Light Ship Plasma UFOs

UFOs often appear self-luminous, due to the ionization of the air around certain sections (e.g. saucers often glow at the rim) or the whole UFO, i.e. the air surrounding the UFO "lights-up" much like what happens inside a neon-lamp. This luminous ionization of air around the UFO is generally only visible at night/twilight, typically described as an "aura" or "fuzzy haze" of orange/yellow color, and it is also the cause of the "wavy like heat-haze" appearance of UFOs in daylight.

Link - http://www.hyper.net/ufo/overview.html

image source https://youtu.be/LwJlgakb5SI?t=9m47s

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b2/99/c2/b299c2566bad1dcfaa9d34c3d967f4c2.jpg

July 4, 1947; Seattle, Washington
5:45 p.m. Photo by Frank Ryman. U.S. Coast Guard yeoman took first known photograph of UFO, a white circular object which moved across the wind. Photo shows round dot of light.
http://www.nicap.org/chronos/1947fullrep.htm

link - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2589503/1947_frank_ryman_saucer_photo_john/

10/29/57 - USAF Captain, Selma, AL; 10:30PM



"...I was attempting to listen to a portable radio while going to sleep. There was an unusual amount of static, making reception impossible... another person called my attention to an object outside which he said he had been watching for about 5 minutes. At about 25 degrees above the horizon was an ellipsoid [5:1 length:thickness estimated] 150 feet long and 30 feet thick. It was [at an estimated] altitude of 5,000 feet and near two miles away. [It] was a glowing orangeish-red around the perimeter of the profile but gradually blended to a yellow in the center. The effect was much like a color wheel blending from red on the perimeter through orange, to yellow at the center...
"... It began to wobble; slowly at first then more rapidly [up to 15 degrees above and 15 degrees below the centerline]. This lasted for about 10 seconds, then it began to pulsate. The interval of the pulses was 1.5-2 secs. During the pulse, the intensity of the orange color became greater and the entire object became this same color. After pulsating for 20-30 secs, The object began to move slowly... When its bearing had changed about 10 degrees it began to wobble again and the lateral movement stopped. The object... stationary, stopped wobbling and began to pulsate again. This pattern was repeated 4 or 5 times with the object moving, wobbling, stopping, pulsating, then moving again...
"After watching it for a total of more than 20 mins, during which time it had moved through 45 degrees... it began to move away, accelerating, until it was indistinguishable from the stars...
"A flourescent lamp flickered badly while the object was near, but had been working properly earlier... and functioned properly after the object had left the area.
"There was an unusual amount of static on all radios that were checked (5 or 6) while the object was near, which cleared up after the object left.
"It was a clear night with little or no cloud cover. The wind was very light. The object moved from our right to our left, at a 90 degree angle to any wind present.
"The object was observed by at least 5 people.
"Object was observed through binoculars, through windowpane, and with the unaided eye...
"I am a captain in the USAF with a pilot rating and 500 hours of combat."
http://web.archive.org/web/20061110134845/www.temporaldoorway.com/ufo/report/571029.htm

1957-Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. Taken on October 16. This photo was taken by Ella Louise Fortune, a nurse at the Mescalero Indian Reservation near Three Rivers, N. M. She took the pic while driving Highway 54 about 1:30 PM. She stated that the UFO was motionless over Holloman AFB.

Link - http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html

Ella Louise Fortune, who worked as a nurse at the Mescalero Indian Reservation near Three Rivers, New Mexico, took this picture while driving along Highway 54 at about 1:30 PM on 16 October 1957. The UFO was hovering motionless over Holloman Air Force Base.

Link - http://www.icar1.com/HollomanAirForceBase.html
Link - http://www.ufoevidence.org/photographs/section/1950s/photo149.htm

APRO image

UFO Flying Over New Mexico
A UFO variety was photographed when it hovered for fifteen minutes near Holloman Air Development Center in New Mexico. The object was photographed by a government employee and was released by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization after careful study. There is no conventional explanation for the object. Stock Photo ID: U1163254
Date Photographed: October 16, 1957
Model Released: No Release
Property Released: No Release
Location: Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA

Link - http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/U1163254/ufo-flying-over-new-mexico?popup=1
http://www.corbisimages.com/Search#q=ufo&p=2

Edwards AFB Case & Gordon Cooper
McDonald Case # 41 / Project Blue Book Case # 4715
May 2, 1957

