P::~OJECT 10073 RECORD 15 Sc ptemt>er 1968 2. LOCATION Civilian Pilots 4. NUMBER OF OBJECTS Near Ocala, Florida 10. CONCLUSION Unidentified 11. BRIEF SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS s. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 15 minutes A light doing acrobatics near Ocala observed for 15 minutes ~----------------------~but did not gain on it. Light rose and quickly disappeared among stars. Almost iuunediately a second but white light was seen under the haze above Ocala.. This rapidly came toward ~----------------------~them on collision course and pilots thought it was a sidewinder. 6. TYPE OF OBSERVATION Visual,possibly radar Light made a sharp 90 turn and then disappeared. Third part of observation came when they approached Miami. Palm Beach ~--------------~ Center informed them their radar had object following them, 7. COURSE Acrobatics and collision asked them to make a 360 turn. Pilot thought he identified light but was not certain. The most significant part of o~- }U< No serva t ion was the "sidewinder collision" part. Pi lots would -.--P-H_Y_S_IC_A_L E_V_ID_E_H_C -E----~ probably not have reported total incident had it not been for the seemi~g near collision with light. FTC Sf P 6 3 0-329 (TOE) PN1rloue odlUOfte ol Ut.i fouw .. ,. be uod, Let's see. They left area 470 and--it would have been at least that long. H Oh yes. Here is say~'~acksonville Center couldn't pick it up on radar. We followed him until we were almost to Ocala, and he disappeared off into the sky on a heading of something like 200 and then as we approached Ocala there was an object, at first it was a \oJhite light. It was hanging right over Ocala"--where is Ocala? ** Do you know ere Gainesville is? (Yes) Directly southeast of there. H Fine. And then h e said, "It waa hanging right over Ocala .9nd ji1st .'13 .l_ finished reporting the other one this one came right at us. We were on a collision course. I would say he missed us about 1 mile. He came straight at uq 3t an angle. We were aboutB miles out of Ocala still on a heading of 120. This object came straight at us in a climb attitude then turned t:.; the west. He we~: ~ut about 15 miles west of Ocala and j tst hung there at an altitude of, well we were at an altitude of 9000, I .,,.r':)uln guess that he was a t probably 6000 'Jr 7000 ft." What are che chances do you think, Captain, that these fellows were sufficiently poor observers to have mistaken stars at various times? Of course, they were on a straight course at that time, they were not making maneuvers. ** I'm not a firm believer in UFO's and I've never observed anything l i k e this, but from the t..;jny they verbally talk~d to me , I wvuld say the y s aw something that was much different than a star and was apparently brighte~ a brighter *k light than that, that was not of such intensity, that it was bright enough to really get alarmed about. H Yes. And balloons would be out of the question because they covered too much territory, for the thing to be a balloon. ** Yes sir. A balloon if you saw it wouldn't disturb you too much. It might shock you a little, but I think you'd recognize it. They wouldn't turn or bob around that much. H Now, when he says it moved up and down and h ad --well, I'm going t o try and get in t ouch wit h hi m and see if I can pin him down on trajectory. In other words, when it moved, was its transverse motion as much as say 20-25 or was it just a mi nor movement. That's the s ort o f thing that I'd like to --I would gather that it covered considerable portions of thesky. ~* i~s s ir. And t he way he talked, he s a i d it would go in straight lines, ~ L \v~U lf~ tu a n immediat e 90 turn, it ~as very definite fast movement, and it would make very, very sharp turn. He said he had seen a lot of jets flying and this thing couldn't have been anything like a jet, because it made such erratic climbs and such tremendous turns, immediate turns, that he knew that we have nothing tha t flies like this. Now I'm getting to a part here that I have a question on. This is still s pe aking . "We s aw him move s ever a l times bu t whe n ~-1e last sight ed him, ooked like he was sit t i ng on the g r ound just west of Ocal a." Now, you came on the line and said, "We had a height finder on y ou and \-lere tracking you and there was an object behind you for quite awhile northwest of Palm Beach." This then would have been about half and hour or so after the Ocala incident ** Yes sir. It was definitely later than Ocala. H And then you say,'~e had numerous height finder checks on y ou; also an object less than 1 mile behind you." Mr. says,--oh yes, here's a part I missed earlier--Mr. aid, "We turned and saw what appeared to be the same white light as we saw over Ocala, in a steep turn." OK. That's whe n we asked h i m t o make tha t 360 turn over Palm Beach H I see. And the n he s ays, "When we saw it, it looked like it descended rHthec r apidly. I woLdd definitely no t try t o identify it." Then you asked him ..v:.a t he thought it ~nJs a nd he said, "I don't know. It was not a jet. Jet .. 