Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience: The Project Blue Book Report Chapter (Part 2)

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The True Story of the Worlds First Documented Alien Abduction: The Project Blue Book Report Chapter

A form titled “The True Extract of ‘Daily Report of the Controller,’ ACS [Air Communications Service] Form 96 for the Date of 20 September 1961” outlines the actual ground-visual report. It informs us that the Air Force personnel observed an unidentified aircraft on precision approach radar 4 miles out from the control tower. It continued its approach and pulled up at half a mile. Shortly thereafter, radar picked up a weak target downwind, and then radar contact was lost. The tower was advised of the aircraft’s presence when it was on final approach, and also when it made a low approach. However, the tower was not able to see any aircraft at any time. The Air Intelligence Information Report failed to mention an Air-Intercept Radar observation at any time, although that box is checked off on the form, suggesting that there may have been one.

The “Daily Report of the Controller” reads as follows:

0614Z (0214 a.m.) OBSERVED UNIDENTIFIED A/C [aircraft] COME ON PAR [precision approach radar] 4 MILES OUT. A/ C MADE APPROACH AND PULLED UP AT 1/2 MILE. SHORTLY AFTER OBSERVED WEAK TARGET ON DOWNWIND, THEN WHEN IT MADE LOW APPROACH, TWR [tower] UNABLE TO SEE ANY A/C AT ANY TIME…JC CERTIFIED TRUE.

Signed

ROBERT O. DAUGHADAY

Captain, USAF

Commander

The Headquarters of the 817th Air Division at Pease Air Force Base did not transmit the Hills’ UFO sighting to the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, until September 29, 1961— eight days after the report was transcribed. It stated, “Non-availability of observers for early interrogation precluded electrical transmission of the report.” It was sent by E.B. Lobato, CWO W2, USAF. This delay was not consistent with Air Force procedure. Also, because the Hills were readily available for early interrogation, reporting the UFO the day after they returned home from their trip, one must ask, who were the other observers who weren’t available? This Air Force statement suggests that either a cover-up was already in progress, or there were additional witnesses. In 1965, when reporter John Luttrell was doing research for his Boston Traveler articles, he located additional witnesses. Unfortunately, when he left his job as a reporter, he handed over all of his files to his editor. Those files have never been located and were probably destroyed.

Project Blue Book received a ground-radar sighting report of an- other unidentified flying object from the North Concord, Vermont, Air Force Station on September 22, 1961. This ground-radar sighting occurred on September 19, 1961, at 5:22 p.m., eastern standard time, less than six hours prior to Betty’s first observation of the UFO.

The Project Blue Book 10073 Card regarding the Vermont sighting reads as follows (transcribed from Brummett/Zuick Air Command and Staff College Research Study):

  1. Date: 19 Sept. 61
  2. Location: N. Concord AFS, Vermont
  3. Date: Time Group-GMT 19 2122Z September 19 at 5:22 PM
  4. Type of Observation: Ground-Radar
  5. Photos: No
  6. Source: Military
  7. Length of Observation: 18 min.
  8. Number of Objects: 1
  9. Course: S
  10. Brief summary of sighting: Return on H/F [height- finder] radar size of a/c appearing as normal target at 62,000 appeared 196 deg. At 84 mi, lost on contact 199 deg. At 80 mi, going NW then S and gradually S on scope 18 min. [The original TWX on file at Project Blue Book describes the UFO as a “large aircraft.”]
  11. Comments: Relative low speed and high altitude coupled with erratic course including weather balloon.
  12. Conclusion: Probably balloon.

On September 25, 1961, Project Blue Book’s Director Major Friend sent an information request regarding the North Concord, Vermont Air Force Station radar sighting report to the USAF’s Foreign Technology Division (FTD).

On September 28, 1961, Colonel Paul J. Slocum, chief of electronics at the FTD, replied in the following memo (also transcribed from Brummett/Zuick Air Command and Staff College Research Study):

  1. The relatively low speed and high altitude of the subject UFO, coupled with erratic course (including hovering), appear to rule out a normal aircraft target and favor some target as a weather balloon.
  2. It is suggested that if it is desired to pursue the investigation further, a check might be made of the activities in the area responsible for launching and tracking weather balloons.

On November 22, 1961, Captain Pallas L. Tye, Jr. of the USAF’s Climatic Center in Ashville, North Carolina supplied the following report to the USAF’s Foreign Technology Division:

ATTN OF: CCDPD

SUBJECT: Copy of Selected Rawinsonde Observations TO: Air Force Technical Intelligence Center Foreign Technology Division, TD-E Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

1. Reference: Your telephone call at 1415 EST 15 Nov 1961.

2. We are sending copies of Rawinsonde observations (WBAN 31 ABC) from Portland, Maine, for 17 through 22 Sep 1961.

3. Lincoln, New Hampshire does not take Rawinsonde observations, and Portland, Maine, is the closest station.

FOR THE DIRECTOR

Signed Pallas L. Tye, Jr.

