PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD 1. DATE 2. .LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS 13 Octobe r 1958 3. DATETIME GROUP 1 5 Mi S of Camero11, .C. TYPE OF OBSERVATION f~r i ZOll~. ~ Wos Balloon Probably Balloon Possibly Balloon 0 Ground-Visual 0 Was Aircroh 0 Probabl y Aircraft 0 GroundRodor GMT l4/U220Z C~i .... Visuol 0 Air-Intercept Rodor Possibly Aircraft 7. LENGTH OF.OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS . 9~ COURSE 3 secnnd s 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING Elongated cy1 inder shai: 2d O')J. T:::.-' core was r~d f o 1 1 ow ad by \:.'ld. l :.-'-., drawn b y u. ~ l:>.s h . ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SE P 52) 11. COMMENTS .0\: Was Astronomical:.:'"::'c e o r 0 Probably Astronomical 0 Possibly Astronomical 0 Insufficient Doto for Evaluation 0 Unkno wn MEMO ROUTING SLIP NEVI ' FOR APPROVALS. DISAPPROVALS, a. JRRNCS, OR SIMILAR ACTION.S 1 NA~tE OR TITLE INITIALS CIRCULATE L. J. Tacker ORGANIZATION AND LOCATION OAT COORDINATION INFORMATION Larr,-\'le h&Te had no report., either official or unofficial, ot the incident in Indiana. FROM NAME OR TITLE Ted Hieatt~g ,.- ORGANI ZATION AND I.OCATION AFCIN-4Xo: FORM 9 5 R eplacq DA AOO Form 805, 1 Apr 48, and AFIIQ e68-J&-74067-I o~o t FEB 50 Form 1,, 10 Nov 47, wbloh DlaJ' be usC!d . ltt>rinl o ol h )' ~l'<'l'ia I t><omi;;,jun from ''Fatt" M :Ul"' hu llniohntlfil lh i m: OIJ'I'I ' u,._,.nnh C'ummilh'<'. llo' r,:.! 1:.!, Al.run t ::, Ohiv Cecil Bridge, fireman on No. 91, waa one of train crew who watched UFO' He Is a former Air Force man with <450 hours of hoovy bombe r tim~ and knows what planes look like . "We see planes every night , fats of the m," Bridge In "Those were not a lrplanesl" BUZZES TRAIN The Crew of Monon No. 91 had strange company on their way to Indianapolis-four companionable, curious UFO's WITNESSES IN D anville, Ill., saw .the things to the east as oving lights. They paused occasionally to dart away in a dif- ferent direction. \Vitnesses nea r Kokomo saw them as elliptical lighted objects that streak ed in from the north at treetop level, hovered for a few sec- onds and then darted away, single file, to the west. The train crew on Monon south~ bound freight Number 91 saw the UFO's best of all. For them it was a night to remember . As usual Number 91 was en from Monon, in north central Indiana, to Indianapolis. A t:FO BUZZES TR:\I)i about have touch ed edges so they must have been somewhere a round 4 0 ieet across the bottom." I n answer to a q uestion Bridge ' ' \\"e had flashli~hts in the en- and in the ca boose. l:p on the head end of the t rain-in the en- gine where I w as-we blinked our flashlights at t he things and we wa\ed the lights. \\'e t hought we might get them to come in closer. They did come down over the train a few minutes later, as Robinson t old y ou, but, of course, I can' t say t bev di d it because we flashed the lights a t them. At any rate th ey flash any lights back at us." Robinson sa id , " I n the caboose we had a five cell sealed beam flashligh t that throws a p re t ty good beam a long ways. When th e things came down and flew r ight up the tracks behind the caboose, I grab- bed t hat sealed beam flashli!!ht and sh ined it on t hem. As soon as t he light hit t hem they j umped sideways out of the beam . \\'hen t hey got back over the t racks I did it again and they scattered . T hey acted like they didn't care for that li gh t at all . " F rom the t ime Bridge first call- ed us on the radio until the last saw them nc=tr Kirklin (about 38 miles northwest of I n- d ianapoli s) it was about a n hour and 1 0 minut es altogether. They ung around the back end of the t rain but after we shined the light on them they didn't come in close a ny more. While we were switch ing Frankfort they stayed away b:.tck up the t racks, just hovered there, until we moved on. Then they followed us again. When they finall y went away a t Kirklin they j ust zipped off to the nortbe:.lSt and k ept on going and we didn 't see a m more." It was an ast ounding experien~e the train crew of Monon Number 9 1 had undergone during tha t bee- t ic h our a nd ro minu~es as the ht lumbered across the H oo- sier prairie. And it was impor tant , t oo, in the a nnals of such