According to the Project Blue Book record cards, on April 18, 1962, an object came in over "Cuba and apparently landed in rough terrain West of Eureka, Utah. Bright enough to trip photo electric cell which controlled city street lights." Air Force investigators believed that the case was explained by a meteor.
Just sixteen minutes later there was another major sighting over Las Vegas, Nevada. According to the Project Blue Book record card, it was a "Radar sighting. Blip. Speed of object varied. Initial observation at 060 no elevation. Disappearance at 105 degrees at 10,000' altitude. Heading tentatively NE, however disappeared instantly to S. Observed by search and height radars. No visual."
The Air Force investigator noted on the record card, "There is insufficient data in the report to form a valid conclusion. Speed, changes in course, and altitude not included. Appearance on both search and height finder confirms that some object was there. Track characteristic indicate a possible balloon of the source."
But the problem with that is the Las Vegas Sun. The banner headline claimed, "Brilliant Red Explosion Flares in Las Vegas Sky. The article told of "a flaming sword" that started a ground search for a weird unidentified flying object, that, according to the newspaper, "Air Force spokesman said that radar tracked the object to the Mesquite [Nevada] area… Spokesman for the 28th Air Division in Reno said the power at Eureka [Utah] 40 miles west of Provo was knocked out from the impact and word of the strange landing was held up until power was restored."
Deputy Walter Butt, of the Clark County Nevada (Las Vegas) Sheriff's Department led a search and rescue unit into the Spring Mountain area to look for wreckage. When I spoke to him in November 1988, he told me that they searched through the night using jeeps and when the sun came up, they continued using aircraft. They didn't find anything of importance. When no one reported a missing aircraft, they called off the search.
During my investigation of the case, I spoke to a number of people in the Eureka area. It is true that the city street lights went out, and one or two parroted the Air Force explanation of photoelectric cells reacting to an extremely bright meteor. But such an explanation does not explain localized failures of lights nor does it explain car engines that stalled.
Among the first to sight the object was Sheriff Raymond Jackson of Nephi, Utah, not that far from Eureka. According to him, he was on Main Street and "heard kind of a roar." He glanced up and saw a yellow-white flame going west, heard a series of loud booms, and the lights in Nephi went out. Jackson noted specifically that it was the lights in the doctor's office, but said, "All the lights went out temporarily.
From Nephi, the object traveled to the northwest, toward Eureka which is about thirty miles away. It flew over Bob Robinson and Floyd Evans. Robinson told me he was traveling south of Eureka when they stopped for a moment and both men climbed out of the truck. Robinson saw the light in the southwest and pointed it out. Evans thought it was a jet aircraft.
The object, according to Robinson, approached them rapidly and passed directly overhead. Robinson said that he thought it was no higher than five hundred feet. It was a flaming object and he thought he could see a series of square windows on the craft, almost hidden in the glow of it.
Robinson said that both men were frightened by the experience. They dived under the truck for protection. The engine of the truck began to sputter and run roughly as the object approached. The headlights dimmed, but didn't fade completely. When the object disappeared in the west, the lights brightened and the engine smoothed out, running normally.
What was interesting here was that we had two reports that seemed to be linked but which the Air Force investigators had separated. Yet the newspaper article put them back together. If that was true, then something very interested happened.
The Air Force report on the Eureka end of the case, dated April 19, provided some interesting information. There was a lengthy report from Captain Herman Gordon Shields, who was interrogated at Hill Air Force Base by Douglas M. Crouch, the Chief of the Criminal Investigations Section. Shields said that he had seen something from the cockpit of the aircraft he was piloting. It was an intense illumination from above. He thought it was another aircraft, and looked in its direction. He saw a long object that he said was shaped like a cigarette. "The fore part, or lower part of the object was very bright, intense white such as a magnesium flare. The second half, the aft section, was a clearly distinguishable yellowish color."
Others in the area reported to the Air Force that they had seen something strange. A man in Silver City, Utah saw a glowing ball of light about the size of a soccer ball.
Sometime after the sighting, the Air Force dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend, then the chief of Project Blue Book and Dr. J. Allen Hynek to the scene. They spent a day in Utah, searched for the meteor and found nothing. They offered a reward for it but had no takers.
There were also reports in the files that suggested that jet fighters had been scrambled from two locations. Planes were sent up from both Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, and Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix. The fighters didn't catch the object.
On September 21, 1962, Major C.R. Hart, of the Air Force Office of Public Information, wrote to an unidentified New York resident, "The official records of the Air Force list the 18 April 1962 Nevada sighting to which you refer as 'unidentified, insufficient data.'… The phenomena was not intercepted or fired upon."
We could read that letter and decide that it was strictly true. It could be that the Air Force spokesman was suggesting that the jet fighters scrambled had not been able to find the object, though they searched for it. Therefore the object was not intercepted, though the attempt was made. However, no matter how you slice it, the letter is misleading.
So, what do we have here. We have an object that was seen crossing the United States. We have a report of a craft heading toward the west as it passed over Utah, but one that, when spotted in Reno was going to toward the southeast. We have a craft that was tracked on radar and which disappeared from the scope in a flash. And, we have dozens of reports from witnesses who saw the object in Utah and Nevada, including those who talked about a "flaming sword."
If we link those two cases, and there is no reason not to link them, then we have a UFO report that is inexplicable. A meteor does not swoop close to the ground to turn out lights and stall truck engines. A meteor does not make a long looping turn. And a meteor is not visible on radar. The ionized trail it leaves might be, the meteor itself is not.
If, on the other hand, we separate the cases by suggesting events on two separate days as the Air Force did, we have two cases that are easy to explain. The master index for Project Blue Book lists the Nellis Air Force Base end of the case on April 18 and the Eureka, Utah end as April 19. If that is true, then the cases are explainable as separate events.
However, what the Air Force investigators did was list one by the local time, which is early evening on April 18, and the other by Greenwich Mean Time, which is early morning on April 19. By converting the Greenwich Time back to local time, and compensating for the fact that Utah is in the Mountain Time Zone and Nevada in the Pacific, we learn that the sightings took place within sixteen minutes of one another. These weren't two events on two days, but a single event on one day.
What has the examination of these cases taught us about the Air Force investigation of UFOs? When the Lubbock Lights case began in August 1951, at the time the UFO project was being reorganized, a real effort was made to learn what was going on. Repeated investigations and extensive interviews were carried out. Ruppelt himself made his way to Lubbock to talk to the principals in the case. He made the effort to learn what was going on and gathered data from different experts in his attempts to find the truth.