Kodiak Naval Radar-Visual Encounters: P2V-3 Patrol Plane and USS Tillamook

January 1950. Naval Air Station Kodiak sat at the edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Patrol Squadron One flew security patrols through the dark hours. In the harbour, the fleet tug USS Tillamook (ATA-192) lay anchored near buoy 19 in the main ship channel. Over two nights, four separate observations would end up in a single confidential Navy intelligence report.

22 January 1950. About 0240. Lt. Smith was commanding P2V3 No. 4 of Patrol Squadron One on the Kodiak Security Patrol. His radar picked up a contact 20 miles north of the air station. It quickly vanished. About eight minutes later a contact appeared 10 miles southeast. Radar operator Gaskey reported interference he had "never before experienced." The tower reported no known traffic.

Down in the channel, sometime between 0200 and 0300, Chief Boatswain's Mate Morgan was standing watch aboard the Tillamook. He saw a "very fast moving red glow light, which appeared to be of exhaust nature." It looked like "a ball of fire about one foot in diameter." He called Quartermaster First Class Carver, also on watch. The light came from the southeast and moved clockwise in a large circle around Kodiak. Then it headed back southeast. Both men witnessed the return flight. "No odor or sound was detected." It lasted about 30 seconds.

At 0440, Smith's radar showed a contact at 5 miles on the starboard bow. The blip was smeared, with a tail-like trailing edge. About ten seconds later the object was directly overhead. The report put its speed at 1800 mph.

The crew saw "two orange lights rotating about a common center." They compared it to "two jet aircraft making slow rolls in tight formation." Smith tried to circle and keep it in sight. It was "too highly maneuverable." The object opened the range, turned left and came up on Smith's quarter. Smith judged this threatening. He turned out all the lights in the aircraft. About four minutes later, the object disappeared from view in a southeasterly direction.

23 January 1950. 0435. About 62 miles south of Kodiak, Lt. Causer, Lt. Barco and plane captain Paulson watched "a pulsating orange yellow projectile shaped flame." It pulsed on for 3 to 5 seconds, off for 3 to 5 seconds, the cycle lengthening as the range grew. It climbed on a westerly course and stayed in sight for ten minutes. Causer could not close on it at 170 knots. It never appeared on radar.

The Navy report was dated 10 February 1950 and classified CONFIDENTIAL. Weather balloons released that morning and the next were checked. None matched. The objects were left unidentified, possibly meteors. One analyst suspected "external interference from sources outside the aircraft." Another thought some sightings might be jet aircraft, or interference from another radar. Beside the paragraph on Smith's chase, someone wrote only a question mark. Copies went to the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and Air Force and Army intelligence. In all, 36 copies.

The FBI copy surfaced through FOIA in the 1970s. Bruce Maccabee published it in the MUFON UFO Journal in September 1978. Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood reprinted it in Clear Intent in 1984. A later NARCAP RADCAT analysis, hosted by NICAP, corrected the speed for closing geometry and Smith's own airspeed. It still found a minimum of about 1,600 mph, "somewhere in the region of Mach 2 or greater." It rejected meteors and balloons, judged jets highly unlikely for the main encounter, and concluded the case "should be carried as an unknown." Brad Sparks lists it as Case 324 among the Project Blue Book Unknowns. Whether a Blue Book file exists has never been confirmed.