Sightings during official launches of missiles at Vandenberg AFB 1965 to 1978.
I am now a 73 years old male, who, for over 15 years, worked in the Aerospace industries at Vandenberg AFB, in the early years of missile activity, from 1965 through 1978, Delco & Santa Barbara Research Center, in Goleta, CA.
It’s getting to be late in life, for me and I have little to lose any more, so I have decided to discuss my experiences while at Vandenberg, pertaining to UFOs.
As an Employee of Convair, MAB5, involved with the Atlas D & F series, launch facilities, with access to Bldg. 7000, I have been included in many conversations where UFOs were discussed. I have witnessed several incidents, while launching Atlas D missiles from South Vandenberg (Point Arguello), LF04 & LF05.
Most of my tenure, at VAFB, was while it was the designated Western Test Range and part of the Strategic Air Command, or, SAC. While it was Military, most of the locals received critical launch activity reports from various locations all over Lompoc and Vandenberg Villiage, where most of us worked. Because of my work with the rehab of the launch facilities after a launch, I knew of the upcoming schedules and was cleared for the Fallback areas during launches, for both Atlas and Thor missiles.
On many occasions, I was allowed to view the launches using the “Big Eye”, a 4400mm telescope, and, later, view the Range Camera data, at Bldg. 7000.
The “Big Eye” was used to receive immediate sight data to verify the flight profile for each missile launch. During the Thor launches, it was imperative that the BlueStreak (much smaller missile used for gathering exhaust gases data for analysis by Douglas Aircraft to improve the main engines). While viewing some of the launch films, it was quite common to see UFO activity paralleling the flight. Given that for many of these years, the Thor was considered the fastest ICBM that we had, on launch.
The BlueStreak was a small, extremely fast, single stage missile used strictly for gathering various data about the missile flight. It was fired T+10, into the exhaust trail, in the case of the Thor, to within 1,000 yards of the missile. On many occurrences, UFOs were seen to “catch” the BlueStreak, track with it, then speed up and “catch” the Thor missile, tracking it for a brief time, then speed away at a terrific speed.
One thing about the launch radar units of the day: These radar units were capable of tracking at speeds of up to 10,500 m/h. In fact, they were used to find and identify the, at that time, Top Secret flights of the SR-71, when notified of it passing through the Hawaiian Air Space, insuring that it stayed in the flight lane it was authorized for, and it flew at a reasonable speed of 3,500 mph plus. I mention the radar capability to address the flight of the UFOs….the radar couldn’t track beyond the max speed. The increase in speed was immediate and it was extraordinarily fast, outrunning both missiles.
At the time, the launch films were classified as Secret. If they still exist, they would likely be held wherever SAC stored such data, after turning the base over to NASA. All of the film data is analog, not digital.
A comment on the film, “Out of the Blue”, where it describes an incident at VAFB where a UFO supposedly shot lasers at, and disrupted, what appeared to be a Titan Delta flight; I was at VAFB at the time of the first Titan augmented flights and no such incident happened that I was aware of.
During my time at VAFB, I was a Mechanical Designer for Convair Division of General Dynamics. I also worked for Regional Communications, GTE and General Electric on various contracts to SAC. While at Delco and Santa Barbara Research Center (Division of Hughes), I worked on the design teams for the F16 Highspeed Fire Controller and, for SBRC, the Thermal Camera enclosure for LANDSAT IV.
((NUFORC Note: Date above is approximate, and represents several sightings. We spoke via telephone with the source of the report, and he sounded to us to be quite sober-minded. We suspect that he is an excellent witness, and a highly reliable reporter of fact. We have invited him to attempt to reconstruct the actual dates of the multiple events he was involved with, or witness to, during his assignment to Vandenberg AFB. PD
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date is approximate. PD))
I am now a 73 years old male, who, for over 15 years, worked in the Aerospace industries at Vandenberg AFB, in the early years of missile activity, from 1965 through 1978, Delco & Santa Barbara Research Center, in Goleta, CA.
