F-86 intercepts and shoots at saucer-shaped UFO
Date: Summer of 1952
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico.USA
In the summer of 1952 a United States Air Force F-86
jet interceptor shot at a flying saucer. This fact, like so many others that
make up the full flying saucer story has never before been told. I know the
full story about flying saucers and I know that it has never before been told
because I organized and was chief of the Air Force Project Blue Book, the
special project set up to investigate and analyze unidentified flying object,
or UFO reports. (UFO is the official term that I created to replace the words
'flying saucers.")
About ten o'clock in the morning,
one day a few weeks before, a radar near the base had picked up an unidentified
target. It was an odd target in that it came in very fast - about 700 miles per
hour - and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour. The radar showed that
it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area.
Unfortunately the radar station didn't have any height finding equipment. The
operators knew the direction of the target and its distance from the station
but they didn't know its altitude. They reported the target, and two F-86's were
scrambled. The radar picked up the F-86's soon after they were airborne, and
had begun to direct them into the target when the target started to fade on the
radarscope. At the time several of the operators thought that this fade was
caused by the target's losing altitude rapidly and getting below the radar's
beam. Some of the other operators thought that it was a high flying target and
that it was fading just because it was so high. In the debate which followed,
the proponents of the high flying theory won out, and the F-86's were told to
go up to 40,000 feet. But before the aircraft could get to that altitude, the
target had been completely lost on the radarscope. The F-86's continued to
search the area at 40,000 feet, but could see nothing. After a few minutes the
aircraft ground controller called the F-86's and told one to come down to
20,000 feet, the other to 5,000 feet, and continue the search, The two jets
made a quick letdown, with one pilot stopping at 20,000 feet and the other
heading for the deck.
The second pilot, who was going down to 5,000 feet,
was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him.
He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen
the light. As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought
was a weather balloon. A few seconds later be realized that it couldn't be a
balloon because it was staying ahead of him. Quite an achievement for a
balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and now was flying
almost straight and level at 3,000 feet and was traveling "at the
Mach." Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after
the object. He closed fairly fast, until he came to within an estimated 1,000
yards. Now he could get a good look at the object. Although it had looked like
a balloon from above, a closer view showed that it was definitely round and
flat saucer shaped. The pilot described it as being "like a doughnut
without a hole." As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew
that the object was picking up speed. But he pulled in behind it and started to
follow. Now he was right on the deck. About this time the pilot began to get a
little worried. What should he do? He tried to call his buddy, who was flying
above him somewhere in the area at 20,000 feet. He called two or three times
but could get no answer. Next he tried to call the ground controller but he was
too low for his radio to carry that far. Once more he tried his buddy at 20,000
feet, but again no luck. By now he had been following the object for about two
minutes and during this time had closed the gap between them to approximately
500 yards. But this was only momentary. Suddenly the object began to pull away,
slowly at first, then faster. The pilot, realizing that he couldn't catch it,
wondered what to do next. When the object traveled out about 1,000 yards, the
pilot suddenly made up his mind - he did the only thing that he could do to
stop the UFO. It was like a David about to do battle with a Goliath, but he had
to take a chance. Quickly charging his guns, he started shooting. . . . A
moment later the object pulled up into a climb and in a few seconds it was
gone. The pilot climbed to 10,000 feet, called the other F-86, and now was able
to contact his buddy. They joined up and went back to their base.
As soon as he had landed and parked, the F-86 pilot
went into operations to tell his story to his squadron commander. The mere fact
that he had fired his guns was enough to require a detailed report, as a matter
of routine. But the circumstances under which the guns actually were fired
created a major disturbance at the fighter base that day.
..The intelligence officer wrote up his report of a UFO sighting, but at the last minute, just before sending it, he was told to hold it back. He was a little unhappy about this turn of events, so he went in to see why the group commander had decided to delay sending the report to Project Blue Book.
They talked over the possible reactions to the report. If it went out it would cause a lot of excitement, maybe unnecessarily. Yet, if the pilot actually had seen what he claimed, it was vitally important to get the report in to ATIC immediately. The group commander said that he would make his decision after a talk with his executive officer.
They decided not to send the report and ordered it destroyed.
When I finished reading, the intelligence officer's first comment was, "What do you think?"
Since the evaluation of the report seemed to hinge upon conflicts between personalities I didn't know, I could venture no opinion, except that the incident made up the most fascinating UFO report I'd ever seen. So I batted the intelligence officer's question back to him.
"I know the people involved," he replied, "and I don't think the pilot was nuts. I can't give you the report, because the Colonel told me to destroy it. But I did think you should know about it." Later he burned the report.
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
Former Director, Project Blue Book
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