Brad Sparks:
May 2, 1957. Edwards AFB, Calif. 6:55-7:20 a.m. (PDT). James D. Bittick and John R. Gettys, Jr., civilian phototheodolite operators, were driving by truck to Askania Site #4 when they sighted an object above them about 500 yards away. They radioed a report to their supervisor Frank Baker who told them to set up the camera and try to film the object, which they did after about 10 mins. They photographed what they described as a golden luminous domed-saucer shaped object with holes or ports around the dome about 100 ft in diameter about 1 mile in the distance to the N headed E (photos show multiple? objects). Available phototheodolite frames 614, 620 and 651 (609 too blurred, cutoff) show azimuth 10°28' elevation 2°24' shifting E to azimuth 40°30' elevation 1°0'. Disappeared at about 5 miles. Possible jet fighter interception. [Possible weather balloon with slow leak, explanation denied by Edwards AFB Colonel Klein (sp?) analyzing actual tracking of balloon and wind direction.] (Tom Tulien; Jan Aldrich; McDonald 1968 pp. 75, 85; Loren Gross Mar-May 1957 pp. 67-68; IUR Oct 2005) 25 mins 2 witnesses 8 Full Moons? photo-theodolite

Link - http://www.nicap.org/edwards570502dir.htm
Link - http://www.nicap.org/edwards570502photos.htm

http://www.nicap.org/images/609s.jpg

http://www.nicap.org/images/614s.jpg

http://www.nicap.org/images/620s.jpg

http://www.nicap.org/images/651s.jpg

Dr. James E. McDonald:

Occasionally, one could argue, UFOs ought to come into areas where there were persons engaged in photographic work, who were trained to react a bit faster, and who would secure some photos. One such instance evidently occurred at Edwards AFB on the morning of 5/3/57 (NICAP note: actually 5/2/57). I have managed to locate and interview three persons who saw the resultant photos. The two who observed the UFO and obtained a number of photos of it were James D. Bittick and John R. Gettys, Jr, both of whom I have interviewed. They were at the time Askania cameramen on the test range, and spotted the domed-disc UFO just as they reached Askania #4 site at Edwards, a bit before 8:00 a.m. that day. They immediately got into communication with the range director, Frank E. Baker, whom I have also interviewed, and they asked if anyone else was manning an Askania that could be used to get triangulation shots. Since no other camera operators were on duty at other sites, Baker told them to fire manually, and they got a number of shots before the object moved off into the distance. Bittick estimated that the object lay about a mile away when they got the first shot, though when first seen he put it at no more than 500 yards off. He and Gettys both said it had a golden color, looked somewhat like an inverted plate with a dome on top, and had square holes or panels around the dome. Gettys thought that the holes were circular not square. It was moving away from them, seemed to glow with its own luminosity, and had a hazy, indistinct halo around its rim, both mentioned. The number of shots taken is uncertain; Gettys thought perhaps 30. The object was lost from sight by the time it moved out to about five miles or so, and they did not .see it again. They drove into the base and processed the film immediately. All three of the men I interviewed emphasized that the shots taken at the closer range were very sharp, except for the hazy rim. They said the dome and the markings or openings showed in the photos. The photos were shortly taken by Base military authorities and were never seen again by the men. In a session later that day, Bittick and Carson were informed that they had seen a weather balloon distorted by the desert atmospheric effects, an interpretation that neither of them accepted since, as they stated to me, they saw weather ballons being released frequently there and knew what balloons looked like. Accounts got into local newspapers, as well as on wire services (Ref. 44). An Edwards spokesman was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "This desert air does crazy things," An INS wire-story said, "intelligence officers at Edwards ... would say almost nothing of the incident."

Discussion. -- I have not seen the photos alleged to have been taken in this incident, I have only interviewed the two who say they took them and a third person who states that he inspected the prints in company with the two Askania operators and darkroom personnel. I sent all of the relevant information on this case to the University of Colorado UFO project, but no checks were made as a result of that, unless done very recently. It would be rather interesting to see the prints.

Source: McDonald p. 85
44. Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1957; New York Journal-American, May 10, 1957.

Link - http://www.nicap.org/edwards570502mcd.htm

For The Record
The Edwards AFB Case & Astronaut Gordon Cooper
By Brad Sparks


The Edwards AFB case is in the Blue Book files Case No. 4715. I don't have a copy but Tom Tulien and others do. McDonald discussed it in his 1968 House Science & Astronautics UFO Symposium testimony (in the long submitted document of best cases, Case 41, pp. 75, 85). That's where I first heard of it. McDonald found out because he was speaking in northern California and met Frank Baker who was the supervisor of Bittick and Gettys (not Cooper whom they knew nothing about). See McDonald's presentation (the actual date was May 2 not 3).

