Case File Details

Note from The Black Vault: Playing off the popularity of the return of The X-Files, the CIA has created a few pages online showcasing their UFO documents, and even creating a, “How To Investigate a Flying Saucer” guide. This guide has been archived below for research purposes, in case the online page ever disappears or is taken offline.  It is not edited in any way.

Southbound on a lone desert highway, police officer Lonnie Zamora was in pursuit of a speeding car outside the town of Socorro, New Mexico, when he was startled by a loud roar! Seconds later, he saw a large flame rise from the ground and pierce the sky above a remote patch of desert southwest of the highway. Fearing a nearby dynamite shack might have exploded, Zamora let the speeding car go, turned right, and drove down a bumpy gravel road that ran alongside the shack.

Zamora’s cruiser clunked along the rocky road until he came upon a steep hill. Rising from behind the hill was a smokeless fire that glowed in a funnel of blue and orange tinted flames. The hill obscured the origin of the flames, so Zamora attempted to drive up it. His cruiser’s tires slipped and swayed on the loose gravel, but after three attempts, Zamora finally made it to the top.

A shiny object, the size of a sedan, sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine about 150-200 yards from where Zamora was perched on the hilltop. At first glance, he thought it was a car overturned in an arroyo (dry creek bed), but when he drove closer, it appeared to be aluminum in color, not chrome, and oval-shaped like a football.

Zamora drove toward the object, along the hill’s crest, for about 50 feet and then stopped the car. He radioed back to the sheriff’s office that he would be busy checking on a wreck “down in the arroyo,” and then he descended on foot down the hill toward the object.

Roooaaarrr! Zamora was startled again by a very loud rumble, not exactly like a blast but also not steady like a jet engine. It started at a low frequency, with the pitch slowly rising. The flame appeared to be coming from the underside of the object, glowing light blue on top and orange at the bottom. Zamora panicked, afraid the object was about to blow.

He ran to take cover but turned back to look at the object as he fled. He noticed a red symbol on the side, shaped like a point that was about 2 inches high and 2 inches wide. The object was smooth, a shiny white aluminum, with no visible windows or doors. There appeared to be two metal legs, slanted outward, supporting it.

Zamora sprinted to his car, hit his leg on the fender, and crashed to the ground. He got up, ran another 25 feet or so, and when he looked back again, he saw the object begin to rise.

It rose to the level of the car, then higher, about 20 to 25 feet in the air.

Zamora ran another 50 feet from his car, just over the edge of the hill, and ducked. Kneeling as close to the ground as he could, he covered his face with his arms for protection. Suddenly, the roar stopped. In the uneasy silence, Zamora lifted his head and looked.

The object sped away from him, toward the southwest, appearing to go in a straight line at about 10-15 feet off the ground. It cleared the eight foot tall dynamite shack by about three feet and then continued in a southwesterly direction, until it went over the high desert mountains and disappeared…

Hector Quintanilla, the last chief officer of the US Air Force’s famous UFO investigation program, Project BLUE BOOK, was in charge of the Zamora case. His team was convinced that Zamora was telling the truth, and despite an extremely thorough investigation, they were unable to locate the object or its origins. In an article for Studies in Intelligence called, “The Investigation of UFO’s,” Quintanilla says that the Zamora sighting is “the best-documented case on record.” It remains unsolved.

Project BLUE BOOK was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Between 1947 and 1969, the Air Force recorded 12,618 sightings of strange phenomena — 701 of which remain “unidentified” like the Zamora case. Although the CIA was not directly affiliated with Project BLUE BOOK, the Agency did play a large role in investigating UFOs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which led to the creation of several studies, panels, and programs. Former CIA Chief Historian, Gerald K. Haines, wrote an in-depth article looking at the Agency’s role in studying the UFO phenomenon for Studies in Intelligence. In his article,“CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90,” Haines says that “while the Agency’s concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.”

