Editing UFOs An International Scientific Problem (section)

=== Case 3. Fukuoka, Japan, October 15, 1948 ===

From Air Force Project Bluebook files comes the material summarized here
for this officially UNIDENTIFIED case involving airborne-radar and air-visual
observation of an unconventional "bullet-shaped" object. At 11:05 p.m. LST,
a USAF F-61 Black Widow fighter, with crew of pilot and radar observer, fly-
inq near Fukuoka, obtained a radar pickup on an unknown target at an altitude
of around 6000 ft, and an initial range of about 10 miles. The total encounter,
occupying a period of about ten minutes, is too complex to describe in full
detail here. The Bluebook file on it, about a quarter-inch thick, contains a
number of different intelligence reports that are not mutually compatible on
certain quantitative details (closure distances, etc.). Briefly, a total of
six radar passes were made, and each time the F-61 closed to about 4000 yards,
whereupon the unknown accelerated suddenly from about 200 mph to an estimated
1200 mph. The original report from Far East Air Forces intelligence sources
states that the unknown "had a high rate of acceleration and could go almost
straight up or down out of radar elevation limits... There was sufficient moon-
light to permit a silhouette to be discerned although no details were
observed." The F-61 crew thought it possible that the six passes might have
been made on two separate unknowns, but this was inferential.

Another portion of the official file includes a FEAF followup report,
describing some other points: "When the F-61 approached within 12,000 ft the
target executed a 180° turn and dived under the F-61. The F-61 attempted to
dive with the target but was unable to keep pace...It is believed that the
object was not lost from the scope due to normal skip null-zones common to x
all radar equipment. The pilot and observer feel that it was the high rate
of speed of the object which enabled it to disappear so rapidly." And still O
another document in the Bluebook file on this UNIDENTIFIED describes the q
visual sighting made at one juncture: "At time of only visual sighting tar- 22
get was on a level with observing aircraft. Under night visibility all that
was visible was a silhouette. Type of tail stabilizers is unknown. General
classification - very short body giving a stubby appearance. Canopy, if g
present, was formed into aircraft body to give the object cleancut lines and
was not discernible." The estimated size was 20-30 feet, and an accompanying g
sketch shows it as having a sharply cut-off tail ("bullet-shaped"). No >
exhaust was seen. The moon was nearly full on that night, and the airmen saw q
the outline against a moonlit cloud, they stated in their report. USAF ground-mi
radar stations at Shigamo-Shima and Fukae-Shima had the F-61 on their scopes S
intermittently as it moved in and out of ground clutter, but at no times 6
obtained a radar-return from the unknown. CCD

Ruppelt (6) states that the Fukuoka sighting was one of the first UFO cases
where an UNIDENTIFIED was seen on a radarscope; but many have since attained
that distinction. Indeed, when one reads the full text of the 1953 Robertson
Panel, one of the arresting points is the evident concern with the large
number of "radar fast-tracks" already on record by that date. Despite the
existence in USAF records of a number of UNIDENTIFIEDS seen on radar (often
with both airborne and ground radar and sometimes also with ground- and air-
visual sightings in accord), members of a Congressional Armed Services Com-
mittee investigation, inquiring into the UFO problem after the 1966 Michigan
"swamp gas" episode, were told on April 5, 1966, by the USAF Bluebook officer,
"We have no radar cases which are unexplained", when Congressman Schweiker
raised that pertinent question. [[Allen Hynek|Dr. J. A. Hynek]], Air Force scientific con-
sultant for then 18 years, present in the hearing-room, did not correct this
misinformation given to concerned Congressional inquirers.