The Unsolved UFO Mystery of April 18,1962

On April 18, 1962 a Very strange UFO was seen in the sky by thousands of people as it traveled above many different States in North America. the unidentified flying object that originated from somewhere in the sky near Cuba varied in speed during it's flight path and was tracked by multiple Radar Stations. Air Defense Command supposedly watched the object for several hours and did scramble Jet Fighters from two locations to intercept the UFO.

the object was reportedly seen high up in the sky over Oneida, New York and further sighting reports from different states confirmed the object was traveling to the west.


in Eureka, Utah it was reported that the object caused a power disruption at a power plant and came down or crashed. another witness closer to the supposed crash site stated that the object landed and then took off again heading WSW. most likely the UFO did take off again since it was later spotted north of Las Vegas, Nevada.


the same object was also the cause of more sighting reports in the western part of the Country and because of the irregular flight path it took , some of the reports conflicted due to some of the witnesses stating the object traveled west while others stated the object traveled east. witnesses of the event included commercial Pilots, Military Personel, Police officers and civilians and the descriptions of the UFO varied.

the Pilot of a C-119 aircraft that spotted the object while they were in flight described it as a " long slender object " with the colors being a very bright magnesium white at the front and a yellowish color towards the rear. he also reported that the object was a darker color when it was lower in altitude and he could see what he thought was a row of windows along the side of the UFO. Many other people said it was white and yellow and a man from Silver City, Utah did hear sonic booms. other reports state the object was a Bluish color and gasping sounds were heard as it slowed down and it spurted ahead again. more reports described it as a Red Fireball Meteor.

supposedly the UFO blew up somewhere over Nevada but speculation has it that it was destroyed by the Fighter jets that were chasing it. The next day Newspapers reported the incident and the headlines were ' Brilliant Red Explosion Flares in Las Vegas Sky ' and ' Weird object seen through entire West '.

the lead investigator for project blue book, Allen Hynek was asked to conduct a study of the incident and he only interviewed a couple witnesses and filed a report stating the UFO was a bolide meteor.

civilians that inquired about the event were told by a Air Force personel that is was a U-2 spyplane or a weather Balloon.


/9mzs3x


listed below are Nicap reports and various book and articles about this event.

Front-page story (see MISC-PBB2-1058) says that on April 18,1963, the Air Force Defense Command was puzzled by an aerial object that exploded and seemed to be a meteor, but had the unique distinction of being tracked by radar 70 miles northwest of Las ''Vegas, Nevada, as well as chased by jets, before it exploded in Nevada in a blinding flash. An Air Force Defense Command alert reported the object was tracked and traced over New York, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona and California, so that it's light covered almost as much area as that created by the big hydrogen space bomb test held later in the Pacific hundreds of miles high.

NORAD had tracked object which had covered 10 states in 32 minutes but changed course over Utah. Now detected on GCA radar at Nellis the object is moving NE, but the Air Force explains this radar sighting as, a balloon!

nicap.org...

www.ufologie.net...
nicap.org...
www.ufocasebook.com...
thenightsky.org...
skylaire.com...

books.google.com...
books.google.com...
books.google.com...
www.google.com...


Story by George Knapp begins at the 1:40 mark




possible flight path of the UFO


illustration of what the object may have looked like







so what was it ? a meteor as reported by project blue book files or a U-2 spyplane or balloon as reported by Air Force personel ? why would Fighter Jets be chasing after meteors or balloons ? i also don't think a u-2 spyplane could land in Utah and take off again.

None of these explanations fit the profile of the strange Flight characteristics of this UFO.

My personal conclusion is , there was an unidentified object flying over the United States that was being tracked on Radar while being chased by Jet Fighters. this was a real UFO and the Military has a track record of covering up UFO encounters and this incident is most likely one of their best kept secrets.

What do you think really happened on April 18 , 1962 ?





[edit on 10-1-2009 by easynow]

I'm impressed by the quality of your work on this, easynow:
each one of your source seems to have just a few of informations, but once put them all together, here's a very interesting scenario coming out
This way to approach the cases is what we really need, in my humble opinion: we need more threads like this one and less ones based on some anonymous youtube videos: i just wanted to express my personal appreciation

I am giving this thread a bump, the case is very interesting and deserves some attention. Certainly the military was concerned about this unidentified object, and since it also seems to have changed cource while it was being tracked, I doubt that this was a meteor.

Thanks for sharing this story, easynow, this incident was new to me.

Very Interesting.

I think I've heard some things about this case before, but just scattered details.