With over 20 years of investigations, from the late 1940s until Project BLUE BOOK’s termination in 1969, the CIA and USAF have learned a thing or two about how to investigate a UFO sighting. While most government officials and scientists now dismiss flying saucer reports as a quaint relic of the 1950s and 1960s, there’s still a lot that can be learned from the history and methodology of “flying saucer intelligence.”

10 Tips When Investigating a Flying Saucer:

1. Establish a Group To Investigate and Evaluate Sightings

Before December 1947, there was no specific organization tasked with the responsibility for investigating and evaluating UFO sightings. There were no standards on how to evaluate reports coming in, nor were there any measurable data points or results from controlled experiment for comparison against reported sightings.

To end the confusion, head of the Air Force Technical Service Command, General Nathan Twining, established Project SIGN (initially named Project SAUCER) in 1948 to collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute within the government all information relating to such sightings, on the premise that UFOs might be real (although not necessarily extraterrestrial) and of national security concern. Project SIGN eventually gave way to Project GRUDGE, which finally turned into Project BLUE BOOK in 1952.

2. Determine the Objectives of Your Investigation

The CIA’s concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s because of the potential threat to national security from these unidentified flying objects. Most officials did not believe the sightings were extraterrestrial in origin; they were instead concerned the UFOs might be new Soviet weapons.

The Project BLUE BOOK team, according to Quintanilla, defined three main objectives for their investigations:

• To determine if UFO phenomena present a threat to the security of the US;
• To determine if UFO phenomena exhibit any technological advances which could be channeled into US research and development; and
• To explain or identify the stimuli which caused the observer to report a UFO.

Although BLUE BOOK, like previous investigative projects on the topic, did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena, their research and investigations focused primarily on national security implications, especially possible Soviet technological advancements.

3. Consult With Experts

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, various projects, panels, and other studies were led or sponsored by the US government to research the UFO phenomenon. This includes the CIA-sponsored 1953 Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, also known as the “Robertson Panel.” It was named after the noted physicist H.P. Robertson from the California Institute of Technology, who helped put together the distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists to study the UFO issue.

Project BLUE BOOK also frequently consulted with outside experts, including: astrophysicists, Federal Aviation officials, pilots, the US Weather Bureau, local weather stations, academics, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA, Kodak (for photo analysis), and various laboratories (for physical specimens). Even the famous astronomer Carl Sagan took part in a panel to review Project BLUE BOOK’s findings in the mid-1960s. The report from that panel concluded that “no UFO case which represented technological or scientific advances outside of a terrestrial framework” had been found, but the committee did recommend that UFOs be studied intensively to settle the issue once and for all.

4. Create a Reporting System To Organize Incoming Cases

The US Air Force’s Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) developed questionnaires to be used when taking reports of possible UFO sightings, which were used throughout the duration of Project BLUE BOOK. The forms were used to provide the investigators enough information to determine what the unknown phenomenon most likely was. The duration of the sighting, the date, time, location, or position in the sky, weather conditions, and the manner of appearance or disappearance are essential clues for investigators evaluating reported UFO sightings.

Project BLUE BOOK categorized sightings according to what the team suspected they were attributable to:Astronomical (including bright stars, planets, comets, fireballs, meteors, and auroral streamers);Aircraft (propeller aircraft, jet aircraft, refueling missions, photo aircraft, advertising aircraft, helicopters); Balloons;Satellites; Other (including missiles, reflections, mirages, searchlights, birds, kites, spurious radar indications, hoaxes, fireworks, and flares); Insufficient Data; and finally,Unidentified.

According to Quintanilla, “a sighting is consideredunidentified when a report apparently contains all the data necessary to suggest a valid hypothesis, but its description cannot be correlated with any known object or phenomenon.”

5. Eliminate False Positives

Eliminate each of the known and probable causes of UFO sightings, leaving a small portion of “unexplained” cases to focus on. By ruling out common explanations, investigators can focus on the truly mysterious cases.

