Flying saucers traveling at more than 1000 mph have been tracked in flight over the Pacific coast by expert radar observers, the Daily News learned yesterday.
Similar saucer sightings have been reported by USAF radar observers at Thule, farthest-north military outpost, and at Goose Bay, Labrador.
One observer who witnessed the strange appearances at all three locations was Robert Ripley, a factory technical representative attached to Airborne Early Warning Squadron One at Barber’s Point, Oahu, Hawaii.
RIPLEY, WHO regularly flies with Navy and Air Force radar observers in giant WV-2 Super Constellation airborne radar picket planes, on patrol flights lasting up to 24 hours, told of his experiences exclusively to the Daily News.
“I was at McCord AFB in Washington about a year ago when our radar observers picked up a saucer track heading east, about halfway between Portland and Seattle,” Ripley said.
“An F-94 interceptor was ordered up to try an intercept, and the radarman vectored the F-94 on what appeared would be an adequate intercept course.
“BUT THE blip moved across the screen so fast — we estimated it at more than 1000 mph — that the F-94 exceeded its design speed and went into supersonic flight in an effort to catch the object.”
Ripley said the pilot later admitted he had picked up the mystery object on the interceptor’s radar scope, and said at one time he was able to see it with his own eyes.
“Then it just shot straight up and I lost it,” Ripley said the pilot reported.
THE LOCKHEED tech rep said he and more than a dozen other persons, in February 1953, saw a strange, orange-colored object floating over the icy wastelands during a flight out of Thule.
“I know there isn’t any human habitation out there in those ice fields, but we all saw that strange light and followed it for some time before it disappeared, he said.
Ripley said radar observers at Goose Bay confirmed another sighting he made while flying over that Labrorador (sic) base.
AIR FORCE officers are “well aware” of the unidentifiable objects being sighted frequently by radar and have compiled a bulky record of them, he said.
PROJECT 1947 Comment: This incident is not to be found in the Project Blue Book archives.