It is refreshing to see an actual well composed thread about a UFO case, rather than what ATS has become famous for recently. Thank you for reminding me why I became interested in the subject in the first place

reply to post by internos


Thank You Internos and your acknowledgment means alot to me

and yes you are correct that when all the sources are considered and the different pieces of this story are put together it is a very interesting scenario.

if the evidence provided by Kevin Randle and others that has been presented here is true , then imo there is a need to further investigate this incident and my intentions for posting this thread was to make people aware of this case and to perhaps initiate some help by other members here at ATS to help uncover the truth.

it is my opinion that an effort of denying ignorance put forth here could prove or at least enhance the well known evidence that goverment entities have lied about and covered up the existence of UFO's and their encounters with them.

i would hope to post further information about this case in the future if any becomes available worthy of consideration. anything that can be added to the discussion here from anyone will be a appreciated and we deserve to know the truth about what really happened that day.





[edit on 11-1-2009 by easynow]

reply to post by ziggystar60


thanks ZiggyStar60, i appreciate your thoughts on this and i agree that this case deserves more attention.

no doubt that the Military was concerned about this UFO and it is unlikely to have been a meteor if they sent Fighter Jets to chase it.

something i wanted to share with you that i just found on the Filers Files website are some interesting statements that i was not aware of about the UFO being on the ground for 42 minutes

an incident on April 18,1962, involving a UFO that had been tracked from New York, through Kansas to Eureka, Utah, was well documented. The Air Force spokesman admitted that the object had landed, and during the 42 minutes that it was on the ground near the power station there was no power, but it was restored when the UFO left. The object was pursued by jet interceptors summoned from Phoenix and Stead Field in Reno until it exploded over the Mesquite Range in Nevada in a brilliant glare that was visible over five states.

www.nationalufocenter.com...


now that is very interesting !

also i found a write up about this event on Zorgons amazing site, The Living Moon

www.thelivingmoon.com...

Star and Flag Easynow!

This is the first I've heard about it. The landing and subsequent takeoff part of the story is quite intriguing. Wonder what happened at the landing site? Or more importantly, who got off the craft there?

reply to post by wisefoolishness


thanks for your reply wisefoolishness

It is refreshing to see an actual well composed thread about a UFO case, rather than what ATS has become famous for recently. Thank you for reminding me why I became interested in the subject in the first place

your welcome and i appreciate your kind words

i am glad to have reminded you of why we are interested in this subject and this is a good example of what should be here on ATS for us to discuss.

i hope others will post good threads also.

reply to post by JoeBarna


thanks JoeBarna and this is why i posted this thread because i know many people don't know about this case and anyone interested in this subject definitely needs to.

you bring up a good point that i had not considered yet about the possibility's of what actually went on while the UFO was on the ground. if you see my reply to ZiggyStar60 i linked to a statement on the filer files that says the UFO was on the ground for 42 minutes

i am not sure yet where that info has come from but i will be investigating that claim to the best of my abilities.

but yea that's a good question ...did something get off the craft while it was on the ground and it does interest me because the military supposedly conducted searches for any wreckage of the craft but who knows maybe they were looking for someone and not something ?


[edit on 11-1-2009 by easynow]

Excellent I love long well thought out posts!

I’ll go over this and post a reply later good job!

Well it certainly was not a meteor. A meteor cannot change direction and follows a ballistic trajectory. This object took a very distinct left turn of about 90 degrees. Impossible for a meteor, also impossible for a missile. So we can rule out a Soviet ballistic missile test.

A U2 could not cover the distance within the time frame, actually an SR-71 could not do it either. Also, military flights would not cause fighter interceptors to scramble. Also, most flights don't end in a fireball like this one did.

I would say, that even with modern military technology this case would still be unexplainable.

reply to post by easynow


Meteors usually don't change course, and are rarely shaped like a large cylinder. This is a very good case from the past, with a lot of credible witnesses. Thank you for posting this easynow. Starred and flagged.

I heard of this case about 5 years ago, I was unaware of most of the information you have posted, thank you easynow for this thread.

It goes to show, just how much was hidden by Project Blue Book, a deliberate attempt to steer people away from any investigation, just by removing the name of one of the witnesses makes the job near enough impossible unless you make it known you where looking for them, and with no name hard to go in any direction, it would be down to luck, I wonder if they are still alive?

Landing and staying for 42 Mins is incredible in itself, there must be so much more to discover about this case, an object on the ground for that long, and having been tracked by radar and chased by Jets, it does indicate that it may well have been destroyed.

Thank you again for posting this.

reply to post by easynow


Great thread easynow!

I believe I've heard of this case as well, a while back, however, I didn't recall hearing the part of it landing, actually. The reports I had read were from mexico, where they had tracked the object up until it left their borders, and headed more into the United States. Thanks for bringing this one back up, and providing more links, I think I'll delve more into it tonight.

S&F

J

reply to post by easynow
Excellent, my friend; very well thought out and structured research, definitely deserving of a thumbs up.

It would be interesting to find any witnesses to the 42 minutes it was on the ground near the power plant and ascertain it indeed any passengers did dis-embark before it's departure.

