski asserts that these physical principles had become commonly associated with antigravity research.

According to some physicists, if you have a device that can generate a torsion field of extremely high intensity, it is theoretically possible to “bend” space around the device. Consequently, by bending space, you also bend time.

Could it be possible that the Nazis were utilizing the Bell to conduct scientific experiments in time travel? Interestingly enough, it is essential to note that the project was code-named “Chronos,” which means “Time.”

Witkowski also claimed that an industrial complex located near the Wenceslas mine became one of the primary testing sites for Die Glocke. The ruins of a mysterious concrete framework known as “The Henge” stand there today, and many have speculated that The Henge was designed to be a type of suspension rig for use when testing the propulsion capabilities of the Bell. Skeptics have dismissed this theory, claiming that The Henge is nothing more than the remains of an industrial cooling tower.

Post war disappearance
The fate of Die Glocke has been the subject of much speculation. When the German upper echelon realized that the war was unwinnable, key leaders and scientists began to evaporate, leaving Germany and disappearing from public view. Hypothetically, these Nazi secret science projects were dismantled and allegedly shuffled off to points unknown. South America and Antarctica rank high as locales of interest.

In 1945, “The Bell” was removed from its underground bunker under the command of, and accompanied by SS General Dr. Hans Kammler, who was also in charge of the V-2 missile program. Aboard a massive long range German aircraft, the very first aircraft ever equipped for mid-air refueling and the only one large enough to carry the Bell. It was never to be seen or heard from again. Speculation is that it ended up in South America.

In his book, “The Truth about the Wunderwaffe,” Witkowski claims that more than 60 scientists associated with the project were assassinated by the SS before the Bell was transported. Cook believes SS general Hans Kammler made a deal with the US military, in exchange for the technology.

In 1991, Vladimir Terziski, a Bulgarian immigrant, claims to have come into possession of a Nazi documentary describing some of their special weapons programs. Of particular interest is the secret V-7 projects, which were allegedly a series of circular craft which could rise and descend vertically and fly at extreme velocity and altitudes.

Did the Nazi Bell reappear again?
In 1952 and 1953, George Adamski ― the man who is famous for his claims that he had continuous contact with UFOs, that their occupants were from “Venus” ― allegedly photographed very similar bell-shaped flying objects. Though, the bulk of the Adamski’s story is bizarre, and had it not been for the similarities to the German projects, of which ofcourse Adamski could have not had knowledge. So is there any connection between the UFO photographed by Adamski and the Nazi Bell?

Many theorists believe that a craft that crashed in Kecksberg, Pennsylvania, in 1965 was either “the Die Glocke” or a US Government attempt at replicating what the Germans had done 20 years earlier. Whatever the particulars of variant conspiracy theories are, the object that crash landed certainly does bear a striking resemblance to what the Nazi Government had built 20 years earlier. Decades later, in 2008, another craft of similar description crash landed in Needles California.

originally posted by: quintessentone

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: quintessentone

Local have said there was a window of of 10-20-30 mins BEFORE the military got in there. Some stood on high ground looking down into the site....others went into the woods.

Cameras? Well. I dont believe there were any cell phones then. Still, no excuses. Everybody had a camera then.

I mean, really, they were watching the UFO streak through the sky and could estimate it's crash site, so how much time did they really have to get their cameras after it crashed? Even I had a Polaroid camera back then with film packs, we kids used those instant cameras as toys.

You could be right but I thought the timing is off for everybody to have an instant camera in Kecksburg Pa in 1965 when it was only 1963 when the color pack was introduced. Am I misremembering?

petapixel.com...

This invention allowed Polaroid to launch its first instant camera, the Polaroid Model 95, a year later in 1948 which sold out nearly immediately. Instant cameras proved to be a success, although first popular mostly among the affluent who could pay the price of entry. During the 1950s and 1960s, Polaroid cameras became smaller, better, and more popular, especially after the company introduced the first color film in the Colorpack camera in 1963 and a cheaper camera model, the Swinger in 1965, which was aimed at teens.

From a lengthier article found here…..from the International UFO Reporter (IUR), Dated October 2005

FORTY YEARS OF SECRECY: NASA, THE MILITARY, AND THE 1965 KECKSBURG CRASH

Draw your own conclusions……



Are Trees Telling the Truth?
—————————————————————————————

Also from that same article…..



ATS’s very own Jim Orberg! Is mentioned………hey Jimmy….ya still out there?

Jimmy….now that plenty of time has gone by and you’ve kept up with NASA and UFOLOGY…..have you changed your opinion of the Kecksburg UFO incident???

👽

a reply to: putnam6

If they had a Polaroid color camera in 1963 and the UFO crashed in 1965 how is the timing off? And I should not have mentioned a specific camera rather for onlookers to grab any camera, color or not, and get over to the crash site - even if it was a meteor isn't that worth taking a picture of? So, I'm not sure what people living in that neck of the woods considered what would be worthwhile taking photos of or if cameras were even affordable for their socioeconomic situation.