It's the single best-documented case of non-human intelligence interacting with humans, and it's
been ignored or kept secret by the government for over half a century. But in 1957, the United
States Air Force collected definitive proof that it was not alone in the skies over America. What
would follow is a culture of secrecy so deadly, that modern whistleblowers like David Grusch- a
decorated US intelligence official- have claimed that the government has killed to keep it secret.
On the night of September 19th-September 20th, 1957, a US Air Force RB-47 was on a training
flight prior to deploying to Europe. The RB-47 was a modified version of the medium-bomber,
jet propulsion B-47, and built specifically for fighting a nuclear conflict. In case of
nuclear war, the jet would be responsible for gathering weather information along bombing
routes to facilitate subsequent strikes, as well as monitor radio and radar stations for
either targeting or to help friendly air forces avoid detection. It was the
foremost electronic warfare aircraft of its time, which is what makes its
encounter with a non-human craft the single most credible UFO encounter of all time.
The RB-47 in question was flying out of Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas, on a route that would
take it out to the Gulf of Mexico and back again over the south-central United States.
During its flight it would perform gunnery and navigation exercises while over the Gulf,
before swinging back around and engaging in electronic countermeasure exercises on the
return back to base. The six-man crew included three electronic warfare officers manning the
most sophisticated ECM gear in the world at the time- and it would be this gear that
confirmed their otherworldly encounter. As it would later be remarked, you simply could not
ask for a better set of instruments to have been present during the encounter.
The flight was supposed to be a routine exercise to prepare the crew before their
rebasing to Germany. But as the aircraft crossed the Mississippi coast near Gulfport,
the ECM gear detected a strange signal emanating from the plane's
5 o'clock position. To ECM operator Frank B. McClure, the signal appeared almost exactly
like a ground-based radar signal which would be used for area surveillance and
directing of aircraft. However, the signal's origin was coming from out in the Gulf.
McClure at first assumed that there was a problem with the equipment, and that there
was a 180-degree ambiguity causing signals coming from the 11 o'clock position to show as if they
were coming from 5 o'clock- this would explain the strange radar pulse, as on the mainland there
were numerous air traffic control radars active. He figured that the signal he was picking up was
simply a radar operating somewhere in Louisiana, a suspicion strengthened by the fact that the
signal he was picking up was at 2800 megacycles, a common frequency used by S-band search radars.
However, Mcclure observed the strange signal suddenly move upscope,
swing over the nose of the aircraft, and then move downscope on the opposite side.
This would have been impossible for even an inverted signal error or any ground radar
to perform- only a high-flying and very fast aircraft with a powerful search radar could
have conducted such a maneuver. Either that or the top secret equipment McClure
was instructed to destroy should the plane be forced to crash land was a pile of junk.
However, the signal was so bizarre that McClure did in fact chalk it up to some
unknown error. There was, after all, simply no possible way that any aircraft could be
performing the radical maneuver the sensitive ECM gear indicated was occurring. Thus he did
not report the incident to the pilots, nor even to his two colleagues operating the other ECM
equipment. As the signal faded and the plane continued on, the incident was forgotten- but
McClure had no idea that he had just recorded definitive proof that an extremely anomalous,
technological craft had scanned his own aircraft in a nearly 360-degree orbit.
The aircraft continued on towards Jackson, Mississippi. The crew was busy performing a
scheduled ECM exercise that consisted of detecting and taking action against Air Force ground radars
that were along this leg of the flight. As the aircraft turned west over Jackson though,
pilot Lewis D. Chase spotted what he believed were landing lights from another
aircraft moving towards his own from the 11 o'clock position. The aircraft appeared to be
nearly level with the RB-47 and was closing fast, becoming a very bright white light.
Chase grew increasingly concerned as the unidentified aircraft sped straight towards him,
until finally he alerted the crew to be ready for extreme evasive maneuvers. Believing that he would
collide with this unknown jet aircraft, Chase prepared to perform a sudden dive- but then the
bright white light abruptly and instantaneously changed direction of travel. In the blink of
an eye, the light changed its trajectory from nearly head-on to their aircraft, to the plane's
2 o'clock, moving so fast that Chase would later recall that it was like nothing he had ever seen,
or ever would see during his career. Just as suddenly, the light blinked out of existence.
