Kecksburg : 50 Years after the "Strange Object in the Woods"

originally posted by: mirageman
NASA Kecksburg FOIA Release

Eventually a law suit was filed and despite extreme pressure applied by the judge the results were still unsatisfactory and many of the requested files were seemingly missing or destroyed.

The files released did not make the case any clearer although one interesting observation made was that It seemed there was an unwritten government policy that unidentified aerial objects would be explained as meteors and other mundane events, before any conclusion from investigations had been reached.

Hi Mirageman,

A skeptical friend recently made some dismissive comments about ATS. When I suggested that the quality of threads here varies a lot but that some interesting and well-researched items do get posted here, he asked for examples. I'll include this thread (and some of your earlier ones) when I reply to him.

Incidentally, could you expand on your remark about an "observation" that it "seemed" there was an unwritten government policy that unidentified aerial objects would be explained as mundane events before any investigation? Is that your personal observation or one that is made in one of the documents/articles you cite?

Edit to add : Starred and flagged (obviously...).

a reply to: mirageman

Interesting story, but I place little trust in non-contemporary 'witness' accounts particularly 20+ years after the event, especially when there is no way to verify they actually did either witness something, or were even at the location at the time of the alleged event.

Although completely unrelated, there's an old joke that it would take the Wembley stadium to house all the people that were adamant they were at the first Sex Pistols gig at a venue that could only house a few hundred. It's fitting because time, imagination and other inputs all have an effect on our memory.

a reply to: mirageman
Thanks mirageman. This case is one of the most frustrating for me because even after reviewing everything I can find, I still can't form a reliable opinion about what really happened. While I'd like to believe as many witnesses as possible, there's too much conflict in this case to do that, especially since as you mentioned but didn't provide much detail:

originally posted by: mirageman
The Meteor Theory

...There were also a great many members of the Kecksburg community who claimed nothing really happened there on December 9th 1965.

However one thing I'd clarify is that in my opinion there's no doubt that there was a meteor. The question is, what if anything did the meteor have to do with events in Kecksburg, and the answer might be nothing, they were two separate events. But your writeup almost makes it sound like there was a meteor or something else, and I don't think that's true. I think there was a meteor, AND either something else or maybe not if all the witnesses who claimed nothing really happened can be believed.

In any case it occurs to me that it took almost 50 years for the Roswell case to be explained by officials, so my hope is that since this case is now that old, officials can shed some light on it now, or maybe soon. Without that the existing information is too contradictory to make much sense of it.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Wait, Roswell was explained?

Certainly it hasn't been, to my knowledge.

Very good and interesting post mirageman. I had to include this which I just came across this morning. Like Roswell there are many opinions and points of view on what exactly it was that landed. Of interest I noted a comment that said the U.S. government was not or did not track this object, which is odd if true because the Canadian radar did. Draw your own conclusions.

Kecksburg is about an hour drive from where I live. Several years ago I went on a tour of the area. I walked through the woods where this happened. When it was pointed out, you could see where something fell through the trees quite a while ago by the broken branches and damaged tree trunks.

Personally I lean towards it being the film capsule from a Corona satellite.

Woah this an excellent collection of the most pertinent information and it's changed my opinion of what actually happened. I'm totally sold on the idea of it being the MK2 re entry vehicle because it is so close to the original description. Sure, the absence of rivets and welds makes it difficult but the majority makes sense. I'm of the opinion that there is no evidence that the Nazi bell even existed and its a fabrication or conflation.

What this does show along with many of the 'major' ufo cases post Roswell, is preparedness. The collection / interception team seem like they were ready to go.

It's the same with (among others)
Berwin Mountain Case
Rendlesham (possibly depending on whose evidence you believe or exclude)

Teams were ready to go, and collect whatever it was that landed. They aren't however waiting for it to land, so they only ever have ideas of general areas.

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Wait, Roswell was explained?

Certainly it hasn't been, to my knowledge.

The US Air Force issued two reports, one in 1994 and one in 1997. Of course not everybody accepted the explanations but I have no disagreement with this characterization:

Roswell Incident

In the 1990s, the US military published reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed Project Mogul balloon. Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist. Roswell has been called "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim".

