File 32657 · July 17, 1957

RB-47 Electronic Reconnaissance Encounter

Mississippi to Oklahoma (airborne), United States

Opened 9/10/2026

Ledger illustration of the file — not a photograph of the object. Ledger illustration of the report. — Night Ledger illustration of the file

LightsHynek RVradar-visualArchive6 witnesses

Standing

Unidentified

On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.

Crew debriefs, ELINT logs, and Blue Book file document multi-sensor correlation over 90+ minutes.

What was claimed

A six-man USAF RB-47 crew was shadowed for over an hour by an unidentified object detected simultaneously on visual, airborne radar/ELINT, and ground radar. The object performed maneuvers impossible for conventional aircraft and disappeared from all sensors simultaneously.

What is on the record

This file is a working record — a report, not a verdict. Official paper, if any, is linked where we have it.

During a training flight from Forbes AFB, Kansas, the RB-47H electronic reconnaissance aircraft with a crew of six (pilot Major Lewis Chase, co-pilot, navigator, and three electronic warfare officers) encountered an unknown object starting over the Gulf Coast near Mississippi around 4 a.m. The object was first detected by the aircraft's ECM/ELINT equipment as a strong signal. It then became visible as a bright blue-white light to the flight crew. It was simultaneously tracked on the aircraft's radar and by ground radar at Duncanville, Texas. The object paced the RB-47 for over 90 minutes across multiple states, executing sharp maneuvers and rapid accelerations. At one point over Texas, all three sensor systems (visual, airborne radar/ELINT, ground radar) lost the object at the exact same instant. Project Blue Book's explanation of it being an airliner was inconsistent with the times, locations, and sensor data. The Condon Committee left the case unidentified, and physicist James McDonald called it one of the most puzzling in Blue Book records.

Could this have been ours?

The known sky, that night.

Satellites were already up. The station was not. Starlink was not.

Always

Venus and the bright planets

A fixed brilliant point. Does not streak. Does not hover over a street then leave. Often the first misread light in a rural report.

Always

Aircraft, balloons, meteors

Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.

Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.