Chase and co-pilot James H. McCoid began to discuss the incredible event over the
plane's interphone. In the rear of the plane, McClure remembered the strange radar signal
that he had recorded on his instruments, and the way that it seemed to almost perform a full orbit
around the aircraft as if scanning it with radar. He informed the pilots and rest of the crew,
and then got the idea to set his no. 2 monitor to begin scanning at the same
frequency as the earlier radar receipt. To his surprise he got a strong signal coming
straight from the aircraft's 2 o'clock position, exactly where the pilots said
the strange bright light had moved to just before it nearly collided with the aircraft.
John J. Provenzano, operating another set of ECM equipment, performed a diagnostic on the
No. 2 monitor utilizing valid and known ground radar stations and confirmed that the equipment
was performing optimally. He then used his No. 1 monitor to double-check the signal for himself,
and confirmed the exact same radar signal being broadcast at the aircraft from its
2 o’clock. The crew continued to monitor the signal, believing that there was a
chance this was simply a ground-based radar that coincidentally was in the same direction
the unknown aircraft had taken- but as the plane continued along its flight path the
signal did not move downscope as would be expected from a stationary ground source.
Whatever was blasting the aircraft with tracking radar, it was keeping perfect pace with them.
Now the entire aircraft was alert and focused on the problem- they were being
tracked by an unknown aircraft that was beyond the capabilities of any known American craft.
Given the tensions of the Cold War at the time, there was very real concern that they
might be dealing with an unknown Soviet craft of incredible capabilities. Chase
decided to vary his flight speed to see if the signal would change, but with every variation
in the aircraft's speed that he made, the signal remained in exactly the same spot relative to the
plane. For over a hundred miles the unknown craft perfectly matched every maneuver that Chase made.
By now the RB-47 was approaching radar-coverage area of the Carswell
Air Force Base Ground Controlled Intercept unit, near Fort Worth,
Texas. The crew contacted Carswell GCI and asked if they had any other air traffic close to their
plane. Carswell would respond immediately that they were tracking another aircraft
approximately ten miles off their 2 o'clock position. The RB-47 was being tracked by both
radar and its IFF transponder- but this unknown craft was only being tracked by radar alone.
This was alarming for the crew. While they may have had their suspicions about what
they were being chased by, the lack of an IFF transponder confirmed for them a growing fear:
this was not a friendly American aircraft.
By now the crew had had time to analyze the signal better with their top-secret gear. For
all appearances, the signal was exactly what one would expect from a normal search and tracking
radar which the crew were extremely familiar with- this signal would not have been out of
place near any airport or military installation in the world. However, there was something entirely
exotic about the signal- while it appeared like a perfectly normal, known human radar signal, even
going so far as to simulate the scan rate, the signal was so powerful that according to McClure
the antenna would have had to have been larger than an entire bomber to put out that much power.
Something was masquerading as a normal, ordinary human radar,
even simulating the scan rate of a mechanical radar- which emits pulses as it rotates. But
it couldn't hide its massive power output, on par with a modern ground or ship-based
search and track radar, and far out of reach of any human military at the time.
Suddenly, McClure saw that the signal was moving upscope on his No. 2 monitor,
confirmed by the immediate message from Carswell that the craft they were tracking
was moving forward of the RB-47. In the cockpit, the pilots couldn't see anything,
and yet both the ECM gear and Carswell ground radar tracked the invisible object as it
moved ahead to the nose of the aircraft, still keeping several miles of separation between them.
Without warning, a massive red glow appeared directly ahead of the aircraft,
with the pilots describing it as “bigger than a house”. Given the 10 mile separation between
the object and the plane, this object had to be emitting quite powerful lights to
cause the pilots to describe it in such a way. Now there was independent confirmation
of the object from the plane's ECM gear, Carswell's radar, and the pilots who were
watching the strange red light keep pace with their plane directly ahead of them.
