April 27, 1950 — White Sands Proving Ground, NM
While preparing for an MX-776A Shrike air-to-ground missile test at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, Charles Riggs, a member of the Project Twinkle cinetheodolite camera crew supplied by Land-Air Inc., sees, tracks, and manages to film four high-flying objects streaking across the sky. Another station also tracks the objects. The photos show only a smudgy dark object, but the triangulation results in a calculation by mathematician Wilbur L. Mitchell and Capt. Perry Bryant of the objects’ size as 30 feet in diameter and 150,000 feet in altitude. [Eberhart]
Documents:
Sources:
Brad Sparks, Blue Book Unknowns Catalogue, Case 367, p. 88;
Edward Ruppelt, The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects, 1956, p. 88;
Timothy Good, Above Top Secret, pp. 354–355;
Loren E. Gross, UFOs, a History: Volume 6, April–July 1950, The Author, 1990, pp. 35-37;
Bruce Maccabee, “The White Sands Films,” IUR 21, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 22–25;
Thomas Tulien, ed., Proceedings of the Sign Historical Group UFO History Workshop, Sign Historical Group, November 2001, p. 44;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 544–545;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., p. 602;
Michael Swords File, 9F;
NICAP, “Cinetheodolite Film Taken by Tracking Station”;
[Various other documents and sections from books not included in this thread]