People sure are reporting seeing a lot of strange things - Some reports from NUFORC

I was browsing idly through the NUFORC website today, and came across a "briefing report" that I found very interesting.

It is about a incident that occured around Waldorf, MD and involved Andrews Air Force Base, on Friday 26th of July in 2002 (so almost 15 years ago). It is a very puzzling case, where there apparently is both radar confirmation, visual confirmation and a scramble of F16 fighter aircraft that proceed to chase after a "pale bluish light". Allegedly even NORAD has to admit that it had something on radar and fighters where scrambled.

There appear to be multiple witnesses and many reports as can be seen in the NUFORC sighting report for July 2002



Check the entries for the date 07/26/02 starting around 01:00 with a scramble in Washington. Half an hour earlier there is a report from Richmond, UK about, curiously, another white brigt fast moving light.

Excerpt from preliminary report by Joan Woodward of FUFOR:

Sequence of events:
1. Witness heard aircraft taking off from Andrews AFB.
2. Jet aircraft rattles his house, afterburner on.
3. Witness sights a blue light being pursued to a flighter

1. Aircraft take off from Andrews AFB--Rogers heard planes take off from Andrews (estimates the time as 1:30-2 am but he is not sure of this), and he estimates that in 5-7-10 minutes* they were in his immediate area. After take off, there may have been a very short period with no aircraft noise, but aircraft sounds got louder and louder and sounded as though the jets were circling in his area and not leaving. The noise made him think there were multiple jets in the area. He felt there were more than 2.

2. The aircraft noise level brings Rogers outdoors--The noise was rattling the house and was so great that Rogers went outdoors, turning to his right and walking a few steps so he could get away from trees and see the sky. He saw a military fighter flying directly away from him going SSE about 35-45 degrees above the horizon. He was looking directly at the tail end of the aircraft, and its afterburner (orange-white plume of fire) was on and remained on for 2-3 seconds before reducing to a residual short plume for the remainder of the viewing time. No sonic boom was heard. The fighter was in level flight at an estimated altitude of 3000' (broken clouds at 3500' from weather report) and was in view for about 11 seconds. Rogers goes back indoors.

3. Sighting--For approximately 3-5 minutes it was quiet with no jet noise or distant jet noise. Then the noise level increased again to near the previous levels. Rogers goes back outside to see what was happening. He goes out the door to the right(south), and sees nothing this time, though he hears loud jet noise. The he goes to the left of his front door(north). At this point he sees a pale bluish light moving at a phenomenal rate of speed. His sense is that the light is moving in an effortless almost floating manner but at high speed, but not at meteoric speed. When first seen, the light was estimated to be 35 degrees above the horizon in the NE sky above the treeline. When first seen, its path dipped and came back up like a small dip in a roller coaster and it flew straight line to about 85 degrees from the horizon in the ESE sky, where it was obscured by a mature deciduous treeline about 30' from Rogers. The estimated time from first sight to treeline interference was 3-4 seconds. Speed was constant, straightline, and there was no sound associated with the light. At this point, no aircraft was in view, and although jet noise could be heard, it was not in the immediate vicinity.

Rogers ran to the south and picked up the light again at about 45 degrees from the horizon in the southwest sky and moving away from him. About 3 seconds after finding the light again, a military aircraft flew over his house, which was behind Rogers, coming from the north and straight-lining after the blue light. Light and aircraft are now on the same path going southwest. Rogers was moving out into the street to keep them in view as long as possible. The aircraft was in sight about 22 seconds before it could no longer be seen. The blue light was in sight for about 5-6 seconds before it could no longer be seen (the aircraft could be seen much longer because it was so much bigger than the light). Rogers did not know when the aircraft began its pursuit of the light, but when it appeared over his house, he is sure it was then in pursuit of the light but that it had no chance of catching it as the blue light was much faster than the pursuing jet. The aircraft used no afterburner and followed the blue light's path until they both disappeared in the SW sky. Rogers estimates they were between 1000-2000' apart . [This may be the most iffy estimate because of viewing angles-JW]

As the aircraft pursued the light in level straightline flight, it was tipping its wings from side-to-side constantly, at least 4 times to each side. In the partly cloudy sky, the blue light was sometimes briefly obscured or partly obscured by clouds. Because the fighter was so much larger than the light, visual was not lost when broken clouds were between it and the witness.

Description of the light: A constant pale blue in color and starlike, about 2 or 3 times the size of the red wing tip lights of the jet pursuing it. He could see no hard edge to where the light, any more than a hard edge could be seen on a airliner beacon light or radio tower light. The entire light flickered from: light-to-faded-to-light on a cycle of about 1.5 seconds throughout the time it was visible. The brightness of the light was unchanging. He compared the flicker to a high flying airplane beacon light but with different timing. Rogers compared the quality (not the behavior) of the light to "blue" (rather than green) glow sticks held aloft by a helium balloon.

*All times were estimated by re-enactment against a stopwatch.

You can read the whole Case Brief, including responses from NORAD, on the NUFORC website here.

Note the NORAD response of a scramble due to "suspicious air activity" which was later changed into:

"Two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled approximately 0100 hours 26 Jul 02 after radar detected an unknown aircraft. The unidentified aircraft's track subsequently faded from the radar. The F-16s investigated, found nothing out of the ordinary, and returned to base." For operational security reasons, other details would not be discussed.

Source

Very interesting case, which I had not heard about before.

BT


ETA: There apparently was an article in the Washington post about this (also mentioned in the overview for July 2002) but I have not been able to find the article. The article url was www.washingtonpost.com...

It is an interesting case, and I haven't heard of it before either. The case is somewhat similar to my own nighttime NUFORC report --- In reference to a bluish-white hypersonic light that I witnessed in 1976, approximately 40 miles west of Washington D.C.

a reply to: Erno86

I think that it is very interesting that the response from NORAD admits they tracked something on radar.

I don't know if it possible, as the Air Force seems to half-heartedly imply, that the witness actually saw the afterburner of the first of the two scrambled planes. We know there is supposed to have been two scrambled jets, but the witness only saw one.

Anyway, there are other reports of the same light at the same time by other witnesses, so I still think it is interesting.

BT