August 13–14, 1960 — Red Bluff, CA
11:50 p.m.–2:05 a.m. California Highway Patrol officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley E. Scott are on patrol on a rural road 2 miles east of Corning, south of Red Bluff, California, when they see what they think at first is an airliner about to crash. It turns out to be a maneuvering, silent, football-shaped object, perhaps 150 feet long, with a red light at each end and as many as five white lights, descending to 100–200 feet altitude. Instead of reaching the ground, the object suddenly reverses course, climbs to 500 feet, and hovers. The officers radio the Tehama County sheriff’s office, and the dispatcher alerts all police cars in the area. The object starts moving towards them to a distance of 450 feet and sweeps the ground with a red beam apparently 6 feet in diameter that projects from the red lights on the end and flashes occasionally. Static appears on the police radio. When Scott switches on the patrol car’s own red beam and directs it at the object, it moves away instantly and drifts east. Carson and Scott try to follow in the patrol car as the object moves sometimes slowly, at other times swiftly, then they continue to watch it from an unoccupied fire tower. It is joined by a similar object from the south, then it disappears in the east. A duty officer at the Red Bluff Air Force Station [now closed] confirms tracking the UFO at the time but the commanding officer, Maj. Malden Leroy, denies it the next day. Two Tehama County sheriff’s officers on patrol see the object from a distance at Los Molines, and police dispatcher Clarence Fry in Red Bluff goes outside the station with four others to observe the lighted object. Other witnesses in the area continue to report odd lights and objects through August 19. [Eberhart]
Record Card:
AF-112:
Sources:
“Mystery Flying Object Puzzles,” Red Bluff (Calif.) Daily News, August 16, 1960, p. 1;
“6 ‘Objects’ Fly Formation near Mineral Lodge,” Red Bluff (Calif.) Daily News, August 17, 1960, p. 1;
“‘Flying Object’ Identified Here,” Eureka (Calif.) Humboldt Standard, August 17, 1960, p. 1;
“Sonoma Officer Latest to See Flying Saucer,” Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, August 17, 1960, p. 30D;
“More Objects in Sky? New Reports Are Made,” Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, August 17, 1960, p. C3;
Charles Driscoll, “Earthmen Watch Sky and Wonder,” Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, August 18, 1960, pp. 1, 6;
“Flying Objects Seen by Many in the County,” Yreka (Calif.) Siskiyou Daily News, August 18, 1960, p. 1;
“‘Satteloon Watchers’ See Strange Objects,” Concord (Calif.) Transcript, August 18, 1960, p. 1;
“Venus Dates Big Star,” San Francisco (Calif.) Examiner, August 18, 1960, sec. II, p. 8;
Carson, Charles A. Letter to Walter N. Webb (November 14, 1960);
“False AF Answer in Red Bluff Case,” NICAP Special Bulletin, October 1960, pp. 1, 4;
John R. Ross [Curtis Fuller], “State Cops Race ‘Flying Saucer,’” Fate 13, no. 12 (December 1960): 44–47; [Don’t have]
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, pp. 61–62, 112;
Donald H. Menzel and Lyle G. Boyd, The World of Flying Saucers, 1963, pp. 253-254;
A. Schopick, A Study of Secondary Effects, Summer 1966, pp. 96–100;
Lorenzen, Flying Saucers, The Startling Evidence Of The Invasion From Outer Space, pp. 180–182;
Lorenzen, UFOs: The Whole Story, Signet, 1969, pp. 153–156, 225;
Saucers, Space & Science, No. 17, p. 3;
J Allen Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report, pp. 92–94;
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, Volume II, pp. 169–170;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 1002–1006;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., pp. 1115–1119;
Brad Sparks, Blue Book Unknowns Catalogue, Case 1447, p. 284;
Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government, pp. 295–297;
Loren Gross, “The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse – UFOs: A History 1960: July - December”, 2003, pp.42-55, 72-76; [Inbetween pages contain the rest of the Red Bluff mini-flap upto the 20th]
Mike Swords File, 88D;
NICAP, “Red Bluff Incident”;
“Red Bluff: 1960,” Saturday Night Uforia, February 16, 2017; [Basically the most in-depth article on this case]