10. CONCLUSION INSUFFICJ T DATA FOR EVALUATION .t. NUMBER OF OBJECTS 5. L&NGTH OF OI,IRYATION U, iUtiCtf IUMMANY AND AN4LVIII Not Reported t.. TYPE OF OBSERVATION Ground-Via1al 8. PtiOTOS 9. PHYSIC~L EVIDENCE flO ~f P A l 0329 (TOE) PreviGue ectlu,fu ol th&e fora ~r-ar be .... d. rrD ( 'rDNrR) .jJ Wright-Patterson AFB~ Ohio 45433 29 August 1966 Cl.inton, Minnesota 56225 Reference your unidentified observation of 17 August 1966. The infozanation which we have received is not sufficient :ror eval.uation. Request you canplete the attached FTD Foxm 164 and return 1 t in the envelope provided. We wish to trAnk you for reporting your observation to the Air Force. Sincerely~ hief# Project Blue Book Fl'D ('rDP:.rR)/J Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 45433 29 August 1966 Reference your unidentified observation of 17 August 1966. The inf'oz1nation which we have received is not su.f:ricient :for evuuation. Request you and your sister, Sally corn.- plete the a ttacbed P'TD Fo11ns 164 and return them in the enve!qpeprovided. We wish to thank you tor r~rting your.observation to the Air Force. Sincerely, OR Qumr.ANTIJ.A, Jr, MaJor,. USAP hief, Project Blue Book .... , . . Fl'D ( TDm'R) .jt} \-iright-Patterson AFB, Ohio Kent County Air Port Orand Rapids Michigan. 49500 Reference your 1midentified observation of 17 August 1966 The inforn1ation which we have received is not sufficient for eval.uacion. Request you complete the attached lwrD Form ~64 and return lt in the e."lvelopeprovided. We wish to thank you for r~orting your observation to the Air Force Sincerely, OR QUDll'k~, Jr, Major, USAF . Project Blue Book .. TDNI'lt /MaJ Quintanilla, Jr/70916/tu/30 August 1966 UFO Sisbting, l7 Augu t 1.966 455 M1aaUe Main Rererence your unidentified observation ot 17 August 19(:)6. The . tion which ~ have received 1a not sufricient tor eval.uation. Request you caaplete the attached Fl'D FoliA 164 and xeturn it in the envelope provided. vlARREN S. WHE>ST.J\R Colonel, USAF ~uty for Technology & Subsystems rro Fozta 164 v/envelope COOEIDINATION l TD!fi'R MAJ H. QUINTANIT.I.A I JR TDE'rR/Lt. Marley/70916/mhs/20 Sep 66 :!equest for Barium Cloud Release Inform&tion Chie:r Operntiona C~1rehill Beseareh Ran8e 1. Ret,erence your tele!J}lone r-~quest for inforn:.ation on per30nal ooeervations of the upper a sphere activity over ~ort Churchill en 16 August 1966. AtU:lched are obser"''Jltians reported to the ited 3tatea Air ree concerning tr~ obs~rvance of alleged UFOs over the north eent1 a~ Un1 ted ':ita tes. 2 . In cor:rpllJ.ns our reportG on this particular ;:;ighti.ug, I . .;auld oupreeinte additional :tnformRt1on on this ac"tlvity. Thia '\Jould be qute helpf\ll.in reach1!'l~ a definite conclusion. In yarticular, r mn interested in the relel!lae altitude :md location of tht! BnriUr.1l cloud releases on 15 1\u~st at 2239, Central U\ylight '1'1me. ~l !4edrow Sounding Becket Divis ion !rASA, Goddnrd Flight Center COORDINATION: ( r /I Investigation Report Sightings of August 16, 1966 This case began as a T\VX from Trua.x Field to \vright-Patterson Air Fo~ce Base, concerning sightings by three independent observers of a moon-like" object. Before investigation of this s:t.ghting could take place, a reply to a let;ter concerning a previous sightine brought a cl~pping concerning slightings in Minneapolis on the same date, August 16th. ~vm the clipping several leads were obtained. Several calls to the Hhite Cloud Field at Minneapolis resulted in c c-:-.ttact ing a salesman for viation Company at t'he fieldJ his report i s enclosed. In his report were mentioned radio r~?orts to Rochester FSS. other flying s~r;ices were contacted at Flying Cloud: F:_:-i ng Service gave tne name of as a witness; he proved t o =.ave be passenger. A man at Aviation said he -.-~s on the field .:::til 11:00 PM and in a position to see anything that ha~pened, but saw not:hing. Tower personnel reported that the to"t-ler closed so the:-" ~.vere not present during the sightings. A rumor t;ho.t so=eone saw an objec~ settle on the runway and then take off has not been A ~all to T-w~n Cities International Airport yielded a report of having seen an object; the name of his watch supervisor, 'vas obtained. St. Paul P~on~er Press/Dispatch, origin of the clipping, could not p:-ovide any additional information; the reporter was not kno\m. Aero Division provided the name of a flight instructor, as having been a witness, but she denied having seen anything. A . Earl Friedline or Rochester Airportcontrol tower was contacted; he recalled hearing traffic with a mterokee and a Cessna 310 ~-! th the Rochester Flight Service Station (FSS). The FSS at Rochester was contacted, and a conversation ,.,ith its Mr. ensued --see report. The registrations of three of the . feu:-airplanes reporting were obtained, one being too recent for the pt~blished list. The name of the duty man at the time of sightings, Donald Holmes, 612-533-8889, was obtained. Donald Holmes recalled the traffic, saying all reports were obtained hin half an hour (the logged times were 0410 and 0430). He reported o::e observer on the ground, but the name was unavailable. The three aircra~ were then traced down and the names of the pilots were obtained: The fourth airplane, by elimination, was ti:a.t of is in the ar~, and a letter has been sent to him requesting a report. The Fau Clai~e FSS was contacted; they will call collect if' an e;.:a::::..::.::~ion of the log and conversation l-Tith personnel reveal any The registration and correct number of the l-tlsketeer reported in t ~e Truax T',.TX (given as \vas obtained as and the pilot, was contacted for a report. mentioned in the same TWX was then contacted for a telephone interview; he had already sent a Form 164 in to the USAF Chicago Center Control at Joliet was then contacted, and. a Mr. Belasco exa.:llned the loes; there was no record or recollection of any unusual requ3sts for radar coverage on August 16th. This is tempered by the fact th~-:; tapes are kept only 15 days and then are re-used; this investigation s done on September 8. The }4lilwaukee FSS had no records or recollection of the incident, bu-: referred the investigator to Milwaukee Approach Control; the watch St..?