American Sightings Continue
Once again, public debunking of UFOs did not affect sightings themselves, which continued at a torrid pace. On July 29, the day of Samford's briefing, ATIC received several remarkable UFO reports. One described a sighting over Los Alamos, which included several pilots and a guard who saw a fast, metallic-looking UFO with yellow lights. The object made a 360 degree turn behind the fighters trying to intercept it. It then streaked away. At some point, it had hovered over the base. In Albuquerque, an Air Force reserve colonel saw a strange ellipse-shaped light moving rapidly. Nearby, yet another unidentified sighting occurred at Walker (formerly Roswell) AFB, involving a base weather officer and three other weather observers, who saw a number of flying discs through a theodolite. The object moved much faster than any conventional aircraft. The field intelligence officer wrote ". . . indicates an actual appearance of ‘unidentified flying objects.'" Another ATIC report from that day described a sighting at an Aircraft and Warning Station in Michigan in which a Ground Control Intercept tracked a UFO by radar moving at 550 knots. Several F-94s pursued the object; one pilot obtained a radar lock while seeing a bright flashing light in that location. In Miami, movie film was taken of a high-speed UFO, submitted to the Air Force and never released.
The press never reported these sightings. Instead, the July 30 Washington Post headline read: "Air Force Lays Saucer Blips Here to Heat," while the New York Times stated: "Air Force Debunks Saucers as Just Natural Phenomena.". . .