for its duration and beouse the ts gave evidence of intelligent ntrol by dodging away from the flashligh t beams. television interview with Ceci l Bridge and Edward R obin- got on the newswires that same On t he foll owing day they, along with the other members of t he tra in crew, were t1;0tified by Monon offi- cb ls tv keep quiet if they saw any similar objects in the future. Bunk- er Hill :\ir F or ce base n ear K oko- mo, ab out 30 miles east of the scene th is sighting, h=td asked the rail- to contact the base at once should s uch objects again appear. According to officials of t at Lafayette, the B unker Hill AF base has installed a special line to the dispatchers office in Lafayette, where the train radio signals are monitored, and Bunker Hill has urged the train crew to be especial- ly watchful between three and four o 'clock in the morning. UFO s SERIOUS BUS !NESS {Excerpt from statement issued by the Defense Department, December 24, 1959) Unidentified flying objects -sometimes treated lightly by the press and referred to as .. fl~ing saucers" -must be rapidly and accurately identified as serious USAF business in the zone of Interior. As AFR 200-2 points out, the Air Force concern with these sightings is threefold: First a.f all, is the object a threat to the de- fense of the U.S.? Secondly, does it con- t r ibut e to t echnical o r scientific know- ledge? And then there's inherent USAF responsibility to explain to the American p eople through public information media what is going on in their skies. The phe nomena or actual objects comprising UFO's will t end to increase , with the pub- lic more aware of goings on in space but still incline d to some a pprehension. Tech- nical and defense considerations will con- t inue to exist in this area. Wha t is r equired is that every UFO sight- ing be investigate d and r e p orte d to the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB and that explanation to the public be realistic and knowledge- moments after three in the morn- ing of October 3, 1958, the adven- ture began .... In the cab of the diesel locomo- tive were three men-Harry Eck- man, the engineer, Cecil Bridge, the fireman, and Morris Ott, the head brakeman. Cecil Bridge, a former Air Force man with 450 hours of heavy bomber time, tells the story: "It was about 20 minutes after three in the morning-Friday morning, October 3rd. We had just pulled past a little spot ca lled \Vas- co. There's no town there-just a kind of crossroads. It was there we first noticed the four lights in the sky ahead of us. They were moving lights. At first they looked like stars but we realized thev weren't stars because they were moving- we could see that. "They were moving in a sort of open V formation. By that I mean tha t there was no light at the for- ward point of the flight, just the two a wings" with two lights in each "wing"-angled off at about 45 de- grees from each other. I must have spotted them first. After I bad watched them for about I 5 sec- onds l called them to the attention of the other men in the cab with me. The engineer was Harry Eck- man. and our head brakeman was Morris Ott. They watched the lights, too. "I am familiar with planes and with their operations, both as a flier and an observer. \Ve all are all of us on the trai n. We see planes every night, lots of them. These things were not planes! "About that time the lights veer- ed west. They crossed the tracks ahead of the train-about a half a mile ahead of us, we estimated. They were moving pretty slowly, too, at not more than about so miles an hour. Four big, white, soft "Just the three of us in the en- gi~e Mr. Eckman, the engineer, Morris Ott and I saw the lights at this time. \Ve were pulling 56 cars-that's a little more than half a mile of cars-and because of the angle at which these things were approaching and because they were so low right then, the boys in the caboose probably couldn't see them. "After the lights crossed the tracks in front of us they stopped and came back. This time they were headed east. They shot off to- ward the east and were gone a few minutes-out of sight-but when they came back and we all saw them again I turned on the micro- phone. \Ve have radio between the engine and the caboose. I turned on the microphone and called the