~rvisor ,.J:fr~ .. JJlJ:~. e_p_anski ( 414-744-8720) was contacted, and fro~ him were obtained the names of the two controllers on duty at the t:!..:::e of Holzer's sightings. tu-. Stepanski requested tba:t the phone calls be delayed until he could get in touch ,.,ith the controllers himself to a:..lthorize them to ta.L'\.c with this investigator. ,.. _ lvtr. Carl Doege and Mr. J~.-~J.si~n, the controllers, were contacted; ne~t~er one of then r.a~ any recollection of anything unusual; both pointed ou~ 5~mewhat at lengt~ that they could not identif,y targets; as one of th.;;= put it, they co:r1 ~n't tell a Piper Cub froHl a DC-3. They said further that whenever they obs~rve anything unusual, such as a fast object, they repo:'"t it to Chicago Center Control, and they 1:ade no such report. ~o ~ind out he~ Lt. Howe, reporting officer on the from Truax, got inforr.aticn about Chicago Center Control, he was called, but an ale:-: -....-=.s en and he could not be contacted that day. H:-. Bishop was then called to verify the report from the Twin Cities Inte~n.at i.onal Tower; he verified it, and added that there was a separate obser1a~ion phoned in later which caused them to reconsider sighting. They then realized that it could not have been the moon, because there was no moon and because the windows are designed precisely to prevent such reflections. Radio station WCOO in Minneapolis was then contacted in order to obtain ground-based sightings; the attempt being to find anyone who sau the object at a high angle. Advice was to call back ~1nday. The sightings so far ol1tiained were then roughly plotted, and the nos~ reliable lines of sight (from the Twin Cities control tower and from we took a ~agnetic bearing) were found to intersect just no=th of fuluth, pe~haps 100 miles. Therefore attempts were made to contact witnesses in Duluth. Radio station KDAL was uncooperative, but \VDIO (Channel 6) offered t o send films of in~erviews with witnesses from the night of the 16th; th~ offer was acce~ei. The Duluth Herald Tribune looked up stories, and fcr..:.:ld.. several; the naJe of was thus obtained, and a report vTas ob~ained from his sister, who was also a witness. It was then dec~dei to tr,y to obtain sightings from farther to the in order to piJ down the area more closely. Calls were made to papers, police, and airports (and FSS) at Hibbing, Grand Rapids, Interna- ti l F~lls and fi~lly Bemidji; at Bemddji a lead was obtained to the Ti~ie~ ?~ver Falls Po~ice, who had had some traffic on radio that night about Thief River Falls police did recall some talk but had nothing "officially logged"; someone, however, recalled some "deal they set off at i.'i!:!:epe g " that night, which, to their recollect len, was an attempt to p~o1 uce a man-made aurora borealis. Wrigbt-Pattersan AFB, 19 Ausuat 1966 Reference your unidentified observation of 16 August 1966 The information in your ~etter was not suff'icien t for evaluation. Request you canplete the attached FTD Form 164 and return it in the envelope provided. We wish to thank you for reporting your observation to the Air Force. Sincerely, )t.'t.C'OR ~umr..~nJA, Jr, Major ProJect Blue Book The Winnipeg papers were called, but this being Saturday afternoon, and neither paper putting out a Sunday edition, no information was available. was contacted on Sund~v at weco in Minneapolis, and said l';ould mail inf'ornntion Monday. Lt. Howe was contacted Sunday,; he got his radar infornntion from the The Winnipeg Tribune found the story about an attempt to generate a man-:rade aurora: the test took place in northern Ontario on July 20th. No subsequent reports of rocket tests -vrere found. the Roseau, Vdnnesota Times-Region, contact was made with who together with another couple saw a phenomenon ha.Y:..:1g the same description as the others, but their time-estimates are somewhat off. The line of sight is fairly vrell-established and indicates the~ the event was f:..... er north than thought up to this point. At this 'time ~en gh leads had been accumulated to attempt to locate the position of the coject. When approximate lines of sight ,.,ere dra\m on e ~p, the sighti~s3 being used in which there appeared to be at least some reliability to t~e estimate of direction, it became apparent that the object ~ad been far ~o the north of the US-Canada border. Furthermore, fro~ : fact that object had been seen lo1., in the sky by it was apparent that the object must have been at le~s~ 100 miles above the ground, in order to be seen over the horizon. ~n~ lines of sight had a great deal of scatter, so it was decided to reqt:est (on behalf of Dearborn Observatory) reports from other witnesses. Half a O.ozen newspapers were contacted and requested to run an announcement asking for reports of "any unusual event seen on the night of August 16th" 1 out of deference to Air Force regulations, the announcement made reference only to Dr. HYnek, the Air Force's part in theinvestigation .not being meY::t ioned. The announcement brought some 20 letters all but one or two of which related directly to the sighting in question. At about the time these letters began to come in, I~. Marley informed the investigator that he