It would be nice to see a report like that on the Kecksburg incident but I'm not holding my breath. That a NASA employee made a statement about the Kecksburg object, but has made no further comment is interesting:

Kecksburg Incident

Kean also wrote that she tried to get more information from Steitz, the NASA spokesperson who issued the surprising statement in 2005 that NASA had indeed examined debris related to Kecksburg, supposedly from a Russian space probe. But Steitz never responded. Kean was particularly interested in Steitz's source of information to make such a statement, since he also indicated there were no surviving records and the court-ordered search also turned up no relevant records.

I find that whole episode with NASA spokesman Steitz to be quite bizarre since it appears to contradict claims from the orbital debris expert saying it couldn't have been what Steitz claimed, and the fact that Steitz never responded to requests for clarification about the source of his information make me wonder if maybe the incident is still classified. If it was a Russian probe, I think it may have violated international agreements to grab it and study it instead of turning it over to the Russians. As far as the story it crashed in Canada hours earlier, are we expected to believe it was never recovered from Canada? I think it would have been an object of interest whether it landed in Canada or Pennsylvania.

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn
Any chance of this incident being FOIA'd?

If you check this part of the thread www.abovetopsecret.com... about half waydown are the details of a very lengthy court case with NASA over FOI releases and some of the documents released are linked. Also the Project Bluebook documents on the case are available at Fold 3 and freely to view or download .

Kecksburg BlueBook files

originally posted by: micpsi
According to Clark McClelland, who was a NASA official at the time and was taken to inspect the object, spending about 15 minutes examining it, the Kecksburg object was a Russian version of Die Glocke, the Nazi bell. Either the Russians lost control of it ( Clark argues against this because he says that it was a "controlled landing") or else they launched it and

The interview with Jeff Rense shows photographs of the object after it was lifted onto an Army trailer called a "lowboy".

Thanks for that information micpsi there is also a webpage ; www.nationalufocenter.com... giving Clark McClleland's take on the Kecksburg story for anyone who wants to dig a bit further.

The reported "acorn-shape" sounds something similar to a Russian Soyuz reentry capsule.


Officially, the first Soyuz flew in 1966, but maybe there were earlier unofficial flights of either the Soyuz or something similar to the Soyuz.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
If it was a Russian probe, I think it may have violated international agreements to grab it and study it instead of turning it over to the Russians.

Maybe the United States DID give it back to the Russians, but quietly and with both sides agreeing (for one reason or another) to keep the whole incident a secret.


EDIT TO ADD:
By the way, I grew up in Hempfield Township (Greensburg) PA, about 6 or 7 miles the way the crow flies from the place that this incident reportedly happened.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

HI Isaac,

Thank you for the kind words. I always look to, now dearly departed, JKRog08s old threads as the standard to achieve on here.His Kecksburg thread from 2009 is still relevant today and well worth a look.

..Incidentally, could you expand on your remark about an "observation" that it "seemed" there was an unwritten government policy that unidentified aerial objects would be explained as mundane events before any investigation? Is that your personal observation or one that is made in one of the documents/articles you cite?

I had to think before I could clarify this. I think tiredness was getting to me last night when I posted this all up and is actually me paraphrasing comments from Leslie Kean in a document available here :

THE CONCLUSION OF THE NASA LAWSUIT Concerning the Kecksburg, PA UFO case of 1965

The specifics are on page 9 of the pdf

'.......................
This practice of conveniently stating that the phenomenon was a meteorite or satellite, when in fact it was unidentified, relates back to one of the Project Blue Book files, dated December 10, 1965, written the day after the Kecksburg incident. This “memo for the record” states that Major Howard from the Pentagon called Major Quintanilla, the head of Blue Book, to ask what he could tell the public about the “meteor” seen over Pennsylvania. Quintanilla replied that a team had been out to search for a fallen object, but had been unsuccessful. “

Major Quintanilla said that it was Ok to call it a meteor that entered the atmosphere. He said that investigation is still under way. There was no space debris which entered the atmosphere on 9 December 1965.” It seemed to be an unwritten government policy that objects would be publicly explained as meteors or whatever worked best, even before it was actually determined what they were, and before investigations were complete.