boys in the caboose and told them what we were watching. "The conductor was Ed Robin son and the flagman was Paul Sos- UFO BUZZES TRAIN bey, both of Indianapolis. I talked to Robinson and told him what we bad seen. During the time we watched these things, from \Vasco to Kirklin, we did a lot of talking on that radio. The dispatcher in Lafayette could bear us, of course, but be never cut in. The boys in the caboose got the best look at the things, especially when they came right down over the whole train." (The train crew decided nol to report their utzusual experience to Air Force in order to avoid be- i1lg sub jccted to ridicule. But Bridge and Robi~Zson felt that tile incident desened to be made known so they conse11ted to be interviewed on Friday night, October 3, O'lJer an Indianapolis t elevision statio11.) During the course of that inter- view Conductor Robinson said: "I was sitting in the cupola, looking forward over the train when Bridge called me on the radio. I had already noticed the four gobs of light but I couldn't make out what they were. They were half a mile ahead of the caboose-the whole length of the train. A little bit after he called me the things went away and we didn't see them for a few minutes ... then all of a su dden they came back. "This time they came down over the train, a little way in back of the engine. They were coming to- ward the caboose. That is, they were going north and the train was headed directly south. "I'd say they were only a couple of hundred feet above the train as they came toward the caboose. ADd they weren't moving very fast- maybe 30 or 40 miles an aour. It was hard to tell-a feHow just doesn't notice details like that uc~ der the circumstances. "The freight train is pretty noisy, of course, but I dido 't hear any other noise, like the roar an airplane would have made. I think they were silent, or nearly silent, at " They flew over us one after the other-big, round white things that looked about the color of ftuores- cent lights, kind of fuzzy around the edges. They didn't glare crnd they didn't li~bt up things as they went over. They just came back toward us, over the top of the cars, one after the other. Then they went on down the tracks maybe another half a mile and seemed to stop. "Me and Sosbey went out on the back platform where we could see them better. But they were get- ting pretty far behind us. We could see their lights but I don't remem- ber whether they were bunched up or not. They were just there, we know that. \Ve could see them be- hind us, right over the tracks. "Then they swung off away from the tracks and went fast-very fast -to the east. 'When they picked up speed their light got a lot brighter. They got real bright and white- like stars, but a lot b igger and mov ing very fast." Cecil Bridge, observing the same objects from tl1e engine describes what be and the engineer and head brakeman saw: "When these things shot back over to the east of us they lit up much brighter tha n they were be fore. They turned in line, going north or northeast and we not iced that they lit up in seq uence-the front one first, the n number two, three and four. The y changed and came back past the train. They were going in tlle oppo site direction to us when they made this pass. I guess they were at least a mile or two east of us when they "They lit up twice like I told you; first number one would light up, then number two and so on . . They did that twice as they went past us travelling in the opposite direction. We noticed , too, that their color changed. When the first lit up they were bright white but when they slowed <lown the color changed t.o a kind of yellow, then to orange when they went real slow -a kind of dirty orange." Robinson agreed with this de- scription. He added: "We didn't see them from the back end of the train for several minutes after they went away to the east and turned. But the boys in the engine were still seeing them. I got back on the radio with H ridge and he was w:ttching them right then. They must ht\\'C circled the train and gone north of us, real low, the next t ime we saw them they came ru~hing up lhc tracks right in back of us. They were com- ing a lot faster this time-a lot ster tha n they had come back over the train the first time. "They were