Captain, USAF Administrative Officer Atch: Photocopies of Rawinsonde Obs.

According to U.S. government fact sheets, 6-foot-wide helium- or hydrogen-filled weather balloons carry a small rawinsonde instrument package, suspended below. The instruments transmit information regarding wind speed and direction, temperature, air pressure, and humidity. A weather balloon rises at about 1,000 feet per minute and bursts at ap- proximately 100,000 feet when it has expanded beyond its elastic limit (about 20 feet in diameter).

It is interesting to note that North Concord, Vermont, is only 17 miles west of Lancaster, New Hampshire, the area where Betty first sighted the anomalous craft. The radar target was about 80 miles to the south/ southwest of the Air Force base.

Major Brummett and Captain Ernest R. Zuick, Jr., in an Air Command and College research study, noted that the Concord, Vermont, original TWX on file with original Blue Book material described the radar target as “a large aircraft.”2 Obviously, even if it flattened out at high altitudes, a 20- foot-wide weather balloon is not a large aircraft. Additionally, the balloon has a very small radar cross section, so only the instrument package shows up on radar. The one in question was tracked going northwest, then south for a period of 18 minutes. If it were spotted at 62,000 feet, by the time the Air Force station lost contact with it, its altitude would have been approximately 80,000 feet, assuming that it continued to ascend at the rate of 1,000 feet per minute. When a weather balloon enters the stratosphere it should travel in a west-to-east direction with the flow of the jet stream. However, the object in question traveled against the strong horizontal upper atmospheric wind currents. This raises concern that the object on the radar target may not have been a weather balloon.

According to Major Brummett and Captain Zuick, there is no indication that additional requests were made for the Vermont radar sighting, and photocopies of the rawinsonde weather balloon observations were never found by researchers. Although no correlating data can be located, the time and location of the radar target in relation to the Hill sighting is an interesting coincidence. It is unfortunate that Project Blue Book failed to investigate the North Concord, Vermont, Air Force Station report, the Pease Air Force Base radar report, or the Hill UFO sighting report. Instead, it ignored the significance of these reports and assigned easy, prosaic explanations to them.

Although on September 21 and 22, 1961, Pease Air Force Base seemed extremely interested in the Hills’ UFO encounter, by November of 1961, the cover-up was complete.

The official Air Force release regarding its assessment of the Hill report, shown in the following list, requires a sentence-by-sentence analysis:

Information on Barney Hill sighting, 20 September 1961, Lincoln, New Hampshire

  1. The Barney Hill sighting was investigated by officials from Pease AFB. The case was carried as insufficient data in the Air Force Files. [Previously it had been listed as “weather inversion,” an atmospheric condition in which a layer of warm air overlies a cooler air mass and can cause an uncorrelated radar target or an optical mirage; “Jupiter”; and “optical condition.”]
  2. No direction (azimuth) was reported and there are inconsistencies in the report. [The Hills reported that they were traveling south when they noticed the object at an angle of elevation of approximately 45 degrees. It was south of them and then headed north very fast. Then, it changed direction and headed south. There were no inconsistencies in the report.]
  3. The sighting occurred about midnight and the object was observed for at least one hour. [The Hills’ preliminary report states that the craft was observed for at least 30 minutes.]
  4. No specific details on maneuverability were given. [It changed direction abruptly, it hovered, and it ascended and descended numerous times very rapidly. Its flight was described as jerky, not smooth.]
  5. The planet Jupiter was in the southwest at about 20 degrees elevation and would have set at the approximate time the object disappeared. Without positional data the case could not be evaluated as Jupiter. [It departed in a generally northwesterly direction, according to Barney. Betty couldn’t see it when she stuck her head out of the window.]
  6. There was a strong inversion in the area. [This is a favorite Blue Book explanation. The Mount Washington Observatory reported, “It is possible a weak inversion set up in the valleys overnight, as the valley locations are more prone to the diurnal effects of the sun, but I think that the cloud cover would have prevented any radiational cooling in the valleys. The fact that warmer air was moving in on a steady west wind would lead me to believe that most all locations, valleys, and summits would have had similar warming trends.”3]
  7. The actual light source is not known. As no lateral or vertical movement was noted, the object was in all probability Jupiter. [The Hills reported lateral and vertical movement by a cigar- shaped continuous band of lights that, at closest approach, was the size of a dinner plate at arm’s length. As it hovered, V-shaped “wings” began to extend with red lights on the tips.]
  8. No evidence was presented to indicate that the object was due to other than natural causes. [It is incomprehensible that an objective analysis of the Hills’ report could have yielded this conclusion.]

It is evident that The U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book’s conclusions were inconsistent—not Betty and Barney Hill’s description of the object. They were an average couple who carried out their obligation as United States citizens to report an anomalous craft in New Hampshire’s skies. The Air Force did not conduct a real investigation. As it so often did, Blue Book ignored the unconventional aspects of the case and as- signed it to one conventional category after another. When none fit, they assigned it to the category of “insufficient data.”