Editing UFOs An International Scientific Problem (section)

=== Case 4. Gulf of Mexico, December 6, 1952 ===

Just to cite briefly another example of a radar-visual sighting in the
official UNIDENTIFIED category, one might mention the December 6, 1952 air-
borne sighting by the crew of an Air Force B-29 flying over the Gulf of
Mexico at 18000 ft in bright moonlight. (See 7 for further details.) A
total of over a half-dozen separate unknowns, seen on the B-29 radarscopes
and by crewmen watching out side-blisters, passed at high speed (some speeds
roughly estimated at 5000 mph from blip displacements). Some of them were
seen below the flight altitude, and others maneuvered in most unconventional
patterns (sudden course-revers a Is) . No meteor explanation would fit the
visual sightings, and ground-return effects are essentially out of the ques-
tion by virtue of the high altitude and by the features of the atmospheric
lapse rate at the time and area of the unusual sighting. It remains an
UNIDENTIFIED in USAF files.