PROJECT 10073 R.~CORD 6 Februarj 66 JO. CONCLUSION U:IIDENTIF t e:o 46. NUMBER OF OBJECTS Nederlard, Texas 5. LENGTH OF Oa5eRVATION 11. aRI EF SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS . . ~- -1 0 Einutes 6. TYPE OF OO.SERVA}fON Ground-Visual 9. PHYSICAL EVI DENCE SZS CASE FILE PNYloua .dltlotU or thle ro,. _, be uaed. UNIDENTIFIED FLYING oDJ ECTS INFOHl-1ATION SHEET 1. Answers to tha following quaotions \.ztll be obtained from persons calling in regard to th~ observance of a n unldenLlfied fl..ying object (UFO). If person refuses to give answers to )a, do not complete report. 2. Complete Information Sheet in d .!plicata .1nd forward to .BDO. Siz~ (compare to dime, quarter, basebalL, basketball, or larger. item) Was ~here a tail, vapor trail, or exhaus t7 ;i.i/ A J''l \Vhat ~alled attention to the observer ~ < ~dar.uj \-that angle and elevation was the ctt)l1 (U.u 1: object on first observance. What angle and elevation was the ~as the flight path e any maneuvers of object (to north o.f the object. now did the object disappear (instantly~ t o the north, no direction, ale.) How long was the object visible (5 min, 1 hour, How was the object obssrved (naked eye, radar, telescc)pe;-'SinocuTa.'r s"';et:c--:-r- lv' tt~ ~y.f ~1eath9r \::a~r day, hazy, T~mpera 9s of dny (80, OTHER-nrFOfu'1ATION not. ans-....rere d above: 5 . Thank call e r fot jnform~tjon, blil:. d o nnt. pl'O';"JL;0 .. ,ha n "t'\.,tu rr: cvll ~.J !ll h o m.hi to confirn nor clony tho ob rv~n,:c of Lha at>j~,r~. .Arli:.~ton, Va Dear .Sirs; I have hesitated, to \~rite to you office s f or sev e r a l :l0!1:cb.s; .Hov;eve.c, I !1e.ve decided that I iLl~ :it do so, becz.use the formation, that I have ~ay be of scme value to your . resa-=..:och. -~though, the i~oroation is several months pact due, it r:..'2..:' still oe of ve.lue. he reason, I ~eve hesitated to contact your office is because of all the o~d publicity that a person seems to get v:he!'l !'le does contact you. :Wet me state, t~2-t I do .not .iiSh to r eceive c.ny p,.lblic notice a."'ld wish to ~e:Luin anon:,-mous on this matter If you have a ::'2)resenta.ti ve, who will be in this area c....1C. ;:_:..o can call on -::s without much expense to your office: I will be .most hau-o-.,.--vo talk with him. :.:y regular dt..::~ ::>::.f from v;orJ{ is Wednesday and Sundays, pleasB notify ma e~d of time~ I have discuss~d this matter only ~ith t~o men, and at the ti::.e of sightir..g . One, a promina.f'l.t manager in our a.rca, and t!'".e other my :;>astor. I hope that t:~is letter will not be received in any other r:anner, tha."l -;;nat for whi~h it is L'lt~nded. .. I con~acted Mr Texas, by tslephone thi s date to discuss the t]FO ,which he allegedly saw at 0545 hours., 6 Fep 66. The followi is a description o~ the events. as they happened and as des.qribed by Hr . the bast of his recollection. . On Sunday morning, .6 February 1966, at. approximately 0545, Hr 1 1 ys~ old son came through th~ir bedroom on the way to the bathroom and turned the light on in the bathroom and in so doing awakened his parents. Whlle the boy y.ras in the bathroom tpe lights went out causing Mr. to get o,lt or' bed and look out the window to see if the street lights W""''"""' out T_.;hich appe~red to be the case. While looking out the 1dndow Mr was azed to fin~ that the lawn in f~ont of his house and the surr.ou ding area ~as~n~lt~g ip a r~gisn.glow whichappaared to be.E !~i~g.similar to ~red flashing llgh~ on a police car. However he did'n6t see any police ars in t h e area ... A f~"lf moments later he noticed soma peculia~ yel~owisb r ed.:.:.sh lights .comi~g from an object approximately 5gQ f.