SUBJECT: ELINT VS. UFO FILE: UFO2403
Possessing the most sophisticated electronic intelligence (ELINT) gear
available to the U.S. Air Force, the RB-47 could handle anything.
Unfortunately, in the morning hours of July 17, 1957, over the southern United
States, and RB-47 came across something it was unprepared for.
In the first hint of what was to come, one of the three officers who operate
the electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment detected an odd signal. Moving
up the radar screen, the blip passed some distance in front of the RB-47, then
over Mississippi. Though puzzled, he said nothing. However, a few minutes
later, at 4:10 A.M., the sudden appearance of an intense blue light bearing
down on the aircraft shook the pilot and copilot. Even more unnerving, the
object changed course in the blink of an eye and disappeared at the two
o'clock position. The aircraft radar picked up a strong signal in the same
spot. The UFO maintained this position even as the RB-47 continued toward east
Texas.
The pilot then observed a "huge" light, attached, he suspected, to an even
bigger something that the darkness obscured. When the electronics gear noted
the presence of another UFO in the same general location as the first, the
pilot turned the plane and accelerated toward it. The UFO shot away. By now
the crew had alerted the Duncanville, Texas, Air Force ground radar station,
and it was soon tracking the one UFO that remained (the second had disappeared
after a brief time). At 4:50 radar showed the UFO abruptly stopping as the RB-
47 passed under it. Barely seconds later it was gone.
This incredible case - considered one of the most significant UFO encounters
ever - remained classified for years. When it became known years later, the
Air Force declared that the RB-47 crew had tracked an airliner. Physicist
Gordon David Thayer, who investigated the incident for the University of
Colorado UFO Project, called this explanation "literally ridiculous."
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* THE U.F.O. BBS -
http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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