1ircraft can't mak e t he sharp turns thes e things were making." And i:ht:::n you a skeci, "Everytime you saw it, i t was making steep turns?" And said, "No, it would h over and then it would proceed on course exactly the same way we. were going, ahead of us; then it would go straight up, over the top, or straight down." Did he add anything? Let's see, this --was this a telephone conversation or? (!<R!IXXX~ Yes sir. I called him long distance and talked to him immediat e l y after he got on the ground down there, about 20 minutes after landing . He came up to the tower at Palm Beach and we talked to him long distance. H I see. That's how it was. There was nothing being reported while-- he didn't report anything on tape to Jacksonville Center, did he? ** No sir--now possibly, they're on tape. I would imagine the controller's taped all this. H I'll perhaps talk wi and see what --I didn't realize this divide d itself into two very distinct phases. it did Afte r that xk Ocala area incident where they s aw him on the ground, then apparently they were bothered by him on down, I don't remembe r exactly, but it seems like the y were~ harrassed any after than until they got i n the Pa l m Be a c h are a and we got t he r adar contact and had them 360 there on Pa l o Beach approach one always woncers about the powers of suggestion. They app~rently thoughtkhe whole incident was over and then they were asked and then they see it, and now it becomes a question of what type of observers they really are. Did they get excited and say "Oh yes, there it i s " and mistake some --on the other hand they did describe its trajectory. It's a h ard question to ask you, but f rom your c on versati on with them, which lasted how long, altogether? Between t e n and f i f teen mi nutes. I think it was t e n or eleven minutes on the telephone bill H Let me ask a question like this. If they were on a witness stand, if this had been a courtroom proceeding and you'd been the defending or prosecuting lawyer, how would you have regarded their testimony in ordinary tertns--if this wasn't an UFO they were talking about? Did they sound valid? ** Yes sir, they did. H I sometimes talk to people who get vague and repeat themselves and extrapolate and don't stick to facts. ** They pretty well said again over the telephone exactly what had happened, the y followed the s equence on it. It was normal. They things that they had discussed with Jac ksonville Center they went through, and they remembered wha t Center Control they were under. It was just like they had lived through it. 1'he y weren't frightened by it; they weren't too overly concerned. n I~like t o ge t from them just how much brighter it was than the brightest ** Well, they said t hat it was like observing, it was a the beacons on military airfields or commercial airfields. large light like You know, the ones that turn. They said it was of about a size like that but not that bright. It wasn't a beam type of light, it was more-or-lees a pale, it ,.,a<.; a pretty g ood-s i.zed 1 i gh t from the r..-1ay they t oJked. Now, I don't want t o t ake too much of yoLlr ti.me h e r e . Let' s t all<4 about Nr. just a second, the co-pilot. He gave just one paragraph here. One thing that interested me was "I thought we were close to the warning zone and had caught a sidewinder. I was ready to meet the Lord, it didn't make any difference, but it sure scared me." How did he sound in comparison to Mr. ~* Well, I got him on the line at the end of the conversation with Mr. primarily just to thank him and see if he had anything to add, but he was very definite. He was, in terms of conversation, he was more definite was going on. was a little high strung about it, I think. H Yes, I would gathe r that from his stat ement here, ' getting ready to me~t the Lord," and so f orth. ** Th~ c omments thHt he made