Some common explanations for UFO sightings discovered by early investigations included: misidentified aircrafts (the U-2, A-12, and SR-71 flights accounted for more than half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s and most of the 1960s); celestial events; mass hysteria and hallucination; “war hysteria;” “midsummer madness;” hoaxes; publicity stunts; and the misinterpretation of known objects.

Even history can shed some light. An interesting citation found by the 1953 Robertson Panel noted that some sightings had been attributed to an older phenomenon – “Foo Fighters” – that pre-dated the modern concept of UFOs: “These were unexplained phenomena sighted by aircraft pilots during World War II in both European and Far East theaters of operation wherein ‘balls of light’ would fly near or with the aircraft and maneuver rapidly. They were believed to be electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo’s fire) or electromagnetic phenomena… but their exact cause or nature was never defined. If the term ‘flying saucers’ had been popular in 1943-1945, these objects would have been so labeled.”

6. Develop Methodology To Identify Common Aircraft and Other Aerial Phenomena Often Mistaken for UFOs

Because of the significant likelihood a common (or secret military) aircraft could be mistaken for a UFO, it’s important to know the characteristics of different types of aircraft and aerial phenomenon to evaluate against each sighting. To help investigators go through the troves of reports coming in, Project BLUE BOOK developed a methodology to determine if the UFO sighting could likely be attributable to a known aircraft or aerial phenomenon. They wrote up detailed descriptions characterizing each type of aircraft or astronomical phenomenon, including how it might be mistaken for a UFO, to help investigators evaluate the incoming reports.

7. Examine Witness Documentation

Any photographs, videos, or audio recordings can be immensely helpful in evaluating a reported UFO sighting.

A famous case examined by the Robertson Panel was the “Tremonton, Utah Sighting” of 1952, where a couple and two children traveling cross-country on State Highway 30 outside of Tremonton saw what appeared to be 10-12 bright shining objects moving westward in the sky in a rough formation. The husband was able to capture some of the objects on film.

The case was considered significant because of the “excellent documentary evidence in the form of Kodachrome motion picture films (about 1600 frames).” The Panel examined the film, case history, ATIC’s interpretation, and received a briefing from representatives of the USN Photo Interpretation Laboratory on their analysis of the film. The laboratory believed the objects were not birds, balloons, aircraft, or reflections, and therefore had to be “self-luminous.” The panel disagreed with the assessment that the objects were self-luminous, believing that if a controlled experiment was conducted, a terrestrial explanation for the sighting would be confirmed.

8. Conduct Controlled Experiments

As suggested by the Robertson Panel for investigating the Tremonton, Utah sighting (mentioned in tip #7), controlled experiments might be required to try and replicate the unknown phenomena. In the Tremonton case, the Panel suggested an experiment where scientists would photograph “pillow balloons” at different distances under similar weather conditions at the site. They believed such an experiment could help dispel the “self-luminous” theory about the objects in the film. Unfortunately, in this case, the cost of conducting such an experiment made the idea unfeasible.

9. Gather and Test Physical and Forensic Evidence

In the Zamora case (from the introduction), Quintanilla contends that during the course of the investigation and immediately thereafter, “everything that was humanly possible to verify was checked.” This included bringing in Geiger counters from Kirtland Air Force Base to test for radiation in the landing area and sending soil samples to the Air Force Materials Laboratory. “The soil analysis disclosed no foreign material. Radiation was normal for the ‘tracks’ and surrounding area. Laboratory analysis of the burned brush showed no chemicals that could have been propellant residue,” according to Quintanilla. “The findings were all together negative.” No known explanation could be found for the mysterious event.

10. Discourage False Reporting

The Robertson Panel found that the Air Force had “instituted a fine channel for receiving reports of nearly anything anyone sees in the sky and fails to understand.” This is a classic example of needing to separate the “signal from the noise.” If you have too many false or junk reports, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the few good ones worthy of investigation or attention.

