December 29, 1952 — Misawa, Japan
7:48 p.m. Col. Donald J. M. Blakeslee, 27th Fighter Escort Wing, while flying near Misawa, northern Honshu, Japan, in an F-84G at 27,000 feet altitude, observes an object like a rotating cluster of lights colored white, green, and red. He reports that the object is “rotating slowly in a counterclockwise direction,” or from east to west, and moving slowly west at aircraft speed. It is projecting three beams of light. Blakeslee climbs to 35,000 feet, at which point he is level with the unknown object. He attempts a pursuit, but the UFO disappears in 30 seconds. Four other aircraft in the vicinity of Chitose Air Force Base [now Chitose Air Base] on Hokkaido also see the object. Radar operators at Misawa Air Base on Honshu had notified their counterparts at Chitose of a radar target heading their way, but it disappears shortly afterward and is never correlated with the visual observation. [Eberhart]
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MISC-PBB2-872 to -877:
Sources:
“Blakeslee Flies Jet in 600 mph Chase after Mysterious Sky Balls,” Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph, January 22, 1953 p. 1;
“U.S. Jet Pilots Chase Light Clusters Flying At Blinding Speed Over Northern Japan,” Washington (D.C.) Post, January 22, 1953;
“Strange ‘Flying Ferris Wheels’ Seen by Jet Pilots near Tsugaru Straights,” The Wingspread (Misawa Air Base) 2, no. 8 (January 23, 1953): 1;
Donald Keyhoe, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, pp. 189-191;
Donald Keyhoe, The Flying Saucer Conspiracy, pp. 46-47;
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 903, p. 187;
Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government, pp. 212–213;
NICAP, “Col. Blakeslee / F-84 Incident”;