were rather excited and he w as trying to ge~ ::hz idea a cross th.::: ey did see so~c!:~L~ng and it wasn't something the; ' \ve r e play iag around with, and they, 't.;h~n they saw it they tried their best tn obs erve it and find out what it was and try and decide what was going on. This warning area he refers to i s a typical military warning area out over the water there, that sometimes we do have firings in and stuff. There's quite a few jets out flying in that area; there's restricted altitudes and everything that they work out there, and normally whenever they're ou t in that area t her e ' s qui t e a few air c raft involved, sot Rk~ the civilian pilots try and avoid these areas absolutely. H Well, I want to thank you very much for this information. It clears f~ ~ the thing up. It gives me a clearer picture , but it doesn't clear it up because t still don't know what the hell it was they saw. I think I'm going to try and get in touch with Mr. think I'll let Mr. Rushing go. I think probably if I call Mr. lso and get his part of his contact with them, and particularly see if he has any records they may have.made at the time. If you think of anything else that you feel that I should know about this I'm east~eachable; simply the Department of Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Or send it through Colonel Quint~tlla; I go there once a month as a sort of regular tour of duty and look over the coses they've had during the month. Let me ask a purely general question here. In your area down there, have there been many, or any, UFO reports that were not easily solvable? ** Very, very few sir. If we have them, they're normally widely scattered month ago we had maybe a sighting in the Montgomery are a here. On~e in a while there are some down along the Coast, but, of cvurse , I neve r ~now. I a~e something in ~he newspaper, or get something rcpo ed past me here a t work, but normally there's no conclusion out of it. H Yes. Well, i f s omething comes up that you feel compares with this, or is other than could easily be explained as an aircraft or balloon, or something, I would appreciate your getting in touch with me, or with Project All right sir. We certainly will. Well, thanks ever so much. Thank you Dr., it's been nice t 3 l kittz t o you . Transcript of UFO sighting; telephqne conversation between Hynek & Capt. Col~ Hello, Capt This is Professor Hynek at Northwestern University. I'm also consultant to the United States Air Force on the matter of uniden- tified flying objects. I have a letter here from Col. Quinbin.lla asking me to look into the sighting of September 15. I've also talked recently with Capt. Heimbach, who I believe, interviewed you after you got to the C Yes, I didn't remember the name. I believe that's right. Well, this is a mos t interesting case, and I wanted to check with you a littl.e bit. As I unde r s t and it there were two definite phases to this sighting. One was near Ocala. H And then abouc a half an hour or s o e l apsed and when you got down into ~he P~l~ 3each a r e a . C No. Now the first sighting was north of Ocala. H All right, this is fine. Why don't .you just give me the time-motion sequence ~M and I'll just remain quiet he r e a nd you tell me in your words. C. OK. I'll be gl ad to. We we r e , we had left Dallas early afternoon--that 't-7as on a Sunday--and we wer e goi ng t o ~XXX Nassau and we s t opped in Ne~., Orleans to pick up a passenger. We left there on instruments. However, the weather cleared by the time we were to Pens~ol~a; this was on S~nday and they gave us permission to go across the restricted areas of Egland and along the shoreline. We stayed just on the north edge of, I believe that's war zone 470 there; whatever that is in the Gulf there. We had just passed the northeastern corner of this and Jacksonville Center gave us permission to turn to the southeast; as I recall our heading was about 120 , and I first sighted an object which I assumed to be a jet, probably a trainer; they're are lots in that area, you know. We watched it. As I recall we were at an altitude of about 9500 feet, I believe that's correct. We watched this thing; I watched it for, oh, five minutes, I guess. H Pardon me. Whe n you say " t his thing", could you be more specific with it. Wa s it light or wa s it ... C Well yes, it was a pale green flashing light. It was flashing at a li 1e more than. a little slower rate than the average aircraft red rotating beacon. It was a p.