The CIA in the early 1950s was concerned that because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet capabilities, the Soviets could use UFO reports to ignite mass panic and hysteria. Even worse, the Soviets could use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it could not distinguish real targets from supposed UFOs.

In order to lessen the amount of false-positive reports, the Robertson Panel suggested educating the military, researchers, and even the public on how to identify objects or phenomena commonly mistaken for UFOs. For example, they recommended training enlisted, command, and research personnel on how to properly recognize unusually illuminated objects (like balloons or aircraft reflections), as well as natural phenomena (such as meteors, fireballs, mirages, or noctilucent “night” clouds). By knowing how to correctly recognize objects that were commonly mistaken for UFOs, investigators could quickly eliminate false reports and focus on identifying those sightings which remained unexplained.

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Case File Details

The following case is used on The Black Vault with permission from the author/investigator. It can not be reproduced in any way without contacting Mr. William Puckett.

Radar Analysis and Computation Worksheet
Hanford, WA sighting of Large Orange Objects
October 18, 2015
Prepared by William Puckett
UFO Investigator and Meteorologist

Background: 2 Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) Officers saw bright orange lights for around 50 seconds between 9:52 and 9:57 PM on Oct 18, 2015. The lights were sighted in a southwesterly direction. The lights were larger than yard lights and were about 25 to 30 degrees above the horizon.

The officers were traveling south on Highway 395 between Connell and Mesa, WA.

James Clarkson MUFON Director for Washington State received the sighting report and requested assistance with analysis of radar data. In response to this request I wrote a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requesting aviation radar data for the Pasco, WA (Tri-cities) area.

I received the radar data submission from the FAA about 2 months later (December 18, 2015).  The FAA provided the data that I requested.

FIGURE ONE – WITNESS & LOCATIONS OF 2 RADAR SITES.

Notes on Radar Data: The radar data were received for Pasco, WA Traffic Control and a NTAP (National Transportation Analysis Program) was also received. The NTAP included a long range radar from Fossil, Oregon which is about 100 miles south of Pasco, WA and the Pasco, WA Traffic Control radar.  (See Figure One to the left).

The closest returns on radar were about 18 miles to the southwest (near Pasco, WA airport). (See Figure Two below.)  The interesting thing about the data in Figure Two is that the Pasco radar report listed that returns were “target reports.” This suggests that data were filtered and weather returns, gr0und traffic, birds and radar angels were removed. This suggests that the remaining returns were actual moving aerial targets.  All of the primary returns are shown in Figure Two below.  A typical “unfiltered” radar map is shown in Figure Three below. The radar map in Figure Three is for Albany, New York.  You can see A “conglomerate” of returns and it is difficult to determine real moving targets while Figure Two shows small patterns of returns.

We can’t definitively say for sure if the radar picked up the objects seen by the witnesses, but we can say that radar returns were in the direction (southwest) and at the time (9:50 to 10 PM) that the witnesses saw the objects. The radar returns were around 18 miles from the estimated witness location and near the Pasco radar. (See Figure Four below.) Figure Four shows the area of returns and a zoom in showing the speed and direction of movement of the returns.

The zoom in box to the left is for returns detected from 9:50 to 9:51 PM. For the box to the left there were six radar returns in sequence.  The target was moving slowly east, then abruptly changes direction to the south-southwest at a higher speed and then turned east-southeast at original speed (38 MPH).  One can’t say for sure if each return represents the same target, but the targets were in sequence with each turn of the radar antenna. The targets were not detected after 9:51 PM.

FIGURE TWO – ALL RETURNS 9:30 TO 10 PM – OCT 18, 2015.

The zoom in box to the right shows returns from 9:54 to 9:55 PM. The box to the right fits more closely with the witness observation time.  Again the speed of the target is slow (38 to 48 MPH) and moving to the west-southwest. The target then turned direction to the northwest and nearly increased it’s speed tenfold. Again we can’t say for sure if this is one target, but it  fits with the radar antenna rotation sequence. The direction of movement (westerly direction ) fits with what the witnesses saw. The targets were no longer detected after 9:55 PM.

