Abstract

Sixty-three years ago some amateur astronomers observed and recorded data pertaining to a remarkable event that apparently occurred near the Moon in September 1954. They appropriately took the notes and filed a report that wound up in a monthly publication put out by UFO researcher, Leonard Stringfield. The October 1954 issue, Vol. I, No.7, of the  C.R.I.F.O. Newsletter carried the story in a short  paragraph at the bottom of page 7. This newsletter showed up in a 26-page release of FBI documents discovered by Lara Elliott, one of NICAP's youngest and most diligent researchers. I had been doing bios on important figures and I had run across a note mentioning an FBI comment about a Lt. Col. O'Mara telling Stringfield: "We want to cooperate and dispense with the misconception that 'flying saucers' do not exist." He also said that the Air Force was getting 700 reports a week." I wanted to check into this claim and I had Ms. Elliott do a document search for me. We were surprised to find that there were more than just a couple of FBI documents on the O'Mara story and were very surprised to find this lunar ELO (Extra-Lunar Object) report. It also came as a surprise that this was the very same year that we had rumors of unknown satellites orbiting the Earth.

February 7, 2017

In February 1954, plans for a (unknown) satellite search were described in an article for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Quoting Dr. (Clyde) Tombaugh, it said that special telescopic equipment would be used. The article had been written before the project began, and there was no hint of giant space­ships. The operation was called a search for natural objects. But the press quickly sensed a hidden story. At White Sands, Army Ordnance officials were deluged with questions. Were there actually unknown satellites? Where had they come from? How many were there? Had this ever happened before? (Donald Keyhoe)

Later in 1954 something happened that may have been related. This is an extremely interesting incident that straddles two areas of interest for me. It not only is a good ELO (Extra-Lunar Object) report for the Lunascan Project, it is also a good example of a UFO observed from the Earth and seen to move above and over the lunar surface. Here is the original report, brief as it is, that was found at the bottom of page 7 of 26 FBI document pages.

Sept 5, 1954; Rockford, Illinois
As they had done on many occasions, amateur astronomers Peter Bartkus and Theodore McColm, were watching the moon through a telescope. Bartkus writes: “I observed the most unusual phenomena I have ever had the experience of witnessing.” Bartkus continues: “The moon was observed through my 6” cassegrain reflector telescope using a secondary mirror. The total focal length for this setup is over 100”, and with the use of 150 and 200 power oculars we got tremendous power with the least loss of light.“ The moon was in the first quarter and its diameter was 29 feet, 30 inches. We saw a spherical object ascending from the northern section of  Mare Humboltianum area. It was not glowing or brilliant, but seemed more like a dull reflected light of a planet. Its size we estimated at about the diameter of craters Pitiscus or Vlaco. At the time it disappeared it had traveled more than 29” or 30” of arc in about 40 minutes. We checked out the possibility of atmospheric diffraction in the sky or the scope by traversing the scope, and by changing the oculars. The object must have been a powered body because as the moon was descending at 1081 mph, the object was ascending and not following a true orbit. It was definitely in space, and in the same field as the moon, or near the moon.”(CRIFO Newsletter,Oct 1, 1954, Leonard Stringfield, FBI files)

The first thing I did was to run a VMA computer check on the Moon for that moment on that very day:

Ephemeris:    DE421
Observatory:    Geocentric
Date:    1954-09-05 22:35:00
Date (TT):    1954-09-05 22:35:30
(J2000) Right Ascension:     17h07m26.73s
(J2000) Declination:    -25°05'26.4"
(Date) Right Ascension:     17h04m41.20s
(Date) Declination:    -25°01'59.3"
Distance:    399348Km
Apparent diameter:    29.92'
Colongitude:    8.6°
Phase:    85.3°
Lunation:    8.51 days
Illumination:    54.1%
Sub-solar latitude:    -1.3°
Libration in Latitude:    +02°48'
Libration in Longitude:    -03°53'
Position angle:    6.6°

The story checked out. The Moon's illumination was 54.1% and phase was 85.3%. The apparent diameter of the full Moon is about 0.5 degrees and was in the first quarter (about 0.25 degrees observable area, here it was exactly 29.92 degrees) and this object moved (ascended) slowly over that surface and within that FOV over a period of 40 minutes. This eliminates "fast walkers", meteors, or anything in the Earth's atmosphere and certainly anything near the Moon. At the mean distance of 240,000 miles (FTR the actual distance was about 399,400 km at that time) and Pitiscus is an 82-km impact crater that lies in the southern part of the Moon's near side, just to the northwest of the larger crater Hommel. Bartkus commented that the comparative size of the object was close to the angular diameter of Pitiscus, so he was taking a crater much further south to illustrate the size of the object they were observing. That all being said, the object must have been very large, 50-70 miles wide if it were at lunar range, and half of that if at mid-distance, etc. In any case, at lunar range a real object that large, observed for 40 minutes would have to be powered, as no natural object in orbit around the Moon would be that slow and observed for that long. If in space between the Earth and the Moon since we are moving in orbit at 66,000 mph and the Earth is rotating at 1040 mph at the equater it would be hard to imagine an asteroid being responsible for this observation.

Assuming that an extraterrestrial civilization discovering an already-inhabited world would have numerous geosynchronous observation platforms to provide 24/7 surveillance without detection, what would be the advantage of having surveillance from a polar orbit?

POLAR ORBIT
The ascending nature of the ULO suggests a polar orbit. Based on our use of satellites with polar orbits, what would this suggest?

*  Since the orbit is lower than for the Geostationary satellites, the data resolution is higher. Our LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is in an eccentric polar orbit.
*  On Earth they provide global coverage, necessary for NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) models and climatic studies.

Disadvantages:
* Cannot provide continuous viewing of one location, but the aforementioned geosynchronized platforms would already provide that important service.

