50 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
50 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Apollo Program UFO Sighting from 1960's Comes to Light
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(Washington State MUFON, March 21, 1988.) An interesting
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UFO report from the 1960's involving the test firing of an Apollo
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space program booster rocket recently came to light as a result
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of follow-up to the January 21, 1988 Whidbey Island UFO sighting.
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Dan MacIndoe of Oak Harbor, Washington received many phone calls
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from other UFO witnesses as a consequence of reporting his UFO
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sighting to a local radio station and giving out his phone
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number. One of them was from Paul J. Allen of Snohomish,
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Washington, who told him of his encounter with a UFO while
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working for GE/NASA in the summer of either 1966 or 1967.
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A quality control inspector working for General Electric at
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the NASA Mississippi Test facility at the time, Mr. Allen was at
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work during the first captive test firing of the second stage,
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Saturn IV-B rocket. He doesn't recall the exact date but he
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believes it was probably during the summer of either 1966 or
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1967. [The date should be easily obtainable from archived
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historical records of the Space program.]
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At approximately 11:00 p.m. he stepped outside the Data
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Processing Center building for a smoke and to view the test
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firing. He noticed a bright light approaching rapidly from the
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east, which he took to be a light from a plane at first. However,
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it approached the Test Facility at an unbelievable speed, slowing
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over the Saturn V-B test stand before continuing on towards the
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Saturn IV-B test stand, whereupon it stopped and stood over the
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exhaust blast from the test firing for a minute to a minute and a
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half. He described the UFO as 200 feet in diameter. It hovered
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at 3,000-5,000 feet during the stage 2 captive firing, directly
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over the exhaust blast updraft until the firing ended. Then it
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approached at about 30 mph, came over the data processing
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center for about another minute, and left travelling almost
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straight up.
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Mr. Allen states there were 19 people who witnessed the UFO
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where he stood and another 9 to 11 people on the roof of the
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Control Facility Building, who had been filming the test firing
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and also saw it. No pictures of this test firing were ever shown
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to his group although they were shown film footage of all other
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firings. They were told that a weather balloon with a flashlight
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attached had been the cause of the UFO report and that was what
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they had seen. They were also told that if they discussed the
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sighting with the public they would lose their jobs.
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A complete report of this sighting is being sent to MUFON
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national headquarters and to CAUS.
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