Hopefully that places the comment in better context and I trust it didn't cause too much confusion?

Its very rare that ive read a thread that actually makes sense. congrats

This thread stands out from so much i have seen here.

originally posted by: uncommitted
a reply to: mirageman

Interesting story, but I place little trust in non-contemporary 'witness' accounts particularly 20+ years after the event, especially when there is no way to verify they actually did either witness something, or were even at the location at the time of the alleged event.

Although completely unrelated, there's an old joke that it would take the Wembley stadium to house all the people that were adamant they were at the first Sex Pistols gig at a venue that could only house a few hundred. It's fitting because time, imagination and other inputs all have an effect on our memory.

There is some evidence to suggest the trees were damaged in the woods near Kecksburg in the mid 60s and 3 of the witnesses supposedly pointed local investigator, Stan Gordon, to the same area of the woods where the craft came down without prior knowledge of each other's stories. But ultimately we have to take their word for it.

As for the Pistols first concert at least both us know where we were on 20 July 1976 hey

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Wait, Roswell was explained?

Certainly it hasn't been, to my knowledge.

'Officially' Roswell was explained back in the 1990s and you can see it all in pdf form for free.

Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

They had a spaceship at Roswell it's true, theres a picture inside of it.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

This case is one of the most frustrating for me because even after reviewing everything I can find, I still can't form a reliable opinion about what really happened

Hello again Arby. I think what we have here is a genuine UFO case (in that we are dealing with one or more flying objects that remain unidentified). But I can only go on hunches myself because the evidence is contradictory, missing or being withheld somewhere.I know you did a lot of digging on the old thread about the case. But I chose to leave a lot of the scientific explanations about angles of descent etc and orbits of spacecraft out of the OP to keep it easily readable.

Tim Printy has provided an awful lot of information on Kecksburg in his freely downloadable Sunlite magazines if you or anyone else wants to take a peek:

Sunlite 3_6 Magazine (Kecksburg)


You may have already seen it?

But your writeup almost makes it sound like there was a meteor or something else, and I don't think that's true. I think there was a meteor, AND either something else or maybe not if all the witnesses who claimed nothing really happened can be believed.

I did tend to write the post like we were dealing with a meteor or something else. But I do agree it could well have been a meteor AND something else.

I was expecting something from the Air Force or Government after 50 years to be released on this case. But so far nothing has been forthcoming. I don't want to force fit an explanation that it was military, space junk or even an ET spacecraft. So to me this is still a genuine UFO mystery.

I witnessed the fireball as a kid, working for a Sohio gas station in Rocky River, Ohio. It was dusk, and I was filling up a car at the pump. I saw the bright fireball high above in the West, and seemed to be going from North West to South West. It looked like it broke up, because I remember a forked explosion, but was so bright, all that was seen after the event was a smoke trail which rapidly dissipated. I have given this account in many other threads, both here on ATS, and elsewhere.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Do you guys know about the US snatching a Soviet space probe without them even knowing?

Click here for further information

Although this doesn't mention the exact time or place I suspect it happened in North America (but not the US) back in 1959.

So if something Soviet came down in the US or one of it's major allies you can be sure we'd be taking it apart and studying it. If the Soviets had no knowledge we had it then all the better.

What I cannot understand is, if the US did capture a Soviet spacecraft, why the continued secrecy now the Space Race is long over and the Soviet Union is long gone?

a reply to: mirageman

What I cannot understand is, if the US did capture a Soviet spacecraft, why the continued secrecy now the Space Race is long over and the Soviet Union is long gone?

I would imagine, like in most clandestine operations, that the after effects of violating peoples rights, and perhaps their lives in safeguarding that information is not something they would want released.

originally posted by: mirageman
I had to think before I could clarify this. I think tiredness was getting to me last night when I posted this all up and is actually me paraphrasing comments from Leslie Kean in a document available here :

THE CONCLUSION OF THE NASA LAWSUIT Concerning the Kecksburg, PA UFO case of 1965

The specifics are on page 9 of the pdf

Thanks for the clarification.

I'll have to have a look at the memo cited on that page.