The UFO Incident

On December 16, Johnson and his wife Althea were visiting their Lindero Ranch near Agoura, California, which was situated on a hillside facing the coast not far from Pt Mugu Naval Air Station, an aircraft and missile test facility. At about 5 PM Johnson was looking through a window at the brilliant sunset when he noticed a dark elliptical shape in the sky in the direction of Pt Mugu cape. His first thought was that it was a lenticular cloud, or possibly a smoke trail from an aircraft, but it remained stationary and unchanged for several minutes. He called for Althea to bring him his 8-power binoculars and ran outside. By that time the object had begun to move, accelerating away from him in a shallow climb in a direction opposite to the motion of the other clouds in the sky. It seemed to be very large and distant, and moving fast, but he had no real way of knowing its actual size, distance or speed.

At the same time, coincidentally, a Lockheed airplane was in the air on a test flight along the Los Angeles coastline. Constellation airframe 4301 was the prototype for a Navy Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft, the WV-2 Warning Star. The WV-2 was a large four-engine transport equipped with huge blisters housing radar antennas (a search radar unit in the belly and a height-finder in a dorsal fairing), and was designed to fly very long standing patrols far off the coasts of North America to provide long-range detection of incoming Soviet bombers. Constellation 4301 was the first of a long line of Navy WV-2s and Air Force EC-121s that would provide a vital part of the North American air defense network throughout the 1950s and '60s.

At the controls of the Warning Star were Rudy Thoren and Roy Wimmer, both highly experienced senior test pilots in the Constellation program, assisted by Joseph F. Ware, Jr, another longtime Lockheed engineering test pilot.[3] Also in the cockpit were Charlie Grugan, another veteran company pilot, and Lockheed's Chief Aerodynamicist, Philip A Colman. It was customary for Lockheed engineers to ride aboard their planes during test flights, and Johnson himself often did so. (There are no indications that the elaborate radar systems, which required a crew of at least a dozen men, were active during the flight.)

Thoren had been recruited by Johnson from their alma mater, the aeronautical engineering school at University of Michigan, and had been Chief of Flight Test for Lockheed since 1946, in charge of all the company's test pilots. Colman was a Cal Tech graduate who had made valuable contributions to the P-38 program, and who would soon be tasked by Johnson with designing the wings for the new CL-282 recon plane. All of the crewmen were top representatives of their fields, having flown for the company for years in development programs of a variety of sophisticated aircraft.

The exact purpose of the test flight is not detailed in the sighting reports, but such flights typically involved calibration of airspeed vs engine power settings at various altitudes, and therefore the crewmen were very conscious of the height of the aircraft. Altitude recording instruments were carried on board.

Though Wimmer was technically the pilot in command, he had turned the controls over to Thoren and was maintaining a watch for other air traffic as Thoren conducted his tests. They had turned from a southeast heading to west, just off the coast of Long Beach, when, at 4:58 PM, Wimmer noticed a dark shape ahead at about their altitude of 14,000 feet. After watching it for a few moments and noting that it was not moving, he jokingly pointed it out to Thoren, saying "Look out, there's a flying saucer." Thoren turned the WV-2 a bit to the right to head toward the object. The other men saw the object too and watched it for a few minutes with a growing sense of curiosity. It appeared to be a very large aircraft of some type, but as it remained stationary and unchanged in shape over at least a five minute period, they became more and more intrigued. Thoren finally diverted from his course and headed directly at it. They flew toward it at about 225 mph for some time without appearing to gain on it at all. Then Wimmer, who was less occupied with piloting tasks and was able to keep a constant watch on the object, commented that it seemed to be disappearing. Within a few moments it appeared to head west directly away from them at high speed, remaining dark and solid-looking the entire time as it dwindled to a tiny dot. They all felt that it was a large object at a considerable distance, and compared its size to the largest types of transport or bomber aircraft. The men later reported that they thought little more of the incident at the time due to their preoccupation with completing the test mission, but Thoren was intrigued enough that upon returning home that evening he told his family about the sighting and sketched the object.

The following day, Kelly Johnson had returned to work and was discussing the WV-2 test flight with Thoren, who was still ruminating on the incident. A bit worried that Johnson would ridicule him, the pilot casually mentioned the sighting. Thoren was surprised when Johnson excitedly interrupted him and described his own sighting in detail. Both concluded that all the witnesses had been viewing the same object at the same time. Over the course of the next few weeks each of the pilots wrote a detailed personal account of the case, probably at Johnson's urging, and the Chief Engineer, in his typical meticulous style, assembled them into a file (Lockheed file LAC/149536) and drafted a personal cover letter addressed to the "Air Force Investigation Group on Flying Saucers" at Wright Field. Then, tough and combative as he was, Johnson hesitated to send the report. After all, he was hoping to get a foot in the door of the Air Force's new covert strategic reconnaissance aircraft competition and was very concerned that a UFO report might jeopardize his credibility. He may have sought the advice of his friend, Lt General Donald Putt.