It’s getting to be late in life, for me and I have little to lose any more, so I have decided to discuss my experiences while at Vandenberg, pertaining to UFOs.
As an Employee of Convair, MAB5, involved with the Atlas D & F series, launch facilities, with access to Bldg. 7000, I have been included in many conversations where UFOs were discussed. I have witnessed several incidents, while launching Atlas D missiles from South Vandenberg (Point Arguello), LF04 & LF05.
Most of my tenure, at VAFB, was while it was the designated Western Test Range and part of the Strategic Air Command, or, SAC. While it was Military, most of the locals received critical launch activity reports from various locations all over Lompoc and Vandenberg Villiage, where most of us worked. Because of my work with the rehab of the launch facilities after a launch, I knew of the upcoming schedules and was cleared for the Fallback areas during launches, for both Atlas and Thor missiles.
On many occasions, I was allowed to view the launches using the “Big Eye”, a 4400mm telescope, and, later, view the Range Camera data, at Bldg. 7000.
The “Big Eye” was used to receive immediate sight data to verify the flight profile for each missile launch. During the Thor launches, it was imperative that the BlueStreak (much smaller missile used for gathering exhaust gases data for analysis by Douglas Aircraft to improve the main engines). While viewing some of the launch films, it was quite common to see UFO activity paralleling the flight. Given that for many of these years, the Thor was considered the fastest ICBM that we had, on launch.
The BlueStreak was a small, extremely fast, single stage missile used strictly for gathering various data about the missile flight. It was fired T+10, into the exhaust trail, in the case of the Thor, to within 1,000 yards of the missile. On many occurrences, UFOs were seen to “catch” the BlueStreak, track with it, then speed up and “catch” the Thor missile, tracking it for a brief time, then speed away at a terrific speed.
One thing about the launch radar units of the day: These radar units were capable of tracking at speeds of up to 10,500 m/h. In fact, they were used to find and identify the, at that time, Top Secret flights of the SR-71, when notified of it passing through the Hawaiian Air Space, insuring that it stayed in the flight lane it was authorized for, and it flew at a reasonable speed of 3,500 mph plus. I mention the radar capability to address the flight of the UFOs….the radar couldn’t track beyond the max speed. The increase in speed was immediate and it was extraordinarily fast, outrunning both missiles.
At the time, the launch films were classified as Secret. If they still exist, they would likely be held wherever SAC stored such data, after turning the base over to NASA. All of the film data is analog, not digital.
A comment on the film, “Out of the Blue”, where it describes an incident at VAFB where a UFO supposedly shot lasers at, and disrupted, what appeared to be a Titan Delta flight; I was at VAFB at the time of the first Titan augmented flights and no such incident happened that I was aware of.
During my time at VAFB, I was a Mechanical Designer for Convair Division of General Dynamics. I also worked for Regional Communications, GTE and General Electric on various contracts to SAC. While at Delco and Santa Barbara Research Center (Division of Hughes), I worked on the design teams for the F16 Highspeed Fire Controller and, for SBRC, the Thermal Camera enclosure for LANDSAT IV.
((NUFORC Note: Date above is approximate, and represents several sightings. We spoke via telephone with the source of the report, and he sounded to us to be quite sober-minded. We suspect that he is an excellent witness, and a highly reliable reporter of fact. We have invited him to attempt to reconstruct the actual dates of the multiple events he was involved with, or witness to, during his assignment to Vandenberg AFB. PD
((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date is approximate. PD))
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Vandenberg AFB
USA
30 minutes (each)
30 minutes (each)
cigar
CA
Occurred : 6/1/1968 (Entered as : 1968) Reported: 7/9/2016 9:08:17 AM 09:08 Posted: 7/15/2016 Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA Shape: Cigar Duration: 30 minutes (each) Characteristics: There was an aura or haze around the object
Sightings during official launches of missiles at Vandenberg AFB 1965 to 1978.