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Sighting record / 1972

Homestead AFB F-106 scramble after a large radar target over South Florida

September 14, 1972 · West Palm Beach and Miami airspace, south-east Florida, United States
30Partially documented UAP Cigar 9 sources

September 14, 1972. 4:20 a.m. At West Palm Beach International Airport, FAA controller C. J. Fox picked up a bogie on his scope. He called it "a good clear target." Miami International Airport tracked it too. No aircraft was known to be in the area. Watch supervisor George Morales raised his binoculars. He saw something "silver white in color and cigar shaped." The target held for over an hour. At about 6:00 a.m., NORAD was alerted. Two F-106 interceptors launched from Homestead Air Force Base. By one account, the object vanished from radar before they arrived. By another, it evaded the jets at 15,000 feet. Either way, no one caught it.

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Context

September 1972. Florida's Atlantic coast. Project Blue Book had closed in 1969, three years earlier. Yet in the small hours of a Thursday morning, armed interceptors were about to go looking for an unidentified object.

Sources (9, most influential first)

  1. Palm Beach, Florida, 14 Sep 1972 (RADCAT) · NICAP · Research organisation · org report
  2. UFO Investigator, October 1972 article (scan) · NICAP· 1972-10 · Research organisation · org report
  3. Flying Saucers and Little Men Still Around (George D. Fawcett), The Gaffney Ledger, 12 Jan 1973, p. 3 · Patrick Gross (transcript of The Gaffney Ledger)· 1973-01-12 · Press, book, documentary · news
  4. Flying Saucers and Little Men Still Around (English mirror) · Patrick Gross (transcript of The Gaffney Ledger)· 1973-01-12 · Press, book, documentary · news
  5. On This Day, September 14 (Donald A. Johnson) · ufo_data repository · Wiki, blog, podcast · other