Project Blue Book the Early Cases
The first sighting to be considered had taken place on January 16, 1947 before project SIGN even started, but it was investigated by Project Blue Book anyway. It occurred in the sky an estimated 50 miles from Holland at 10:30 pm. A RAF pilot was flying a World War II Mosquito and identified a radar target which was flying far faster than his plane at an altitude of 22,000 feet and was taking evasive action. The object was heading towards Norfolk, England. Project Blue Book had looked into some of these older reports and decided they were worthy of investigation. Another report took place in 1947 and was made by a meteorologist. This probably gave it a little more weight. In April, 1947 the meteorologist was tracking a weather balloon. As he tracked the balloon a strange object came into view. The object was a silver disk and it was estimated it was flying at less than 15,000 feet. As far as size goes all the meteorologist could estimate was it was bigger than his balloon but it seems like the distance from the balloon was unknown, so the object could have been much bigger. On May 17, 1947 an object appeared over Oklahoma City, Oklahoma between the hours of 8:30 and 9:00 pm. The object was witnessed by a field engineer named Savage. He reported seeing a frosty white round and flat object which was about 10% as thin as it was in diameter. He couldn’t estimate the altitude very well but guessed it was somewhere between 10,000 to 18,000 feet high. He also estimated its speed at around 1800 miles per hour, which would have been far greater than anything in existence at the time. The object was said to make a slight swishing sound. An object was witnessed on June 2, 1947 which was 2 to 3 miles south of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, by a pilot named Horace P Wenyon. He was flying at 1400 feet when he saw a silvery object. He described it as looking like a mayonnaise jar. He didn’t seem to know how far away it was but stated it appeared as looking like an object which was 15 inches across from his windshield. This estimate was totally worthless not knowing the distance from the plane. He then went on to say he estimated the speed at 1000 to 1200 miles per hour. They described an exhaust coming out of the object, which is on the unusual side of things since most of the objects reported had no exhaust. Some objects have been reported twice in 1946 and that is probably why Project was Blue Book interested in this sighting. There were Eleven objects which appeared in June 1947, were investigated by Project Blue Book. I’m not going to go into every one of those sightings. One of the more interesting ones took place on June 24, 1947 on Mount Adams, Washington. It seems a prospector was on the mountain and his name was Fred Johnson, and he had come from Portland, Oregon. He was at an altitude of about 5000 feet when he saw a group of objects in the sky which were moving very fast. He said there was six or seven of these objects and they were extremely bright on top and had sharply pointed tales and one of them was waving back and forth. He estimated they were at least a thousand feet higher than his altitude. He also thought they were at least 10 miles away. He watched them with a small telescope as they traveled across the sky and noted as they did so his compass needle fluctuated. On July 4, 1947, a mass sighting of UFOs took place. It occurred over Portland and Milwaukie, Oregon. Some of the people who saw the objects were sheriff’s deputies, news men, harbor patrol police and highway police. The group saw large discs which were moving at high speed. Some were flying North while others were flying East. Some demonstrated a wobbling motion. While they watched some of the objects zigzagged or made quick 90° turns. Some was said to be flying between 10,000 to 40,000 feet in altitude while others seem to only be at about a thousand feet. A low humming sound was reported and it was said the number of objects seem to be between 20 to 30. This was a very valuable sighting since it was composed of many witnesses in law enforcement. These types of witnesses are considered the best due to their training in observation. The last sighting from 1947 I want to talk about is one which occurred on July 4. The sighting took place near Emmett, Idaho. The pilot of a United Airlines flight along with his first officer and the stewardess on the flight all witnessed objects which were described as having flat bottoms and rough tops and possibly more than 100 feet in diameter. They were said to be flying at about 7000 feet and there were five of them in formation. The pilot tried to get closer as he was flying at 185 miles per hour. This action was futile. It seems things haven’t changed much since 1947 as far as strange objects being spotted in our skies. I have to wonder how many sightings didn’t make it into Project Blue Book, since they may have been considered unworthy or too convincing? In the beginning, Blue Book was more of a rejection machine than anything else. Some people believe the government still has projects analyzing UFO sightings, but this time they are secret. Perhaps the video from planes off of the carrier Nimitz which showed the Tictac UFO verify this.
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