McDonald's Presentation

I really do not think there were two separate cases, one involving Gordon Cooper. Cooper's reference to a "camera crew" means they had the camera, and Bittick and Gettys said it was the Askania at Site #4.

Cooper made up a story years later and claimed HE sent the camera crew out. The camera crew and their actual boss (Baker) said they never heard of Cooper!

Bittick and Gettys said it got as close as 500 yards which makes it a borderline CE case. Bittick and Gettys said they radioed their report as it happened in order to try to get other camera crews onto it for triangulation but no one else was set up or manning the other sites -- it was 6:55 AM, and they had gotten there early because their boss Frank Baker had sent them out early (they later, with McDonald, wrongly remembered it was just before 8 AM presumably because that is when tracking operations were normally supposed to begin and other camera crews did not get in place until just before 8 so at 6:55-7:20 there was nobody else to track it).

The case is in the Blue Book files. Moreover there is an analysis by a Col. Klein (Kline?) at Edwards AFB in the BB file that destroys the balloon explanation and rejects it based on the known tracking of the balloon.

Cooper was a nobody in 1957!!! His name wouldn't have meant beans to anyone then! He wasn't selected for the Mercury program until 1959 -- two years later.

The case was published a week after it happened, in the LA TIMES of May 9, 1957, (and in an INS wire service dispatch then) long before Cooper came along. Cooper did not reveal the case or blow the lid on any coverup. If anything Cooper has almost ruined the case.

The most likely explanation is a storytelling mentality of exaggerating roles and details, where no one can predict in advance how much alteration the story will get. Cooper probably did see the film and got a garbled story second or third or nth-handed and exaggerated it even more in his mind in the retelling to juice it up.

But there may be more to it than just embellishment. Cooper's exaggeration of a real case, falsely turning it into a filmed landing with landing gear retracting on takeoff, is very similar to the pattern of Air Force OSI fabrications of other real UFO cases with false landings and aliens using AF officers usually at about the rank of Colonel and designed to discredit the case (Bentwaters 1980 is the classic). Cooper was an AF officer and I think retired at rank of full Colonel. Cooper first came out with his phony story about 1978, exactly when AFOSI began a new wave of fabricated UFO stories in an effort to head off what was feared to be another massive UFO flap, this time triggered by the blockbuster CEIII movie.

Edwards AFB like White Sands was a test range and not a 24/7 air defense base. Radars were turned on in the mornings for test range activities and turned off at the end of a work day, typically 8-5 operations, a work day, no reason to keep going after 5, everyone's tired and wanting to go home, and no reason to start up in the night either unless a special project required it. Hence there were probably no radars on at 6:55-7:20 AM. However if there was a jet interception attempted it was done visually and most likely it was done too late, and the object was gone. Again it was not an air defense base, no jets were fueled and ready on "strip alert," it would have taken time to get a jet ready and up in the air before the day's operations (had the incident taken place after jets were fueled and ready, in mid-day some time, then a faster jet response could have been undertaken, or a jet might have been in the air already, etc.).

Cooper's born-again ETH-belief seems to emerge out of nowhere about 1978.

Link - http://www.nicap.org/edwards570502sparks.htm

Askania Cinetheodolite is a camera-based system that measures and records azimuth, elevation, and time data on 35mm film along with an image of a target. Multiple cinetheodolites generally operated together and each system is slewed in azimuth and elevation to track the target. The Askania systems typically operate at one frame per second and are synchronized by a central timing system to fire at the same instant. At the end of a tracking mission the rolls film from each site are photographically developed. Data is extracted from the film frames, and the data from each frame is processed to resolve the target's position in 3D.

Link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askania

Film Data reportedly analyzed by USAF, but never released to public [See Section VIII]: Apr. 27, 1950; White Sands, N.M., Cine-theodolite film of UFO, also observed visually. May 29, 1950; White Sands, Cine-theodolite films (2) of one or more UFOs, also observed visually. July 14, 1951; White Sands, Movie film (35 mm) of UFO, also seen visually, tracked on radar. Sept. 20, 1952; North Sea, three color photographs taken on board an aircraft carrier. Aug.12, 1953, Rapid City, S.D., gun camera film of UFO also seen visually, tracked on radar. Aug. 31, 1953; Port Moresby, New Guinea, movie film of UFO taken by aviation official. May 24, 1954; nr Dayton, Ohio, photograph of circular UFO taken by Air Force photo reconnaissance plane.