It would not suprise me in the least if it did come to light that the craft was attacked and destroyed.

Thanks for your efforts.

seeker

Lets look at a few parts of this and dissect them.

Weather patterns over the U.S. do not move from east to west. Usually, strong patterns that pass over Michigan head toward New York. It is not the other way around.
The Jet stream moves in the opposite direction as well.

A Meteor should not even be considered for many obvious reasons. (Speed, trajectory, lifetime of event, description, apparently strong radar return . . . etc) 10 states in 32 minutes - weather ballon also should be ruled out.

What can cause a power plant outage? en.wikipedia.org...

I found this: EMP radiation from nuclear space burst in 1962
(Page was cached as the original is long gone.)

74.6.239.67.../feeds/posts/default/114359101 218645551&w=em+pulse+pulsed+power+plant+plants+outage+outages&d=Mnm1XEfiR4E8&icp=1&.intl=us

If you have problems with this link, cut and paste: EMP radiation from nuclear space burst in 1962 - in a search engine.

I will read the links you posted first (thank you for that). If I have anything to add, I'll come back.

[edit on 11-1-2009 by NYCMedic]

J. Allen Hynek, director of project bluebook, became increasingly interested in the UFO phenomena during his time investigating incidents. He believed that there was reasonable explanations for most sightings, but that there were a small amount of them from credible sources that did not have an immeadiate logical explanation. Therefore, there had to be a small number of sightings that were actual UFO's.

With that in mind, do we know whether or not he ever re-examined this case after his initial investigation?

Good thread, star and flag.

Starred and Flagged!!
I can definately see that you did your research. If I were one of the eyewitnesses I would be very angry if our govt said it was just a meteor or a balloon. Does the govt really think we are that stupid or something? These people know what they saw and it definately was not a meteor.

Thank you everyone for your great posts and your input on this case as i sincerely appreciate your thoughts and discussion about this.

even though i am sure most of us will agree it could not have been a bolide meteor considering the reported flight characteristics of the object in question i would like to introduce for discussion the possibility's of this UFO being a U2 spyplane as some Air Force personal suggested it was, in order to possibly illiminate it from the potential list of explanations.

something that should be noted here is that during this year of 1962 the Cuban missile crisis was occurring and the United States was on High Alert and Very worried that the Russians had Nuclear tipped missiles based in Cuba.

there were U2 spyplanes flying recon missions over Cuba on a continuous basis looking for missiles that the Cuban goverment and the Russian goverment denied were there but later it was found that were in fact there.

en.wikipedia.org...

here are pictures of the U2 and of a Russian Jet that was supposedly in use at the time by the Cuban Military.

en.wikipedia.org...


en.wikipedia.org...

even though i personally don't believe any of these craft or a missile can explain the UFO , i would still like to just present this idea for you to think about so that we may be able to rule out these craft as being a possible explanation of the strange UFO that was reported that day.

the process of elimination should be done in order to come to a conclusion.

thanks again everyone.









[edit on 11-1-2009 by easynow]

reply to post by easynow


I also find it very interesting that the UFO supposedly landed on the ground near the power station, and that during the 42 minutes that it was there, it had was no power.

Nuclear fascilities and power plants seem to be of interest for whoever/whatever is the intelligence behind UFO's. There is an interesting article about this subject by Donald A Johnson, PhD.

For US counties with populations between 50,000 and 101,000 the rate of UFO reports peaks at 37.03 per 100,000 people for those counties with nuclear facilities, and this rate is 2.61 times higher than for similar counties without nuclear facilities. Overall, the rate of UFO sighting reports is 13.84 for nuclear site counties and 9.59 for non-nuclear counties, for a relative risk of 1.44. In other words, they are 1.44 times more likely to occur in these counties. For close encounter reports, the rate is 2.58 per 100,000 compared to 1.79 per 100,000 in non-nuclear counties, for a relative risk of 1.44. Ninety-two of the nuclear site counties are considered UFO “hotspots,” having had four or more UFO close encounters, while only 70 of the non-nuclear counties are rated as UFO hotspots.

The answer about whether nuclear facilities attract UFOs appears to be “yes.” There is an excess of 3,051 UFO reports for nuclear site counties above what would have been predicted based on the non-nuclear counties. For close encounters, there is an excess of 568 close encounter reports over what should have been expected based on other UFO reporting dynamics.

Further reading and tables here:
www.cufon.org...

So the question is, are these UFOs in reality secret technology/crafts from other earthly military powers, used to survey nuclear facilities and power plants?

Or are the UFO sightings evidence of alien visitors? Are the aliens concerned about the human use of nuclear weapons and and nuclear power? Or do they go to nuclear plants to somehow draw power from them, like a car owner would stop at a gas station?

So many questions, and so few answers...


[edit on 11/1/09 by ziggystar60]