November 7, 1950 — Lakehurst, NJ
A military pilot flying a Douglas AD-4Q Skyraider near Lakehurst, New Jersey, engages in a dogfight with a steady white light that he at first mistakes for an aircraft. He gets on its tail, then the light reverses suddenly and passes 100–200 feet above his plane at incredible speed. He again tails it and the same thing happens. The light continues to “turn about me in wide, climbing turns, making about two orbits to my one.” He abandons chase at 11,500 feet. [Eberhart]
Record Card:
Witness Statement:
Sources:
J Allen Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report, pp. 68–70;
Loren E. Gross, The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: UFOs, a History: 1950 August-December, The Author, 1990, pp. 49-51;
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 1282, p. 102;
Richard F. Haines, “Aviation Safety in America: A Previously Neglected Factor,” National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, October 15, 2000, pp. 35-36;
Dominique F. Weinstein, ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - Eighty Years of Pilot Sightings: A Catalog of Military, Airliner, and Private Pilots sightings from 1916 to 2000’, NARCAP TR-04,2001, p. 14;
NICAP, “Light Makes 5–6 Head On Passes at Navy Plane”;