Minot AFB UFO - Any Ideas?

[Karl12]

Looks like military intelligence made the UFO nuclear connection over seven decades ago but have always been really intrigued by this radar/visual case from Minot Ait Force Base in North Dakota on October 24th, 1968.

One military witness actually described the object as 'an alien spacecraft' and there's other interesting testimony from pilots and security guards found in the vid below - the UFO was confirmed on radar and witnessed by several (separately located) military personnel including the crew of a B-52 as they passed overhead.

Theres also an image taken from the on board radarscope where the object was said to fly in formation next to the B-52 at about three o clock off their right wing.



From 36:10

We are also reminded of Blue Book case# 12548, in which a UFO was sighted on October 24th, 1968 at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. Airmen on the ground saw a brightly-lit object hovering above the ground. A B52 was flying in the area and was diverted to investigate. The crew clearly saw a structured craft and they appear on camera to describe their experiences. The co-pilot, an Air Force captain, is certain that what he saw was an alien spacecraft. The navigator picked it up on his radar scope and we are shown photographs of the actual blip as it paced the aircraft. When it vanished from the scope, they turned the aircraft in an attempt to locate the UFO visually.They saw it hovering close to the ground. It was described as at least 200-feet in diameter, hundreds of feet long, glowing yellow, with a metallic cylinder that was attached.

The crew of the B52 and sixteen ground witnesses attested that they saw a UFO that night. Blue Book came to the astonishing conclusion that what they actually saw were nothing more than stars!

Researcher Kevin Randle gives a nice breakdown of events here (taken from his book 'Scientific Ufology').

What we have, then, was a group of sightings made by men on the ground, at the missile sites scattered around the base. There was radar sightings from ground and weather's radar. There were visual sightings from the crew of the B-52, and an airborne radar sighting where the target traveled at 3,000 miles per hour. Scope photographs were taken. There were sightings made by S.Sgt. Bond the FSC at Nov. Flight, S.Sgt. Smith at Oscar-1, Julelt, and Mike Flight Team and a number of men in widely scattered locations. The object landed at location AA-43 and the entire observation lasted for 45 minutes. Fourteen other people in separate locations also reported the UFO. Security alarm were activated for both the outer and inner ring at the missile sites.

Also hats off to researcher Thomas Tullen (and Project1947's Jan Aldrich) who have conducted some great work on the case and their comprehensive website is linked below:

It also contains this witness sketch by Captain Brad Runyon.


The Minot AFB UFO case | 24 OCTOBER 1968 | Documents | Interviews | Analysis


If anyone's got any ideas on the nature of the object (prosaic or otherwise) please feel free to post.

Cheers.

[quintessentone]

I haven't any ideas on the object, but I am curious as to why it was deemed to be stars, planets, or satellites. Did B52 bomber radar of that period also pick up stars, planets, etc? 

At any rate, there were lots of sightings during that time period (Cold War period), perhaps Russian, Chinese spy craft (?) Or perhaps a real UFO here and there?

"Take, for example, the many mostly nighttime UFO reports from the midwestern and southeastern United States in the summer of 1965: Witnesses in Texas reported "multicolored lights" and large aerial objects shaped like eggs or diamonds.[sup][12][/sup] The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported that Tinker Air Force Base (near Oklahoma City) had tracked up to four UFOs simultaneously, and that several of them had descended very rapidly: from about 22000 feet to about 4000 feet in just a few seconds,[sup][12][/sup] an action well beyond the capabilities of conventional aircraft of the era. John Shockley, a meteorologist from Wichita, Kansas, reported that, using the state Weather Bureau radar, he tracked a number of odd aerial objects flying at altitudes between about 6000 and 9000 feet.[sup][12][/sup] These and other reports received wide publicity.Project Blue Book officially determined[sup][12][/sup] the witnesses had mistaken Jupiter or bright stars (such as Rigel or Betelgeuse) for something else.
 
Blue Book's explanation was widely criticized as inaccurate. Robert Riser, director of the Oklahoma Science and Art Foundation Planetarium offered a strongly worded rebuke of Project Blue Book that was widely circulated: "That is as far from the truth as you can get. These stars and planets are on the opposite side of the earth from Oklahoma City at this time of year. The Air Force must have had its star finder upside-down during August".[sup][12][/sup]
 
A newspaper editorial from the Richmond News Leader opined that "Attempts to dismiss the reported sightings under the rationale as exhibited by Project Bluebook [sic] won't solve the mystery ... and serve only to heighten the suspicion that there's something out there that the air force doesn't want us to know about",[sup][12][/sup] while a Wichita-based UPI reporter noted that "Ordinary radar does not pick up planets and stars".[sup][12][/sup]
 
Another case that Blue Book's critics seized upon was the so-called Portage County UFO Chase, which began at about 5 a.m., near Ravenna, Ohio on April 17, 1966. Police officers Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff spotted what they described as a disc-shaped, silvery object with a bright light emanating from its underside, at about 1000 feet in altitude.[sup][12][/sup] They began following the object (which they reported sometimes descended as low as 50 feet), and police from several other jurisdictions were involved in the pursuit. The chase ended about 30 minutes later near Freedom, Pennsylvania, some 85 miles away.
 
The UFO chase made national news, and the police submitted detailed reports to Blue Book. Five days later, following brief interviews with only one of the police officers (but none of the other ground witnesses), Blue Book's director, Major Hector Quintanilla, announced their conclusions: The police (one of them an Air Force gunner during the Korean War) had first chased a communications satellite, then the planet Venus.
 
This conclusion was widely derided,[sup][12][/sup] and police officers strenuously rejected it. In his dissenting conclusion, Hynek described Blue Book's conclusions as absurd: in their reports, several of the police had unknowingly described the Moon, Venus and the UFO, though they unknowingly described Venus as a bright "star" very near the Moon. Ohio Congressman William Stanton said that "The Air Force has suffered a great loss of prestige in this community ... Once people entrusted with the public welfare no longer think the people can handle the truth, then the people, in return, will no longer trust the government"."

"Ultimately, Project Blue Book stated that UFOs sightings were generated as a result of:

• A mild form of mass hysteria.
  
• Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity.
  
• Psychopathological persons.
  
• Misidentification of various conventional objects"
  

Project Blue Book - Wikipedia

[Karl12]

You obviously just typed that in with no objective thought whatsoever.

Is this the future now?

Are you actually that lazy?

[Encounter]

If anyone's got any ideas on the nature of the object (prosaic or otherwise) please feel free to post.

Cheers.

Sure. I do. It's an alien vessel that they have seen.