Person
Lim Byeong-seon
Also known as Lim Byung-sun, 임병선, Maj. Gen. Lim
- Major General, Republic of Korea Air Force (reserve); colonel and squadron commander in 1980
- F-4 Phantom pilot, Republic of Korea Air Force
Lim Byeong-seon is a retired major general of the Republic of Korea Air Force and a former F-4 Phantom pilot. In 1980, as a colonel commanding a squadron based at Daegu, he flew one of two Phantoms whose four crew watched an unidentified luminous object for about forty minutes on the night of 31 March, during the Korea–U.S. Team Spirit exercise.
He told the story in a JTBC documentary broadcast on 31 July 2016 (Spotlight), and appears in the Korean documentary film UFO Sketch (2021). By his account, the object was not on radar, stopped and rose vertically to 33,000 feet, and was the size of three Phantoms, and the sighting was reported to the Air Force's commanders and to the U.S. Air Force.
Sources: Korea JoongAng Daily (2016) · Market Economy News (2017) · Cho Gab-je (2021), citing Monthly Chosun (1992)
Connected files
Incidents
- Republic of Korea Air Force Phantoms encounter (witness) — He flew one of the two F-4 Phantoms that circled the object on the night of 31 March 1980