Incident · 17 July 1957 · Over Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma (closest pursuit northwest of Fort Worth, Texas)
RB-47 shadowed by a light and a radar source over the southern U.S. (17 July 1957)
Also known as RB-47 case, RB-47 UFO case, RB-47 incident, Condon Case 5
Partly explained. Project Blue Book's record card marks the case “Was Aircraft”, identified as American Airlines flight 655, but Air Defense Command carried it as unknown, the Condon study found it unidentified, and Philip Klass's later explanation (ground radars and a meteor), which the pilot accepted, is a private analysis.
Before dawn on 17 July 1957 an RB-47H electronic-reconnaissance aircraft of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing from Forbes AFB, Kansas, commanded by Maj. Lewis D. Chase, was flying from the Gulf of Mexico back across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Its ECM operators picked up an S-band radar signal that behaved like an airborne source; the pilot and co-pilot saw a brilliant light cross ahead of them, and later red lights northwest of Dallas–Fort Worth, which they chased. The wing's message says the ground radar site "Utah" (Duncanville) confirmed a target where the crew reported one, and lost it when they did. The signal followed the aircraft until it was abeam Oklahoma City.
Air Defense Command could offer no explanation and carried the case as unknown, and an Air Technical Intelligence Center analyst found it hard "to conclude that nothing was present". Yet Blue Book's record card marks it "Was Aircraft", citing American Airlines flight 655, the airliner in a separate near-miss near El Paso the same night. Ten years later the Condon study, given only the crew's recollections and told Blue Book had no file, called it unidentified. James McDonald then found the contemporary reports, and his 1971 article in Astronautics & Aeronautics presented it as unexplained.
Philip Klass answered in late 1971 that the signals came from the CPS-6B air-defence radars at Biloxi and Duncanville, the first light was a meteor, and the ground-radar target may have been an airliner. The pilot told Klass he accepted this. Klass's paper and the pilot's comment are on file, but they are a private analysis, not an Air Force finding.
Sources: Project Blue Book case file "Forbes AFB, Kansas, July 1957" (NARA, T1206 roll 28): 55th SRW message, ADC and ATIC correspondence, record card, Klass's 1971 paper · Condon Report, Case 5
Facts and claims
- documented The 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing's message to SAC headquarters, amplifying the CIRVIS report, says that an ECM operator of an RB-47H on a track planned from Meridian, Mississippi, to Waco, Texas, first intercepted an S-band signal (2,995–3,000 Mc) near Meridian that moved rapidly up his direction-finding scope, indicating an airborne source; at 1010Z the aircraft commander saw a very intense white light with a light blue tint cross in front of the aircraft, which the co-pilot also saw. Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented The same message says that when the crew reported the object 10 nautical miles northwest of Fort Worth, “ADC SITE UTAH IMMEDIATELY CONFIRMED PRESENCE OF OBJECT ON THEIR SCOPES”; the object appeared to stop, the aircraft overshot, and Utah and the ECM operator lost it together, then regained it as the aircraft turned. As the RB-47 closed to about 5 nautical miles, the object appeared to drop to about 15,000 feet and was lost visually and on the ground radar. Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented The wing's intelligence officer concluded: “55SRW DOI HAS NO DOUBT THE ELECTRONIC D/F'S COINCIDED EXACTLY WITH VISUAL OBSERVATIONS BY A/C NUMEROUS TIMES THUS INDICATING POSITIVELY THE OBJECT BEING THE SIGNAL SOURCE.” Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented Air Defense Command forwarded the crew's papers to the Air Technical Intelligence Center on 17 October 1957, writing that it was “unable to offer any explanation for the sighting” and was carrying it as unknown. Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented An Air Technical Intelligence Center electronics analyst wrote on 30 October 1957 that the intercepted signals were similar to those of a CPS-6B ground radar, that “This office knows of no S-band airborne equipment having the characteristics outlined”, and that while no determination was possible, “it is difficult to conclude that nothing was present, in the face of the visual and other data presented.” Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented Project Blue Book's record card files the case under 17 July 1957, Forbes AFB, Kansas / Oklahoma City / Fort Worth, with the conclusion “Was Aircraft” and the comment “Identified as American Airlines flight 655.” The Civil Aeronautics Administration letter in the same file, however, concerns a different near-miss that night near El Paso, in which American Airlines flight 655 was the airliner that saw the object (identified as American flight 966). Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- documented The Condon study's Case 5, built from the recollections of the pilot, co-pilot and an ECM operator ten years later and dated only “Fall 1957”, reports that “Project Blue Book had no record of it” and that ten plasma specialists found a plasma explanation “not tenable”; it concludes that “The phenomenon remains unidentified.” Source: files.ncas.org (archived)
- claimed In Case 5 the pilot interviewed (not named there) recalled that the light crossed in front of the plane faster than any aircraft and “appeared to the pilot to be a glowing body as big as a barn”. Source: files.ncas.org (archived)
- claimed McDonald called it “a case in which the reported phenomena appear to defy explanation in terms of either natural or technological phenomena” (AAAS symposium, Boston, 27 December 1969, as quoted in Klass's 1971 paper). — James E. McDonald Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- claimed Philip Klass's 1971 paper, a copy of which is in the Blue Book file, says that were it not for McDonald “locating the original reports in the UFO archives at Maxwell AF Base, Ala.”, the case would remain inexplicable, because the crew's recollections had drifted from the contemporary reports. Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- claimed Klass concluded that the S-band signal “actually came from radars of this type at Biloxi and Duncanville”, that the first light “had all the earmarks of a bright meteor”, and that the Duncanville radar's unknown target may have been American Airlines flight 966 approaching Love Field; he conceded that identifying the later lights 14 years on was “a hopeless task”. Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
- claimed Asked by Klass to comment on his draft, the pilot thanked him for “giving me a plausible explanation for the events that happened to my crew” and wrote: “I do not believe any UFO was emitting these signals.” — Lewis D. Chase Source: doc-bluebook-rb47-1957.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- Project Blue Book case file: Forbes AFB, Kansas, July 1957 (RB-47) (documented in)
- COMETA report: UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For? (1999) (discussed in)
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (Condon Report, 1968) (analysed by) — Case 5: “The phenomenon remains unidentified.”
Programs
- Project Blue Book (investigated by) — Blue Book's record card: “Identified as American Airlines flight 655”
Incidents
- RAF Manston F-86D ordered to fire on a radar UFO over East Anglia (similar to) — The same year: a USAF crew and ground radar on one target that disappeared as the aircraft closed
People
- James E. McDonald (investigated by) — Klass credits him with “locating the original reports in the UFO archives at Maxwell AF Base”
- Lewis D. Chase (witnesses) — The aircraft commander; ADC asked him to complete an Airborne Observer's Data Sheet
Videos
Mentioned in this file
- National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Organization)
- Condon Committee (University of Colorado UFO Project) (Program)
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
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