Uses:
• Identify potential resources on the Earth & Moon
• Gather detailed maps of the surface of the Earth and Moon
• Collect data on the radiation levels for the Earth and Moon

EQUITORIAL (NORMAL) ORBIT
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit with an altitude between 160 kilometers (99 mi) (orbital period of about 88 minutes), and 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) (about 127 minutes). Objects below approximately 160 kilometers (99 mi) will experience very rapid orbital decay and altitude loss. Almost all human spaceflights have taken place in LEO or below, including the International Space Station, as well as the majority of satellites, have been in LEO. Objects in LEO encounter atmospheric drag from gases in the thermosphere (approximately 80–500 km up) or exosphere (approximately 500 km and up), depending on orbit height. Due to atmospheric drag, satellites do not usually orbit below 300 km. Objects in LEO orbit Earth between the denser part of the atmosphere and below the inner Van Allen radiation belt. The mean orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 7.8 km/s, but reduces with increased orbital altitude. Calculated for circular orbit of 200 km it is 7.79 km/s and for 1500 km it is 7.12 km/s. The Delta-V needed to achieve low Earth orbit starts around 9.4 km/s.

A very large object, one much larger than the ISS, would do better in a Medium Earth Orbit since the atmospheric drag would affect it less. And a spacecraft that operates and maintains an orbit using electromagnetic force fields rather than rocket thrusters would probably put out a detectable force field signature and would also need to be higher than a LEO.

KEYHOE AND MYSTERY SATELLITES
Maj. Keyhoe:

"Since 1953, it had known that giant spaceships were operating near our planet. At least nine times, huge alien spacecraft had been seen or tracked in orbit, or as they descended nearer the Earth for brief periods. Each time it had been an ordeal for the AF censors, as they struggled to conceal the reports or explain them away when attempts at secrecy failed.

"During 1953, the AF began experiments with new long-range radar equipment. While making the initial tests, AF operators were astonished to pick up a gigantic object orbiting near the equator. Its speed was almost 18,000 miles an hour. Repeated checks showed that the tracking was correct. Some huge unknown object was circling the Earth, six hundred miles out.

"Shortly after this a second enormous object approached the Earth. Tracked by AF radar experts, it also went into orbit, about 400 miles away."

According to Keyhoe, alarmed Defense Department heads hurriedly set up an emergency satellite-detection project at White Sands, New Mexico. The scientist (supposedly) in charge of this secret search was Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, the only noted astronomer who had admitted sighting a UFO. The "sky sweep" was a combined armed forces project, under Army Ordnance Research. But after all these years no evidence was found to support this rumor and Tombaugh and La Paz at the time denied that anything other than a search for "natural" objects was conducted and even  then, reportedly nothing was ever found.

I always questioned the "natural" objects statement and assumed it was all part of the cover-up.  Natural objects, rocks, meteors, small asteroids, cannot simply fall into an orbit, circular or eccentric.  And keeping them in orbit requires periodic orbital corrections. But evidence suggesting anything was ever found to be in orbit is still lacking proof. Some just say Keyhoe just got it all wrong, but many of his leads were correct and he was getting genuine UFO cases from Al Chop at the Air Force Press Desk for a while.

Was it just a coincidence that an incident involving an object in space and possibly near the Moon in a polar orbit in October of 1954, was the same year the mystery satellites controversy of the Earth was brought out by the article for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific  and the Tombaugh satellite search?

Mike Swords:
Certainly interesting, but it takes some speculative gap-filling to hypothesize a controlled craft. Charles Fort collected several anomalous objects in space sorts of reports, and this inspired William Corliss to do even greater digging at things like this. In his collections of anomalous observations (of all manner of things) he located about ten cases of amateur astronomers seeing "dark objects" crossing the face of the Moon at unknown distances --- all prior to 1942, most in the 1800s. And, as I've told you previously, I've read the original Tombaugh proposal and see nothing in there that leads me to believe that it was inspired by a particular observation of the sort you note. I'd far faster believe that it was inspired by LaPaz and his interests. ... LaPaz and Tombaugh were science buddies after all. 

So, apparently the study was not inspired by some early satellite observations, but rather the military/scientific prediction that we humans were close to orbiting satellites, and it would be a good idea to prepare a detection mechanism for that. Keyhoe's idea that the intel community was getting Earth-orbiting object reports in 1954, was a misreading of the vague leaks he was getting and which he filtered by his UFO obsession. Another reason he may have considered the leaks as genuine were the reports of giant objects that had all the earmarks of being motherships and needed a place to come and go from, and an orbit high above the earth was a logical thought.

Brad Sparks:
Over 10 years ago on UFO UpDates in 2006 I traced this to Keyhoe's 1955 book, pp. 33, 67, where it is ONLY ONE satellite orbiting between perigee 400 miles and apogee 600 miles.  The first report Keyhoe got from a captain in Sept 1953 said nothing about the equator, the equator was only mentioned in Oct 1953 by "Paul Redell" (probably Paul Hill of NACA) who also claimed it was picked up by experimental long-range radar, but NO mention it was an AF radar. No such radar in 1953 has ever been found and no radar even from the southernmost part of the US could pick up a satellite at 400 miles over the equator as it would be below the horizon.  So that's a scientific problem for the story.

The orbiting objects from the 1960 era were the exact opposite. Not only the Grumman photo but several other cases were genuinely unsolvable (one by a professional astronomer in Chicago who basically snorted derision when Kuiper made up an explanation). This was all in another IUR article which I do not have right at the moment. 

I want to thank Lara Elliott for getting us the FBI documents and Rich Vitello & Barry Greenwood for work on the transcription into text so we could utilize the data for this report.

http://www.nicap.org/satellites/

Fran Ridge
The Lunascan Project