Near London, England, on November 11, a huge, white, metallic and “completely circular” UFO was tracked on radar and observed visually through a telescope by the 256th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Radar picked up a circular object that remained stationary for a long time, then slowly moved off until it passed beyond tracking range. An RAF pilot and his navigator in a Vampire fighter at twenty thousand feet saw the object far above them, which seemed like a bright star. Suddenly, it “buzzed” them, passing over them at tremendous speed. The pilots were questioned for ninety minutes after landing. The object was observed for another twenty-five minutes by four aircraft technicians, which they described as “quite definitely not a balloon.” The RAF pilots described their sighting on British television two days later. On the twenty-fourth, the British parliament discussed this incident and others, and the Ministry of Defense said that two experimental meteorological balloons had been observed, a comment that received much laughter. One MP called the incident “all ballooney.”20
Probably the most bizarre and controversial UFO case of the year was the November 23 incident over Soo Locks, Michigan. Keyhoe and Frank Edwards were the main people involved in ferreting this out. What appears to have happened is that an Air Defense Command Ground Control Intercept controller was alerted to the presence of an unidentified and unscheduled target on his radar scope at Soo Locks. An F-89, piloted by twenty-six-year-old Felix Montcla and co-piloted by Lt. R. R. Wilson, was scrambled to intercept the object. The radar station had the F-89 and the UFO on the scope as the two blips merged into one. For a moment the single blip remained on the scope, then disappeared. No trace of wreckage or the missing men was ever found. The story was carried briefly on AP, but Keyhoe and Edwards faced continual stonewalling by military brass.
The Pentagon’s official explanation was that the unknown radar blip turned out to be a Canadian C-47. The F-89, far from colliding with it, never got closer than several miles from the aircraft. Montcla’s plane then crashed for unknown reasons, but he may have suffered from vertigo and lost control of his plane. The explanation was weak—no records indicated that he was flying on instruments, and no transcript of his conversations with traffic controllers was ever released. Furthermore, the Canadian government repeatedly denied any connection of its aircraft to the incident.
A few years later, a script for a production of the Soo Locks case was developed—and cleared—at Lackland AFB in Texas, promoting a strongly pro-UFO perspective. The script died a quick death, before which it was sent to Keyhoe and Richard Hall. Both believed the script was the creation of UFO enthusiasts acting on their own, not at the direction of Air Force Headquarters. Years later, Hall continued to think of the entire incident as “extremely odd.”21
A few noteworthy sightings occurred in December, all outside of Blue Book’s purview. On the seventh, army personnel saw an unidentified object above Fort Meade, Maryland, future site of the NSA. On the ninth, the CIA reported an incident from France in which multiple witnesses saw a high, motionless, luminous object suddenly change position and shape, then disappear. On December 17, the Swedish Defense High Command ordered a full-scale investigation into sightings of a wingless circular object which had flown rapidly over southern Sweden.22
On the final day of the year, U.S. Marines at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, claimed to see a flying saucer land for a few minutes near their base, then take off. The object was said to be round and emitted red pulsating lights. On four previous nights, near the same base, UFOs were seen maneuvering in the air, one at tree-top height. They seemed to be under intelligent control.23
In addition to the above, there always seemed to be rumors about events that no one recorded. One incident, undated and unconfirmed, is alleged to have occurred during the summer at Ernest Harmon AFB, near Stevensville, Newfoundland. Base radar picked up an unknown blip, and two F-94 jets pursued. One pilot saw an object visually, picked it up on radar, and climbed steeply in pursuit. According to one witness, “The next thing I know was the jet going straight down in a dive. It crashed into a mountain.”24
KEYHOE’S ACTIVITIES
