On December 6, 1950, at 10:30 Eastern Time, an estimated 40 unidentified craft traveling at 32,000 feet, were seen on radar. Within minutes, the White House was notified. Within the next 20 minutes, the CIA, JCS and many others were also updated on the situation.

Then, approximately 35 minutes after the alert began, the original 40 unidentified tracks faded out, and one C-47 flight in the area remained. Fighter jets were scrambled, and intercepted the one plane they were able to identify, which was an American flight out of Otis Air Force Base.

Were the blips simply the product of the radar malfunctioning and “seeing” objects that weren’t really there? Or was this something else?

The below documents came from the United States Air Force Declassification Office. The Black Vault has numerous other FOIA requests open, and this page will be updated when those cases complete.

Document Archive

United States Air Force

Air Defense Alert – 6 December 1950 – Unidentified Aircraft Encroach Northeastern U.S. [5 Pages, 1MB]

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The post Air Defense Alert – 6 December 1950 – Unidentified Aircraft Encroach Northeastern U.S. first appeared on The Black Vault.

On 5 January 1978, in response to a memorandum from the Department of Defense (Appendix 1), the Chief of Naval Research directed the Naval Research  Laboratory to form a study team to carry out a short, intensive investigation to determine the causes of a series of startling acoustic events that had disturbed residents of coastal New Jersey and South Carolina.

Significant public response to these events began on 2 December 1977 and continued at intervals to the present (end of February 1978).

To meet the objectives set forth by the tasking memorandum, the Naval Research Laboratory established an Ad Hoc Study Team on 5 January 1978. Members of the team were experts in specific areas drawn from the Laboratory’s various Science and Technology Directorates as well as from military personnel assigned to the Laboratory. The original team membership was as follows:

Additional expert personnel were added to the core Task Force as needed. These individuals included

Below, you will find the declassified document/study that the NRL conducted.

Declassified Document

 NRL Investigations of East Coast Acoustics Events, 2 December 1977 – 15 February 1978 [155 Pages, 22.8MB]

The post NRL Investigations of East Coast Acoustics Events, 2 December 1977 – 15 February 1978 first appeared on The Black Vault.