Tulsa, OK - Disk

October, 1961, Tulsa Oklahoma: low altitude, slow, disk object(s); high speed turns, v. high accelleration.

I was delivering newspapers at approximately 3:30 AM, October 1, 1961, (plus of minus a week), on North Braden Avenue at the corner of East Marshal Street. It was cold (30-35F) and the sky was clear of clouds.

Two circular, saucer-shaped objects flew over me in a North-East direction, generally headed toward the Tulsa airport approximately two and a half miles away. My estimate at the time was that they were flying at about 250 feet altitude, and were about 80 feet across. It was relatively easy to judge the distance, as the edges of the saucers were crisply in focus. There was very faint scoring or scratching on the bottom surface of the saucers, giving a slight textured appearance, which also allowed me to judge altitude better. They flew at approximately 15-20 MPH (very slowly), and in line (one behind the other, same altitude). The bottom of the saucers glowed with a golden light that pulsed slowly, in about a 2-3 second cycle from dimmer to lighter and back to dimmer. The pulsing was very distinct, but not the cycle was not "wide," in that it was never particularly bright, and always a bit dim. The saucers were completely silent. There were no "point" lights, or particular light emitting locations except for the whole of the under surface.

The location was very slightly hilly, and the saucers proceeded in a direction directly in line with the street. I would watch clearly them until they had flown about a mile and a half away. As they receded, it became apparent that the main bodies of the saucers had the appearance of two thin spherical surfaces, one above and one below, meeting at the edges. Given the estimate that the saucers were 80 feet in diameter, I estimate that the main body of the saucers were 8 feet thick.

The main body of each saucer was surmounted by a translucent (opaque) white dome, rising approximately 4 feet above the main body. The dome was only a little brighter than the golden bottoms. There were no "point" sources of light on the dome. I do not recall that the top surface of the saucers, apart from the domes, glowed; however, it is likely that they did glow only a little dimmer than the bottoms or I would have noticed either that they were dark or that the saucer bodies were uniformly bright, top and bottom. I do not recall that the dome lighting pulsed.

It is possible that my size estimates are too small. It is possible that the saucers were instead, 125 feet across and 12 feet thick in the main body with a 6-7 foot dome, flying up to but not exceeding 400 feet in altitude. These sizes are an upper limit and unlikely.

At the time I was skilled in aircraft recognition, having been growing up with a parent who was employed at the Tulsa Airport and who kept me well informed about airplanes and air flight mechanics. I was also a relatively skilled hunter, with a good sense of distance for estimating bullet trajectories for high powered rifles.

Naturally, I thought this to be an extraordinary incident, and so I kept my eyes on the sky for many mornings thereafter. Subsequently, within two or three weeks I saw another saucer, which I will report here as part of the same incident.

I was standing at the corner of East Pine and North Yale, approximately half a mile North of the previous sighting, and saw a saucer fly overhead in a South-West direction toward downtown Tulsa, 4 miles away. The location was elevated sufficiently so that I could see the downtown skyline. The saucer was the same size and shape, but this time flying silently at 750-1000 feet altitude at perhaps 200-250 MPH. It glowed with a golden pulsing light, as had the two saucers in the previous sighting.

Within perhaps 1 to 1-1/2 minutes, the saucer passed just even with or to the other side of the downtown region and turned Northward at probably the same speed. From this distance it was a little easier to estimate the altitude, as the profile of the saucer was relatively clear, although distant and therefore a small visual object. The saucer flew Northward for about a mile, until more or less directly East of me, then abruptly changed both direction and speed. The saucer abruptly veered upward at about 25 degrees -- a "point-turn" with no curvature to it that I could detect from where I was. It abruptly increased in speed to what I would estimate to be about 1500 MPH. I judge this to be the speed from the prior assessment that it was going 250 MPH, and was not going 6-8 times that speed, upward at the 25 degree angle. It seemed that the saucer accelerated from 250 to 1500 in not more than a few hundred feet, if it took even that distance. For all I knew, it was instantaneous, since one or two saucer-body lengths in acceleration to that speed would have been indistinguishable from instantaneous. The saucer continued upward rapidly until I could no longer see it.

Within one week more, I saw something that I presumed to be a saucer, also. From the same location at Pine and Yale, I looked into the sky Southward and a little East, and saw high into the sky (about 55-60 degrees elevation) what appeared to be a meteor entering the atmosphere -- a not uncommon sight. However, this meteor began to glow, then streaked down at about 150-160 degrees downward Upper Left to Lower Right in my vision, then abruptly slowed and stopped in place, still glowing brightly from what I thought to be heated entry into the atmosphere. After remaining completely still for approximately 10 seconds, it flew off horizontally to the horizon, Eastward (probably South-East from its stopped position) and disappeared into the distance. I could not see features on this object, nor its shape. The event was probably 8-10 miles distant, perhaps in an area 1-3 miles West of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

These three events were the only ones I saw.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD))