A Forgotten Classic Incident: Edwards AFB '65

Kandinsky · Dec 15, 2010

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ontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> On the night of October 7 1965, Edwards AFB airspace was alerted to UFOs. They were seen by eye-witnesses in different locations using binoculars and the naked eye. Up to a dozen UFOs buzzed the airstrips and base buildings. Two radars recorded their presence in the same location as the eye-witnesses. Five bases in total were involved in all of this. F-106s were scrambled and the pilots saw the UFOs as single-point light sources. The incident lasted for five hours.

The tapes were declassified and released, but not before they were scrambled up into a nonsense mess. This point really bugs me. It would be easier to have destroyed them or released a ‘corrupted’ collection of white noise. The recorders of the mid-60s were generally reel-to-reels. Samuel M. Sherman was the man with the time and enthusiasm to ‘unscramble’ the tapes and transcribe them for easier understanding in the 90s.

The case was covered in Project Blue Book and the file is available is available as a PDF (http://www.nicap.org/docs/edwards_docs2.pdf). It refers to containing ’17 photographs’ that we can add to the long list of ‘missing evidence’ as they aren’t in the file. Lights in the sky or radar tapes don’t make the greatest images anyway, but it’d be good to judge for ourselves sometimes! Likewise, there’s an estimated 6 hours of audio that isn’t accounted for. The Project Blue Book website features the pages as blanks (http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=NARA-PBB94-810) so the pdf is the best option.

Continued in next post....

Kandinsky · Dec 15, 2010

The recordings are available as a single download zip-file (The Incident UFO over Edwards AFB Oct 1965 - Download from hotfile.com - Filestube.com). I’ve downloaded it and checked it’s clean. It contains the audio in several short segments and a larger (40mb) file of them all together. NICAP have a page (transcript) that also features mp3 links and the transcripts of the dialogue because it’s lossy and hard to distinguish every word. It’s very interesting reading.

The tapes/transcript show the human element and reaction to an extraordinary event. Officers are hauled from their beds to witness the incident and confusion runs right through it all. There’s doubt and hesitation about whose responsibility it is to take command of the situation. There’s also great humour as the radio traffic catches the bewilderment of those involved….

---------- Post added at 10:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 PM ----------

These division reports have had them anywhere from all the way from 30 or 40 grand.

Well, uh, they were very accurate. We got-- We'd get height on the same track at, uh, 6,000.

[UNINTELLIGIBLE]

These are tower guys. [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Oh yeah. They, they admit it. [LAUGHS] In fact one guy says, "I don't like to be the only guy that sees this stuff."

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] So he went to get somebody else. Now they've got a weather man out there lookin' at 'em and they've got, uh, the , tower people lookin' at 'em and, uh, March approach has 'em on radar and Pedro, and, uh, Boron—

Blue Book put the several hour incident down to ‘stars, planets’ and atmospheric conditions. These guys at Edwards were tasked with some of the latest tech and flew nuclear payloads. The idea that they were dragging guys out of bed, scrambling jets, contacting NORAD and spent hours mistaking ‘stars, planets’ for unidentified lights buzzing the base is hard to swallow.

This was in the heady days of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis was a recent memory. These guys weren’t prone to collective hysteria and, if they had been, the Cold War wouldn’t be called the Cold War. It probably wouldn’t be called anything, because we’d be back to throwing rocks at each other after bombing the world back into the Stone Age.

On the bright side, Christmas would be a damn sight cheaper this year!

(Nicap have the best archive at Edwards AFB Incident, Oct. 7, 1965 )

Trajanus · Dec 16, 2010

1965 witnessed many UFO sightings in the US; Edwards mentioned a big flap throughout the west that summer, so this isn't surprising. He also mentioned that the AF said the sightings were due to stars in Orion, but as was pointed out, they weren't even visible at the time; it was the summer and Orion is a winter constellation. The great NE Blackout was just a month after the Edwards affair, and UFOs were suspected.

Kandinsky · Dec 16, 2010

This file is easiest to read (http://www.nicap.org/docs/651007edwards_docs.pdf). The lights/UFOs are accounted for as stars, but I don't see the radar paints being addressed in any meaningful way. Neither do they seek to explain what made the staff have what the reports suggest were a mass misinterpretation of natural (static even) phenomena.

A Forgotten Classic Incident: Edwards AFB '65

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