Case · C-015

The RB-47 followed by a radar signal from Mississippi to Oklahoma

South-central United States (Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma) · United States · Jul 17, 1957

In flight Military witnesses Radar Instruments

What happened

During a training and equipment-testing mission, the crew of an RB-47H detected with electronic intelligence receivers a signal at around 2,800 MHz that seemed to accompany the aircraft; the pilot and copilot reported lights and a ground intercept radar in turn reported a target. The contact, which began over Mississippi, continued over Texas and Oklahoma until it was lost near Oklahoma City. The Project Blue Book case file (56 pages) is now public, but when the Condon study examined the case Blue Book stated that it had no trace of it.

Proposed explanation

The Project Blue Book card classifies the case as “Was Aircraft” and says it was identified with American Airlines flight 655 (a handwritten annotation refers to a 1971 article by James McDonald). The Condon report, which had not found the case in the Blue Book archives and relied on the crew's recollections collected ten years later, without the data recorded in flight (which, as far as could be determined, had never existed), concluded that the descriptions were not enough to identify the phenomenon. According to a caption in the essay by the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, fifteen years later the signals were traced to an Air Force radar and the luminous trail to a meteor; according to The Debrief, the electronic data collected remain a possible scientific indication of the reality of UAP.

Official investigation

U.S. Air Force (55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Project Blue Book); University of Colorado (Condon Report, case 5)

Words of the document

These descriptions are not adequate to allow identification of the phenomenon encountered.

Official documents

1. Project Blue Book: The RB-47 UFO Incident – July 17, 1957 (fascicolo del caso) · U.S. Air Force – Project Blue Book (The Black Vault copy) · 1957
2. Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (rapporto Condon) · University of Colorado for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (DTIC copy) · 1968

Sources

1. Condon report, case 5 (online text by the Sign Historical Group) (primary source)
2. U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission – “UFOs and Extraterrestrials” (analysis)
3. The Debrief, Micah Hanks – “The RB-47 Incident: Mystery at 2800 Megacycles” (2023) (press, pro-disclosure)

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