Of course the targets could have been multiple targets, but may have showed up as one target on the radar scope if they were close together. The witnesses observed multiple targets.

There were also returns noted in the same area observed by the witnesses before the sighting time, but the witnesses would not have been in position to observe the returns.

Doppler weather radar data were collected from Portland, Oregon and Spokane, Washington. Both of these radars reach the Pasco, WA area.  Some light showers were observed a few hours prior to the sighting. Skies were clear at Pasco Airport at the time of the sighting. The Doppler radar maps did not show anything unusual. The radar sites did show some scattered showers, but the area was well removed from the sighting area. However, Doppler radars are not designed to detect aircraft. The radars have a narrow beam width (one degree) which means that objects will not be detected unless they happen to fly through the narrow beam.

FIGURE THREE – MAP OF ALL PRIMARY RADAR RETURNS ALBANY, NY 9/5/2015.

The discussion below makes the assumption that the object(s) seen by the witnesses were detected by radar:

One of the officers said that his thumb would cover up the object. A thumb has a width of 2 arc degrees. (The moon has a width of 30 arc minutes which is about 25% the size of a thumb in apparent width.)  Let’s assume that the object had a width of 1 arc degrees:

Using trigonometry the width of the object would be around 1,650 feet if what the witnesses saw was detected by radar. For comparison purposes the length of a 747 aircraft is 231 feet with a wingspan of 211 feet.

The witnesses thought that the object(s) were at an elevation of 20 to 30 degrees. For computations we will assume that the elevation was 25 degrees. If we assume that the primary radar returns belonged to the object we can say the following:

Using trigonometry if the radar returns represented the object, the elevation would have just over 44,000 feet.

If the returns represent what the witnesses saw the objects would have been quite large and would have been very visible from the Pasco, WA area.  The fact that the time of the sighting was late (around 10 PM on a Sunday night before the week) and the fact that the objects were only visible for a short time may have resulted in fewer (in any) witnesses.  Also there is a possibility that the objects may have appeared larger to the witnesses due to light scattering in the atmosphere which can make objects appear bigger. This is particularly true if objects are lower on the horizon (25 degrees or lower).

FIGURE FOUR – MAP & ZOOM IN OF AREA OF RADAR RETURNS.

Conclusion and Summary:

2 DOC officers saw 2 large orange objects to the Southwest while returning home from work around 10 PM on October 18, 2015.  The officers were near Connell, WA and were returning to the Tri-Cities area. The officers had never before or have since seen the lights.

The lights were near the Hanford Nuclear Facility in Richland, Washington.

Aviation radar data were heavily filtered which eliminates most superfluous returns (birds, weather, ground targets, angels, etc.)
Radar targets were detected in the direction and times when the witnesses saw the objects. The distance was large (around 18 miles).

The radar targets were only visible for 2 periods of time (9:50-9:51 PM & 9:54-9:55 PM) of around one minute. This is consistent with the brief time that the witnesses saw the objects. The radar targets were in a southwesterly direction which is where the witnesses saw the objects.

The targets were moving in a westerly direction at speeds of 38 to 48 MPH and then accelerated to over 300 MPH before vanishing from the scope. The radar detected this from 9:54 to 9:55 PM. This is consistent with the direction of movement reported by the witnesses and closest to the time (9:52 to 9:57 PM).

If the targets represent what the witnesses saw the objects would have flying around 44,000 feet and would have been over 1,500 feet in width.

The witnesses saw multiple targets. Perhaps the targets were so close to one another that the radar only painted one return?

The targets were close to Pasco Airport. One would think that others would have witnessed the objects if the radar targets represented what the witnesses saw due to their large size and proximity to the Pasco area.