~g.~ .. -~J2gy !,'~a:... The lights seeme<i to b9 moving bac.k and forth :rn~-anoriz~ntal direction and appeared. to b e-: simi 1 ar to neon light tubes vThich ha est ted b~ eight in numbe-r. There was no ftP-:>arent sourid; however, both l"Lr. his.'"v'rife cla::...il~ that t~eir ears-~era bothei-ed. by what seemed to be a _y !:'J htg~ f!e- - There:ore l:'t \-Tas_q'Jj.~.:g- .k and)1;t'. was unable to det.errnine th~ ~ize : ~lia 5~a~a ~:f3Ki. o,pj_act ~-1? ..... tHx1 e-~;-t1ie ... ooJact'Yraveiacr-a!!P"ro)cr.::~ ma.teiy a mile and a half to the west towa~s the Jeffe~son County.Airport. About this same time an aircraft took off from the airport and turned in the . direction of the unknoTifn obje~t. As the aircraft approached th& obje~t it . ceased to move, remain g in a hovering position, and the lights on the obje~. went out. The landing lights on the aircraft remained on and ~eflecte:d off -l;. . the UFO gi~ring Mr. an opportunity to see ,,That it looked like. He. ~ stated that the best -way to describe the shape of the object was that if_ -~ looked.lika a tadpole. He estimated the object was about 8 feet in diameter~ w-i. th a tail abou t 6 fee t in length and 2 fee t wide.. Ther e appeared. t o be a . cone snaped bulge on th3 top and in the middle of the object. Tbe previously mentio~aci lights seemed to be coming f rom the tail of the object. After the: aircr~: ~aj flor~ over the object its lights came on again and he noticed wha: a~;ea=sd to be three separate times when thesa lights wer e energized, eac~ a the object appeared to move up and about 5 to the left. It dis- appea.ra-:i a:. about a 20 to 25 angle above the horizon traveling in a -vresterly direction and in a slm.v rata of climb. obser,red all of this 1.vith his naked eye and vras unable to get any pictures. Al":.hough Hr was very feart'ul of ridicule from t h e local populace he nevertheless had lty to discuss the p ower failure with a local man fro~ the power company and determined that the reason f or the power outage was dua -co the failure of a tr.:1nsfo:rmdr. He furthar found out that this t ransformer was located very near to his house .and t.hat the failure occurred almost at the same time as the sighting of the UFO. -1r ound it very difficult t o describe the UFO and admitted that he s not ary good at dr ng pictures but if t he Air Force fel t that i~ ~as necessarJ he probably could describe it well enough to an artist s o ~hat a fairly representative picture could be drawn. Nr. as unaware of any other residents seeing t hi:s UFO but attributed this to the fact that he was vary hesitant in mentioning it t o anyon~ aince he definitely does not want any publicity on the sighting. . Howev9r, after the sighting he did call the control tower at tha Jefferson Count y Airport to deternrl-~e if they had seen it also but found th~t they had not seen anything and laughed at hi:s axplanation and request. CONCL~S:ON: T:!is prelimi ..... planation for Mr. a ~arsenal visit will inv~stigation did not disclose any feasible ex- UFO sighting. A more detailed i nvestigation and be accomplished if requested from your headquarters. ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATION 1 . L~. Marley, ProjeetB~ue.Book, Wright-P~tterson -~B, called this date and requested further investigation on balLoon launchings to determine ff this UFO sighting could have been a bailopn. He stated the information: could be forwarded either by phone or letter 2 . r restigation revealad that no weather ball oons 1.vere released by Elli~gton AFB or the Houston area Weather Bureau on the date _in question; however, the Houston Weather Bureau referred me to the Lake Charles, La, Weathsr Bureau bacause they th~ught Lake Charles releas~ high altitude weather balloons about the ti~e in question. J . Hr. Richards of the Lake Charla~ Weather Bureau was ~ontacted ~by phone (313-477-5285) and he stated.th~t their detailed. records did not go bac~ any further than April 1966 because they were-all forwarded tQ the:Na~ional. Wea er Records Center, Asheville, North Carolina. However, the records that r.-rere available did indicate ;that a weather balloon was relea.sw at apnrox:i.ma tel;y 0 )00 hO"<i~, Q._F..e.b.r_y_acy j 966. He dascribe(I'tlii5'. balloon as a la:ge v7eather balloon and sta~ed that its diameter was appr ~ly .5 fee: at the time 'of ralsase. Although his records. did not _co trtn_: any . information on surface or high altitude winds, they did indicate that ther9 was a strong surface wind at the time of release and the balloon attai.."led a maximum altitude of 13,514 meters .(44,_596 feet) before it burst. . P.ichards suggested I contact the NationaL Weather Records .Center to secure additional detailed information on this launching. Mr. Richards stated that balloons of this size usuall y have a constant rate or ascent of approximately 1 , 000 feet per minute and that winds ha"e very little effect on the rate of climb. 4 . 11r. Haggard, Director of the National \feather Records Center,: AsheYille, N. C. , '.:as contacted by phone (253-0427) and 't-Tas requested to forward to me, by letter, all info~tion that his Cen~er has on the release of the balloon L11 question. Mr. Haggard stated he would see that ths was accom- plished as soon as possible- e.:ct:~ox:Lmately reade from a map indicate that the UFO sighting 42 nautical miles frorn Lake Charl'3s, La, on an ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATION Attach-3<:. Adiabatic chart received from U. S . Weather Bureau this date. The lo~al weather officer, Major Paul T. Ulrich, was contacted to inter~ret the ir~o~ation for me. The following information was received from him: "Assu.r.Ung the balloon' s ascension rata was 1000 feet per minute, the adiaba~ic chart indicates the balloon had the following flight path du~ing the da~ation of flight indicated: CONCLUSION: DLR.ECTIO~i ESTll1.A.TED GROUND SPEED ESTrnA.'fED The above information el~.D'.inates the possibility that the balloon was in the area of the UFO sign:ing by Mr Since there apparently were no ether local balloons relaased at this time, it appears that this possibility must be eliminated. . U.S. DEPARTMENT OF CO~MC::RCE . ENVIRONMENTAL SCIF.;NCE SERVIC~S-ADMINlSTf~ATION EI'I:VIRCNMENTAL 01\'rA SERVICE: NATIONAL. WCI\THEF"ot RECORDS CENT"ER .~SH~V:U .. C , NORTH C.'\~OLINA 2dSOI Ellington Air Force Base 2578 Air Base Squadron, Reference: Your te~ephone call Attn: Ma.j or Leach E:l.clcsed ar..1 C01Jies o.f the vea.taer reco:ds .listed belov: WBA,N.: 3lA, B & C, Adiabatic Charts - February 6, 1966 '(0515 Local. Time) lake Charles, La. ~ese data are fu_rnished without charge The Data Processir:g Division of the Environmental. TechnicaJ.. Applications Cen-tar, Air Heather Service, is collocated vrith the National Uea.tcer Records Center and is the usual cba.nne~ f'or providing cl1matologice.J. '"eatker in:f'Ol'CB.ti.on. to milita~ users. T'.ae Chief of the Data. Processing Division is cognizant ~this request, end has S1J6gested that we advise you of the normaJ channel. for :info!::Jation in the event you bave future requests. :for :past weathe~ data. Sincerely yours,