Chase decided to try to catch up with the object, and increased speed to nearly 500 knots. However,
the object maintained the ten-mile separation no matter how fast the RB-47 moved,
until finally the strange craft began to veer to the right of the plane and towards Dallas.
Chase contacted the FAA and requested permission to alter his flight path so
that he could follow the object. Confirming there was no other air traffic in the area,
he was given permission, and Chase banked towards the object. As he picked up speed,
the glow began to grow brighter, and he realized that he was finally catching up with it.
Carswell then contacted the FAA to inform them that the unknown craft had come to
a complete stop. This finally gave him an opportunity to get a good visual on the object,
and Chase continued to fly directly towards it. The RB-47 closed in on the object from above,
but as they neared it, the pilots suddenly saw the craft blink out of existence. At the same
time, McClure announced that the radar signal had disappeared from his scope,
and Carswell confirmed that they too had lost track of the object.
Chase put the aircraft into a left turn to get back onto their flight path, and while
banking the plane they kept checking back in the direction they had come from for the object.
Halfway through the 20-mile turn, they suddenly saw the red light blink back into existence,
right along the path the aircraft had taken but at a much lower elevation.
Carswell and McClure both confirmed that the object was back nearly simultaneously.
Chase and the rest of the crew wanted answers, and thus he contacted Carswell and asked for
permission to do something decidedly outside the purview of the RB-47's design. Chase wanted
to dive the aircraft straight down onto the strange object, to finally get a good look
at it. After a brief deliberation, he was given the green light. Swinging the big plane around,
he then put it into a steep dive, coming down onto the object that was now below and ahead of
the plane. Once the RB-47 reached around 20,000 feet though, the object once more blinked out of
existance. Carswell and Mcclure both confirmed its disappearance, once more simultaneously.
The aircraft was now low on fuel, and needed to head back to base. However,
as the plane got back onto a homeward course, McClure detected the radar signal hitting their
aircraft from dead astern. The crew attempted to spot the object using the top blisters along the
roof of the aircraft, but the unknown object was now behind and below them at an estimated 15,000
feet. The light would follow them all the way to Oklahoma before finally disappearing.
All in all, the RB-47 would be engaged by the strange craft for over 600 miles.
The incredibly high-profile incident would come under review during the infamous Condon report.
Hired by the Air Force to study UFOs, Edward Condon put together a committee of investigators
to come to a conclusion on the UFO phenomenon. In an infamous 1968 report, the committee would state
that there was no credible evidence of non-human intelligence or advanced technology at work
in the skies over the United States, and that most incidents were simply misidentifications.
However, Condon's credibility was questioned by both the public and people who had been
intimately involved in Project Bluebook- the source for the material that the
Condon Committee reviewed. Dr. J Allen Hynek, originally a skeptic on the UFO phenomenon,
would not only come to be a believer himself as a result of his Air Force investigation,
but would condemn Condon for an unscientific review of the material presented. Condon's
credibility was further tarnished when it was revealed that he'd stated prior to his
investigation that the UFO phenomenon was essentially a nothing-burger,
but he wasn't supposed to come to that conclusion until after his investigation.
The Condon Committee's conclusion of the RB-47 incident would completely ignore significant
portions of the events as told by the crew. It would also downplay the tracking of the unknown
object via as many as four different instruments, as well as its identification by both intercepting
its radar signal, and being picked up on radar itself. The Condon investigation would conclude
that if an object was truly following the aircraft, then the aircraft's own radar
should have picked it up. However, the crew of the plane would explain that the radar currently
on board the RB-47 could only track a tanker-sized target at a distance of 4 miles. This would mean
that for the aircraft to pick up the object on its own radar, at a distance of 10 miles
as confirmed by Carswell, then it would have had to be over twice as large as an airborne tanker.
The RB-47 incident remains to this day, the best publicly known evidence of a non-human
technology over the skies of America, as confirmed by top secret electronic
monitoring gear of the day. It could very well be the first recording of an alien signal,
which seemed to at least attempt to hide its origin by mimicking human radars- but could not
hide its power output which, if human, would have required an antenna as big as a football field.
Now go check out Soviet Union Declassified UFO Encounters Revealed,
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