Source: http://ufxufo.org/stealth/lockiur.htm

In late afternoon on Friday, April 24, 1964, Socorro Police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora departed his cruiser on a rough and rocky dirt road to investigate an unidentified flying object which came to rest in an arroyo south of Socorro. The desolate, undeveloped area was primarily made up of mesquite and creosote bushes. What Sergeant Zamora witnessed at approximately 5:45 p.m. was an “egg shaped craft” traveling into Socorro from the south. It was later reported and documented as having been witnessed (in flight) by 5 tourists traveling through Socorro. Zamora, in an interview following the incident, stated that he witnessed a bluish flame and a loud roar coming from the direction of the arroyo.

Zamora approached the area where he believed the craft had landed. Zamora later stated that he had first seen the object from about 150 yards and believed it to be a car or some sort of vehicle in need of assistance. Zamora then radioed the Sheriff’s Office about a possible accident he would be investigating. Zamora then contacted New Mexico State Police Sergeant Samuel Chavez, someone who Zamora trusted to assist in the investigation. After requesting the assistance of NMSP Sergeant Chavez, Zamora once again began approaching the object.

At about 50 feet from the object, Zamora noted seeing landing gear and a red insignia which he later drew for authorities. Zamora then noted bright blue flames and another loud roar until ultimately the object began lifting away from its resting place. Following the incident, many local residents visited the sight and witnessed not only burned bushes but also landing gear depressions in the ground. This incident has been recorded in many newspapers and magazine articles as well as written about in many books.

Source: https://www.socorronm.org/attractions/socorro-landing-a-ufo-story/

Others nearby that day also reported an egg shaped object: https://sentinel63.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/desert-encounter-with-the-unknown/

CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH DR. J. ALLEN HYNEK

By Dennis Stacy
An Interview With The Dean, 1985
Re-Edited for CUFON by Dale Goudie 1991

For over two decades, from 1948 to 1969, Dr. J. Allen Hynek was a consultant in astronomy to the United States Air Force. The subject of his advice, however, was not the fledgling space program or even the moon and stars above, but Unidentified Flying Objects. In 1973 he founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and had serves as Director and editor of its journal, "International UFO Reporter."

STACY: Dr. Hynek, as a scientist, you go back as far with UFO phenomenon as probably anyone alive today. Exactly how did that relationship begin?

HYNEK: That's an easy story to tell. In the spring of 1948, I was teaching astronomy at Ohio State University, in Columbus. One day thee men, and they weren't dressed in black, came over to see me from Wright Patterson Air Force Base in nearby Dayton. They started out by talking about the weather, as I remember, and this and that, and then finally one of them asked me what I thought about flying saucers. I told them I thought they were a lot of junk and nonsense and that seemed to please them, so they got down to business. They said they needed some astronomical consultation because it was their job to find out what these flying saucer stories were all about.

Some were meteors, they thought, others stars and so on, so they could use an astronomer. What the hell, I said, it sounded like fun and besides, I would be getting a top secret security clearance out of it, too. At that time, it was called Project Sign, and some of the personnel at least were taking the problem quite seriously. At the same time a big split was occurring in the Air Force between two schools of thought. The serious school prepared an estimation of the situation which they sent to General Vandenburg, but the other side eventually won out and the serious ones were shipped off to other places. The negatives won the day, in other words.

My own investigations for Project Sign added to that, too, I think, because I was quite negative in most of my evaluations. I stretched far to give something a natural explanation, sometimes when it may not have really had it. I remember one case from Snake River Canyon, I think it was, where a man and his two sons saw a metallic object come swirling down the canyon which caused the top of the trees to sway. In my attempt to find a natural explanation for it, I said that it was some sort of atmospheric eddy. Of course, I had never seen an eddy like that and had no real reason to believe that one even existed. But I was so anxious to find a natural explanation because I was convinced that it had to have one that, naturally, I did in fact, it wasn't until quite some time had passed that I began to change my mind.

STACY: Was there ever any direct pressure applied by the Air Force itself for you to come up with a conventional explanation to these phenomena?

HYNEK: There was an implied pressure, yes, very definitely.

Continues...

https://www.cufon.org/cufon/hynekint.htm

State UFO experts say give peace a chance

By Jim Stingl of the Journal Sentinel
Published on: 5/4/2010

My favorite UFO story from Wisconsin - and there are zillions - is about an Eagle River chicken farmer who said the spacemen served him pancakes.

In the spring of 1961, Joseph Simonton said the silver flying saucer landed in his yard. Three short men who appeared to be of Italian descent indicated they wanted a jug filled with water, which he gladly did. One of the visitors on the ship "was frying food on a flameless grill of some sort," Simonton, 60, said in a Milwaukee Journal article from back then.

They gave him three small pancakes, but no syrup, and zoomed off. The locals backed up Simonton as a solid citizen and, according to the sheriff, not a drinking man. The Air Force investigated and proclaimed the space food to be ordinary pancakes.

The encounter was peaceful and friendly, not at all like the ones envisioned by Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, who last week warned that extraterrestrials that show up here someday will be interested mostly in conquering and colonizing us.

Source: https://archive.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/92831654.html/