4:10 a.m., 17 July 1957. Somewhere over Mississippi.
A six-engine RB-47 Stratojet loaded with nuclear bombs and the most classified electronic spying gear on the planet is cruising at 34,500 feet when a glowing red-orange object the size of a barn appears on its tail. For the next hour and forty minutes, across four states and 700 miles, this thing will outsmart every radar, every sensor, and every crew member on board.
But wait, there's more. The UFO even seemed to know when they switched their top-secret equipment off. And all this happened while being tracked by ground radar that has no idea the hell it’s looking at. The Air Force called this event the single most instrumented UFO encounter in history... then they locked the file and data away.
The Crew: Six of the Best the USAF Had
- Maj. Lewis D. Chase – pilot, 2,500+ hours
- Capt. James McCoid – copilot
- Capt. Thomas H. Hanley – navigator
- Maj. John J. Provenzano – “Raven One” (electronic warfare officer)
- Capt. Frank B. McClure – “Raven Two”
- Capt. Walter A. Tuchscherer – “Raven Three”
These guys are not weekend pilots. They fly the most sensitive ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions of the Cold War, sniffing Soviet radar signals with gear so secret it’s still partially redacted today.
The Chase: 700 Miles of Pure Mind Games
04:10 – Over Mississippi. Raven One (Provenzano) picks up a strong 2,800 MHz signal dead ahead. That frequency is classified USAF only. Nothing civilian uses it.
04:30 – Signal moves from 12 o’clock to 2 o’clock position at incredible speed. Pilot Chase banks to investigate. The glowing object is now visible: intense red-orange, size of a house, no wings, no exhaust.
04:39 – Duncanville, Texas FPS-10 ground radar locks the unknown at 10 miles from the RB-47. Same moment, the object flips from ahead of the plane to directly behind it. Ground radar watches it happen in real time.
04:50 – Raven Two (McClure) turns his top-secret ELINT monitor to standby to see if the signal disappears. The glowing object instantly vanishes from sight and radar. McClure flips the monitor back on. Object reappears exactly where it was. He does it twice more. Same result every time.
“It knew when we were looking at it with the classified gear. Every single time I switched the monitor off, it disappeared. When I switched it back on, there it was again. That thing was reading our minds.” Capt. Frank McClure, 1970s interview
05:40 – Over Oklahoma. Object pulls alongside the RB-47 at matching 500 knots. Crew can see it clearly: “Like a bright red sun with a blue halo.” Ground radar still painting it perfectly.
05:57 – Object suddenly accelerates to supersonic speed, climbs to 40,000+ feet, and vanishes off Duncanville radar. RB-47 lands at Forbes AFB, Kansas. Total duration: 1 hour 40 minutes, 700 statute miles.
The Evidence Stack That Still Haunts the Air Force
- Duncanville FPS-10 radar tapes (declassified 2000s) show the unknown matching every move of the RB-47
- ELINT tapes recorded the 2,800 MHz signal strength changing exactly as the object moved
- Original crew debriefing report signed by all six officers
- 1957 Project Blue Book file stamped “Insufficient data for evaluation” (translation: we have no clue)
- 2002 re-analysis by Dr. James McDonald and Brad Sparks: “No known natural or man-made phenomenon can explain the simultaneous radar, visual, and ELINT correlations.”
The Cover-Up That Took Fifty Years to Crack
The crew was immediately split up and forbidden to talk about the event. The ELINT tapes were classified above Top Secret and disappeared into a vault somewhere.
Only in the late 1990s, after FOIA battles, did fragments surface. When researcher Barry Greenwood finally interviewed the surviving Ravens in 2001, they were still furious:
“We were told in no uncertain terms: this never happened. But we have the tapes, we have the radar logs, and we have six sets of eyeballs that all saw the same damn thing.” Maj. John Provenzano, 1999
These are all extremely experienced Pilots and Crew, why on earth would they be forbidden from talking about this event if it was just a prosaic explanation? And who is ordering these folks to stay silent? Why?
Final Verdict
THE MOST INSTRUMENTED UFO ENCOUNTER IN HISTORY.
Six highly trained crew.
Ground radar painting it for 90 minutes straight.
Ultra-secret ELINT gear screaming the whole time.
The object knew exactly when they were spying on it and played hide-and-seek with classified sensors.
Then it outran a nuclear bomber like it was standing still.
Clearly, again, it was swamp gas.