NUFORC Sighting 84526

Occurred: 1962-10-15 00:00 Local
Reported: 2011-10-14 13:02 Pacific
Duration:

Location: Ft. Lee, VA, USA

Shape:
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

USAF detection and intercept attempt of UFO detected by radar at 70,000' altitude.

Mr. Davenport,

I was a participant in an air force attempt to intercept a UFO in 1962. This happened at the headquarters of Washington air defense sector, (Washington DC not state), on a swing shift in October.

Three height finders reported a stationary object at 70,000 feet altitude. I was working in the height section of the WAADS direction center when the first radar operator called in a report. I thought it to be a balloon, but he said no because it was completely stationary and a balloon would be drifting with the wind.

I called the other two sites and told them the reported location, and they promptly saw the object on their scopes as well, same altitude and stationary.

I notified the commanding officer in the weapons section and they decided to scramble two interceptors to go take a look at it.

The object remained stationary until the two interceptors got close to it, (maybe two miles for the lead aircraft). The lead pilot said it was a bright round object.

It then took off straight up and fast until it went above the altitude capabilities of the radars and was lost. Of course the interceptors were unable to follow. About forty people were aware of this incident on that crew at WAADS.

The surprise to me was that we notified no one of this incident and were told to ignore it. The commanding officer said "who would we report it to since we are it." This attitude was and still is most illogical unless the CIA, or somebody, already knew what it was.

I am sure it was not any aircraft manufactured by humans because it exceeded the capabilities of anything we have ever made. Surely our government would want to know what that was so why ignore it. This attitude frightens me now and did then because I can only come up with bad reasons why the government would show no interest in something that was obviously real like that. That was a group of reliable witnesses including the pilots and the radar operators as well as everyone on that crew.

Have you any idea why our government would pretend that no verifiable evidence has ever existed for a UFO other than they already know what they are or why they ridicule any report anyone is foolish enough to make? By the way, I do not wish to report that event but it did happen.

((name deleted))

((END E-MAILED REPORT))

((BEGIN ADDENDUM FROM SAME SOURCE))

Mr. Davenport,

Thank you for responding to my message.

No, I do not wish to file a report. No, I do not remember the name of the commanding officer. I do remember the names of some of the crew but I have had no contact in forty years or more. It would be difficult and costly to verify my story and I am not trying to prove anything. You are free to believe whatever. But here are a few easily verifiable facts.

The object involved was first spotted by a height finder radar operator. It was his job to insert altitude data into a remote computer terminal as requested by a computer located at a central site or by me verbally over the voice line. He could only see an area about ten miles wide but from the surface to about 110,000 feet and from his site to a distance of about 200 miles away on his scope. He noticed the object while getting an altitude on a commercial airliner as requested by the central computer.

I was an enlisted man in the 26th air defense command stationed in the only air force squadron at Fort Lee, Virginia. Fort Lee was an army post but the direction center for the Washington air defense sector was located there.

The field I was in was called SAGE for semi-automatic ground environment. It was an air defense system which consolidated radar data from sites located all around our sector into a central computer where a composite refined display was presented on CRT’s ((cathode ray tubes; screens)). A crew was necessary to handle the non-automatic part of the job. Each crew member sat at a console where buttons and a light gun were used to perform actions assisting the computer. The hardware was a very large IBM computer and the software came from System Development Corporation. There were 20 odd such direction centers, if I remember correctly, and they were connected to each other and to NORAD. Our responsibility was for an area which ran from north of Washington, D.C., to South Carolina, west to nearly Ohio, and out over the Atlantic. Each direction center had responsibility for a similar sized area.

At that time, I worked in the height section, where I occasionally obtained altitudes on aircraft for the weapons sections practice. The computer automatically obtained altitudes, but only at five minute intervals. I talked to height finder radar operators at the radar sites when a manual altitude was needed.

There was also a weapons section, a tracking section, an identification section, a manual inputs section, and a Nike missile control section manned by the army. I know that the direction center no longer exists, and probably all of the rest of them are gone as well. I suspect that it was all consolidated to NORAD, when better computers and systems were created.

No, I am not a liar or a hoaxer. I just would like to know what that object was and what the government is hiding. I have no other agenda. Specifically, since some say the world is ending on 12-21-2012, I wonder if the government has been informed by aliens that the Mayans were correct. That would certainly explain why they act the way they do. Of course I do not believe that Mayan story. But it is an example of possible reasons for their actions. I can't come up with a noble reason. I just suspect that the government is hiding something.

Why bring this up now? Well, I saw your site on the internet and thought you may know the truth.

Thanks again for your response.

((name deleted))

Posted 2011-10-19