Link - http://www.nicap.org/ufoe/section_9.htm

http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/history/PSL_HISTORY_1/PSL_HISTORY_18.html

The Loch Raven Dam Incident, 1958




On October 26, 1958 at 10:30 PM, near the Loch Raven Dam, north of Baltimore, Maryland, two men were traveling in a car. As they approached a bridge, they saw what appeared to be a flattened out, egg-shaped object hovering approximately 100-150 feet from the top of the bridge.

Slowing their vehicle to get a better look, they approached to about 75 foot from the bridge. Suddenly, their car went completely dead. The two men stated that it was like they just cut the key off. Nothing electrical worked. The driver attempted to restart the engine, but to no avail.

The object and the malfunction of their vehicle frightened the men to the point that they hid behind their car. They were able to closely watch the UFO for 30-45 seconds. All at once, the object flashed a white light, causing the two witnesses to feel heat on their faces. The flash was accompanied by a loud sound, like thunder.

The UFO now began to slowly rise straight up. It was extremely bright as it did, causing the edge of the object to be fuzzy. Within 5-10 seconds the object was out of sight. The men were then able to restart their car, and rush to the nearest phone to report their sighting. The Ground Observor Corp was contacted first, but did not respond. The men then talked to the Towson Police Department, which sent two patrolmen to the scene.

The two men soon began to experience a burning sensation on their skin, and went to St. Joseph's Hospital in Baltimore for treatment. They were examined, and each man returned to his own home.

Follow-up investigation would reveal some more details of the incident. The bridge was double-arched, about 40 foot tall, and 500 feet long. The distance from the witnesses to the object was estimated at about 3/4 of a mile. Also, there was no unusual atmospheric conditions at the time, and the skies were clear.

Project Blue Book investigated the case, but found no absolute cause for the appearance of the object. The case remains unidentified, although the Air Force did state that the object constituted no security threat to the United States.

The two witnesses would subsequently be identified as Phillip Small and Alvin Cohen.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/1958lockravendam.html

https://www.google.com/search?q=Loch+Raven+Dam

http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/dam.jpg

"1956-Canada-A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot while flying at an altitude of about 11 km saw and photographed a very bright, disc-like object that was remaining stationary near a thunderhead. An analysis of the photograph suggests that it would have been radiating in excess of a gigawatt of power within the spectral range of the film."

Link - http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html
Link - http://www.nicap.org/560827alberta_dir.htm

From a letter to Dr.James McDonald, June 12, 1968: “I don’t know whether I mentioned this to you but the photo of the bright object doesn’t represent quite what appeared to the naked eye. When I first saw the object it appeared as a very bright, clearly defined discoid, like a silver dollar lying on its side. The photo makes it look like a blob of light, the result of light intensity. It appeared much brighter than that (sic) of the sun which, of course was setting behind the clouds up ahead. What appears in the Kodachrome slide is a disappointment, really.”

Link - http://brumac.8k.com/RJC/RJC.html

Sturrock Panel report:

Case #I occurred on August 27, 1956, near McCleod, Alberta, Canada. The witnesses were two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots who were flying in a formation of four F86 Sabre jet aircraft. The planes were flying due west over the Canadian Rockies at 36,000 feet about one hour before sunset.

One of the pilots saw a "bright light which was sharply defined and disk-shaped," that resembled "a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal," situated below the planes but above a thick layer of clouds. It appeared to be considerably brighter than sunlight reflecting off the clouds. The duration of the sighting was estimated to be between 45 seconds and 3 minutes.

The first pilot to notice the object reported the observation to the flight leader and then took a photograph on a Kodachrome color slide. This case and this photograph were subsequently analyzed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee (Maccabee, 1996). Maccabee has presented an argument against the propositions that the phenomenon is due either to reflection of sunlight by the clouds or to lightning. From the available data, Maccabee estimates the luminosity of the object (the power output within the spectral range of the film) to be many megawatts.

Link - http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_12_2_sturrock.pdf

This may explain why we didn’t see the orange glow reported by several eyewitnesses in Santa Monica and Culver City, where the object was apparently much lower.

https://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/02/eyewitness-account-of-battle-of-los.html

in the fall of 1995, a US Air Force officer had a shocking UFO encounter in the Arctic Circle. Learn how it may have been connected to Cold War UFO sightings, in this clip from Season 2, "UFOs vs. Nukes"