-1le green color I~ terms of brightness of a star, was i t brighter Xk or dimmer than . ? C It looked very similar, if you were observing an aircraft landing lgiht, I'm sure you've watched, I would say five miles, five to eight miles. Something like that, except that it had a green tint to it. ll Did i t have any extension to it, or was it a point source? C No, no it was just a light, in a particular spot. It didn't project a beam or anything. H And how close to the horizon d if it seem? C Well, it was directly in front of us at our same altitude; in fact, it was at an identical altitude and he was doing acrobatics. He would go straight up and then over the top and straight down to maybe 500-1000 feet below us, below our altitude, and then he would return to our altitude. He did this several times, and I have seen jet practice, military practice, do this at night so I assumed this was what it was, but the fact that, of course it was night, I was on an instrument flight plan, and it irritated me because Jacksonville Center had not warned me of this traffic. And so I called them and I said, "Have you got traffic at our twelve o'clock position?" And he said, "Negative." And I thought, out on that side of che state, there radar r e ception is a little bad, and I've been through chttc h~fore d ot.m there b~!ore, and so I fleT~ on for, oh, I'd say, five mlnutes or so, and the fellow in the front seat with me there is also a p.i.iOC. yes. And I hit him and I said, "Boy, I don't how in the world those fellows do that at night." See, we were over the water at that time, with no visual ground reference. And, of course, you know, you tumble your instruments after a certain attitude. So, both of us sat there watchiqg it, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY IVANSTON, lfJ,INOIS 60201 DIPARTMI!NT OP ASI RONOMY UNDHIIMI!l AS11tONOMICAL USIARCH CBN rea FTD (TDETR) Research and Aerial Phenomena Division Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Attn: : TDPr (UFO) 19 December 1968 Sighting of 15 September 1968, Ocala, Florida Hector Quintanilla, Jr., Lt. Col. Enclosed are the following: (1) Tran!Jcription of telephone conversation with Capt. Heimbach. (2) Transcription of telephone conversation with Capt. Cole. (3) P~oject evaluation card on subject sighting. J. ALLLN HYNEK, Director Lindheimea:-Astronomical Res eac-~h Center Northwestern University E~anston. Illi.nois 60201 H Now, could I break in here to ask, in terms of degrees of arc, you say he went up and down over an arc of say 10 degrees, 30 degrees, or what1 C There didn't seem to be an arc. Now at night, you can't judge these things, but if the object directly towards you or directly away from you, you can't see the arc at night. No, quite right. And I assumed this is what it was. But there did not appear to be any arc, it would go straight up and then straight down and then straight back No, wait a second. You say up, then in angle of elevation, if he started at your own level, how high did you have to look to see him when he wa.; at the top of his . C I would guess he went: a 1000 feeYaoove us. ~ell, would that have been 10 7 Did ~e come overhead at any time? C No, he never did. He stayed in front of us all the time. I would guess an up angle of something like probably 10, not over 15, and about the same b~low us. II I see. So a total swing of about~30 perhaps, 20 or 30. And h ow about transverse, sideways? Was always directly in your 12:00 o'clock position1 C No, he would swing a little bit to the side once in a while, and usually to our left. H By the way, was it a clear night? C At that point it was. There was one storm cloud northeast of Cross City that had lightning in it, but we were already south of it. out in perfectly clear weather. H The reason I asked, is were there any good navigational stars at your 12:00 o'clock position or near your 12:00 o'clock position? C ~lo, not on the horizon. There were some higher, but not on the horizon. H Could you sort of plot this chap's motion with respect to the stars? C Well, he neve!' go t as high as, that is, during the time we were watching him i n the e a r-ly phases of it, when he was doing these various 3c: ~ ~ns; he later, I would say 15 minutes after we first observed him, he made about a 10 right turn off from our track, and just disappeared in the sky at a climbing angle of, I would say, 15 and disappeared. H Now, in this 15 minutes you covered about how many nautical miles?