FOIA: UFO Record September 17, 1951: Project 10073 Record Card

NM_SEP_17_1951.pdf
Project 10073 Record Card
Civilian sighting of orange-red ball shaped object.
Document date: 1951-09-17
Department: None Listed
Author: None Listed
Document type: Record
pages: 1


Archivist's Notes: Sighting record from September 17, 1951 of a large, orange-red, ball shaped object, performing aerial maneuvers over Tatum, New Mexico. Object appeared three times for 10 to 15 seconds, moving at a low rate of speed. The document is in good shape though the comments are difficult to read.

civilian ground sighting from tatum, new mexico dated 17 sep 195. no time given.

south west observation of an orange-red coloured ball travelling at slow speed which disappeared and reappeared 3 times during the course of 10 to 15 seconds.

addition of handwritten 'insufficient data' comment regarding the conflict between the reported slow speed of object and the short amount of time it was viewed in

This report card dates from 17 Sept 1951 but the notes state that the case is not on file so only the record card remains.

On examining the Project Blue Book Archive, it appears that a sighting from 17 Sept 1950 is on record, also from the area of Tatum NM, with full case notes but no record card. The details of the sighting are so similar, (red ball shaped object, reappeared three times, described as bigger than a B29 etc.), that it seems clear that these are, in fact, the same event but the record card has inexplicably been incorrectly dated 1951 rather than 1950.

However, the 1951 record card reports the incident as having insufficient data to allow a conclusion to be reached whilst the 1950 sighting is identified as a natural astronomical phenomenon.

The 1950 sighting was reported by a John T Bado who was driving to his work on an oil well. Bado was a US Army reservist. The sighting was attributed to a refraction of the setting sun and no follow up interview was planned; the comment was also made that the observer's receptiveness to seeing the object may have been influenced by what is described as "an article in the current issue of a nationally distributed magazine".

The analysis of the sighting does also report that an object was sighted at Walker AFB a few hours later although the second object's description is different. The report of that sighting follows Bado's in the Blue Book Archive. It appears that these two sightings were confused at some time as the first document relating to the Bado sighting has been modified by hand and appears to have originally referred to the Walker AFB sighting.

The Blue Book Archive document from 1950 is linked below. The document is at the link and the subsequent eight pages.
John T Bado Sighting



[edit on 19-11-2007 by timeless test]