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Objects at 3,500 miles an hour
Edward Ruppelt, who later left Blue Book after concluding it was a coverup, briefed the Beacon Hill study team at MIT Lincoln Labs. The Air Force had ruled out mass hysteria, he told them. The briefing described strange things around nuclear sites and tests.
In the White Sands and Holloman Air Force Base area, the Air Force had caught multiple objects traveling an estimated 3,500 miles an hour. A meteor shower could not be ruled out, but many of the sightings involved velocities nobody could explain. Foreign programs had also been ruled out.
It is an internal recorded briefing between Lincoln Lab scientists and the Air Force, and it came out in the latest declassified tranche after Representative Burlison's office sent letters asking for records. The sites it mentions are the same ones that see anomalous activity today, including a test and training range in the Southwest. Orbs that harass helicopters are part of the picture.
Why does 3,500 miles an hour stand out?
Meteors strike the atmosphere at roughly 11 to 72 kilometers per second, far faster than 3,500 miles an hour, which is about 1.6 kilometers per second. Aircraft of 1952 flew at a fraction of that speed, and the first jet to pass Mach 2 did so in 1953. Only rockets and missiles came near such figures. Speed estimates from visual sightings were, however, notoriously unreliable.
What is White Sands known for?
White Sands Proving Ground was established in New Mexico in 1945. The first atomic bomb was tested at the Trinity site, which now lies inside White Sands Missile Range, on July 16, 1945. After the war the Army fired captured German V-2 rockets from the range to study the upper atmosphere. Holloman Air Force Base, nearby, hosted high-speed rocket sled and missile tests.
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