just above the tree- tops along the right of way, and they had changed their way o f fly ing-their formation. T his t ime they were sort of flying on edge. Two of them were on edge-the two in the middle. The two on the outside were tilted at an a ngle both the same direction. The four of them flew like that up the tracks behind the train-a tilted one on the east, two of them straight up and down, then the one on the west tilted just like the one on the east. "When they firs t came b ack over the train we could see that they were round things-circul a r shaped on the bottom, Then when they flew up the tracks in back of us we could see me and Sosbey-that they were about 40 feet in diameter and maybe ro feet thick. The two that were flying straight up and down were just about over the edges of the right of way and about 200 yards in back of the cal.Joose. If they had been flying flat ~own instead of edgewise they wou1d just Dear }.1r. This is to acknowledge your letter of 16 March 1959 con cerning unidentified flying objects, particularly an Indiana sighting of 3 October 1958. The United States Air Force bas no record of this sighting. c r::. onfC~ Sincerely, LA\lRENCE J. TACKER MaJor, USAF Executive Officer Public Information Division Office ot Information Services No Case (Information Only) 6 October 1958 Cliffside Park, New Jersey A good sighting wae -.de on. Oct. 6th in C11ff1de fark, N. J., whioh is the noighbo~inG town to Fort Lee. Tbr.-e. tree t~urgeona frorD nearby River F.dgo went out. on . l i.rJ.b and joi1~ct the ranke of UFO ob~ervers. According to their story, th~y woro ~t.ching & jot plQne whan two round objects resembling tonn1 brt.lla COrD$ int.o sight. U~l~.ka tM jet, .th& UFO.'e.left no vnpor trails. Aleo, thoy wore r;o1n6 at about thit~e: \he apted ot the jet, and vr in forroation. 'l'hty remrtine<1 in stght fet i\CO minute No Case (Information Only) 6 October 1958 Stephensburg, Kentucky lJ.!tllUJ IN KENTt'C K't: A sbUC$T la11ded in e. rur&l areu. n~a r Sttnh,ne- burg, K"ntuckj, la9t Octobor 6th, and \1!\!1 witn'ls~ed by 1\ Hre. _ She looked out or her kitchen " i ndow at about 6 a.m., and aav a eilvor-color~d objoet si~ting i n a nearby field. She thoucht a~ first it wR hor hu~bandts pick-up truck, and for,ot about 1t. But th~ object stAyed ,n. At 8-~0 Mrs . Ce- vore lookod a~in, and it was still there. Curloua by now, ahe callod a neieh- bor e.nd askod him to inves tigtt te. The noJ.hbor fl~rted into the fiold, tu.t he got to within about ~00 yarda of' tho object, it started rolling alor,g tho ground and th~n took off, going klmost ~traight up. !he UFO wa s deocribed as trio.x1gula.r in shape, looking much like an ice cream cone. It was about tlto siz~ cf a pick-up truck, and had short stubby wings ti1at moved back and forth as 1 t took off. It had no propeller and made no noiee. After leaving t.ho ground, the obj~ct ho~ored over the fi~ld for anothr ~5 minut~a. !~11 wheol marks were round At th apot "her t.ho ellucer ~d rolled nlong the g:-our1d DATE I LOCATION . 14-3l.OCTOBER 1958 SIGUTINGS 14 Calhoun, Louisiana 14 Rockford, .tr1ichigan 14 Custer AFS, Michigan 14 Maysville, Lexington, Budkley, ~ 14 Dayton, Ohio 15 Montevideo, Uruguay 15 Greenwood Lake, New Jersey 16 Resolution Island, Canada . : 17 . Olympic National Park; Washington 17 ; Grand Rapids, tchigan ~ 17 New York, New York . , 19 Dayton, Ohio 19 Weoatehee, Washington 19 .Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 20 ~ Sweetvateti, Texas 20 ; Kerrville Valverde, Tems 21 ~ Dayton, Ohio 21 ' ... Karlaruke; Germany 21 NE of ~razil (Atlantic) 22 Soap l.Jlke Washington . 22 Midland, Texas 25 Oklahoma City, Okla, Gulf' of Mexico Multi DR25 Yucca Valley, California 27 Uniondale, Pennsylvania 27 LJck Raven Dam, Maryland( .f.,h}Pr 28 Florida, South Cerolina,'Georgia 29 Montevideo, Uruguay 29 Eddyville, Broken Bow,. Miller, Neb Multi 30 Oblong, Illincis 30 Kettering, Ott1.o 31 Uruguay CIOVI 31 Put In Bay, Lake E:-:. ~ 31 Uruguay . 31 Caledon East, Ont~o, Canada 31 Long Beach, N~w Yo~k Oct -Nov USSR/Finland ( is.!l:;j) . ADDITIONAL REPORTED SIGHTINGS (Ncn' CASES) Eastern Washington Disne,yland, California Stayton & Mill City, Oregon Science tle..rs Ltr Newsclipping Newsclipping Newsclipping EVALUATION Astra (t1ETEO~) Astro (METEOR) Insufficient Data