Avon Park in Project Blue Book: The Sightings of 1956 and 1957
Summary
From 1952 to 1969 the Air Force logged the reports of unidentified flying objects that reached it in the files of Project Blue Book, and two of those files are headed “Avon Park, Florida.” Neither kept its mystery for long. On 26 March 1956 an Avon Park housewife watched a hundred or more shining round objects pass overhead from north to south, and within the hour the Ground Observer Corps post had identified them as birds.[nara-bluebook-1956] On the night of 18 October 1957 two aircraft controllers at the Avon Park Bombing Range saw a reddish light with a white center hang southwest of the range and then vanish, and the Air Force’s evaluators marked the card “probable meteor sighting.”[nara-bluebook-1957] Both files are now open at the National Archives, which lists no other Avon Park case in the collection.
Birds over the town, 26 March 1956
The Air Technical Intelligence Center’s record card for the Avon Park sighting of 26 March 1956. National Archives, Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force, RG 341, Project Blue Book case files, NAID 28965221. Public domain.[nara-bluebook-1956]
The report went up the chain by teletype from the commander of the 660th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base on 27 March 1956, addressed to Air Defense Command, the 35th Air Division, the Air Technical Intelligence Center and the Director of Intelligence in Washington. It described a round object “about the size of a child’s balloon, from very long distance,” very shiny and reflecting, “one hundred or more” of them in two formations, the first loosely grouped and the second wedge-shaped, moving north to south directly overhead and very high, on a direct flight path without maneuvers, fading out abruptly after about a minute. The observer, whose name the Air Force blacked out before releasing the file, was a thirty-nine-year-old Avon Park housewife who “happened to be looking up and saw the reflection” at 12:50 and again at 12:55 in the afternoon, on a “perfect day” of clear and unlimited visibility, and studied the objects through seven-power binoculars. The squadron noted that military aircraft were working in the Avon Park danger area at the time.[nara-bluebook-1956]
The same message carried the answer. The Miami filter center of the Ground Observer Corps, the network of civilian volunteers who watched the skies for the Air Force in those years, reported “another UFOB the same as this one at the same position” at 1:25 and 1:26, seen by two Avon Park observers on duty, Mrs. Grace Thomas of East Pleasant Street and a retired carpenter named C. R. Barnett, and at 2:55 the corps “identified UFOB as birds.” The record card at Wright-Patterson closed the case under “Other: Birds,” with the comment “Identified by GOC observers on duty as birds.”[nara-bluebook-1956]
A light over the Bombing Range, 18 October 1957
The record card for the Avon Park Bombing Range sighting of 18 October 1957. National Archives, Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force, RG 341, Project Blue Book case files, NAID 28972298. Public domain.[nara-bluebook-1957]
The second case came from the range itself, two weeks after the launch of Sputnik. On 22 October 1957 the Bombing Range Officer at Avon Park, Warrant Officer Bill M. Sapp, sent the operations officer of the 660th Squadron at MacDill a disposition form quoting the night controllers’ log for 18 October: “At 1950 I spotted a reddish ‘in center’ white light south west of our range about 1500 ft. high, for a few seconds it did not move then it went out of sight fast.” The observer, an airman first class standing in front of the communications building, described a tail train “similar to jet on take off” and a reddish glow with a white center; a second controller saw it too, and thought the light had simply gone out rather than trailed off. There were no thunderstorms in the area. Sapp vouched for both men as “competent reliable aircraft controllers on the Avon Park Bombing and Gunnery Range.”[nara-bluebook-1957]
Major John T. Nelson, the squadron’s operations officer, forwarded the account to Air Defense Command on 25 October 1957 as Air Intelligence Information Report IR-1-57, “Central Florida Avon Park,” with the evaluation C-3, and the Air Technical Intelligence Center’s card recorded a single object, a few seconds’ observation, a course to the southwest, a military source, and the conclusion “Was Astronomical: Meteor.”[nara-bluebook-1957]
Related
References
- nara-bluebook-1956 — United States Air Force, 660th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, and Air Technical Intelligence Center; Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Record Group 341), National Archives. Avon Park, Florida, March 1956: record card and teletype report of 27 March 1956, Sanitized Version of Project Blue Book Case Files on Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects. 27 March 1956. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28965221
- nara-bluebook-1957 — United States Air Force, 660th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, and Avon Park Bombing Range Office; Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Record Group 341), National Archives. Avon Park, Florida, October 1957: record card, Air Intelligence Information Report IR-1-57 of 25 October 1957, and disposition form of 22 October 1957, Sanitized Version of Project Blue Book Case Files on Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects. 25 October 1957. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28972298
Where this comes from
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- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
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Sources
- United States Air Force, 660th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, and Air Technical Intelligence Center; Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Record Group 341), National Archives, Avon Park, Florida, March 1956: record card and teletype report of 27 March 1956, Sanitized Version of Project Blue Book Case Files on Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (1956) · official
- United States Air Force, 660th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, and Avon Park Bombing Range Office; Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Record Group 341), National Archives, Avon Park, Florida, October 1957: record card, Air Intelligence Information Report IR-1-57 of 25 October 1957, and disposition form of 22 October 1957, Sanitized Version of Project Blue Book Case Files on Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (1957) · official
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