Talk:Kecksburg UFO incident/Archive 1
My mother, Frances Kalp, is the person that originally reported the items location and worked with the government to recover it. The officers told her it was a capsule expelled that day. She told the story explained below to for years but people want UFO's intead.
Some Guy's Original Research
[edit]It looks like someone has written an essay based on their own original research and appended it to the end of this article. I'm reverting the article and reposting their essay here in its entirety so you can do with it as you will.
From: "Some Guy" To: Some unknown anonymous IP address Date: 30Jun-2011 0032 hours EDT
Not sure by what authority you moved my "essay" here. I would be curious to find out what your problem was with my "original research". I used citations and credible assertions. Face it the Kecksburg UFO was NOT a UFO at all. It was a special top-secret NASA/CIA satellite component. Only a sensationalist opportunist would try and "sell" this thing as an alien visitation.
Some Guy (aka Spooky)
2011: Finally... What REALLY Was the Kecksburg Object? (19Jun-2011) On December 9, 1965 at 16:07 UTC or 4:07 PM Greenwich Mean Time (11:07 AM EST or Kecksburg PA time), NASA launched a Thor Augmented Delta-Agena D rocket from Vandenberg AFB, California, United States [1]. It reached its EPOCH START (i.e. operational mission start) at 21:07 UTC or 4:07 PM EST. Aboard was a then top-secret photo surveillance Discoverer (a.k.a. Corona) satellite for the US Department of Defense and US Air Force (i.e. ideally for the US Central Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office). There was 1 Nuclear Emulsion experiment aboard for Bob Fitz and a top-secret classified photo surveillance system (see Note 1). The then top-secret vehicle was designated as Corona KH-4A 1027 (Corona was once known as the Discoverer Project before 1962). But this particular mission was also known under the cover name as OPS 7249 [1]. The letters KH stand for KEY HOLE.
Note 1: USGS Earth Explorer's website: http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/NewEarthExplorer/ indicates that KH-4A 1027’s mission on December 10th 1965 was to photograph near these coordinates: 63°54'36.00"N, 159°42'28.80"W. That would be about 50 miles east of Unalakleet Alaska (USA). It did go on to successfully complete that photo survey. But who knows what was in the film canisters the day before on December 9th. It is *assumed* that it involved some sort of photo surveillance on illegal Soviet activity there but that’s not verified.
KH-4A 1027's erratic attitude (i.e. control gas loss) necessitated recovery after two days of operation. All cameras operated satisfactorily. However, the satellite was equipped with two photo recovery buckets shaped like huge acorns. The idea was to take photos then release a batch into space inside one of the buckets with a controlled reentry to be recovered [2] by a C-119 Flying Boxcar [3].
The first bucket release was on December 9th 1965 coinciding with the alleged Kecksburg UFO incident. The photo bucket allegedly reentered over Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and southern New Jersey. Most Kecksburg UFO observers are not aware of the New Jersey aspect of the "fireball's" trajectory, but many eyewitnesses, including myself, saw it "turn" on a right angle back toward Pennsylvania. That implies that the object was under human (i.e. NASA) control from the ground and missed its recovery rendezvous with the C-119. It must have also failed to deploy its drogue parachute system causing the fireball effect over northeastern USA.
The turn must have been to avoid an eventual landing in the Atlantic Ocean near Atlantic City New Jersey where many curious Russian trawlers were probably loitering (The buckets were designed to float on water for awhile for recovery before sinking to the bottom). Also this *may* account for the trajectory discrepancy in the 1967 article[4] by two astronomers in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (JRASC).
In a White House photo you can see US President Dwight D. Eisenhower on 15Aug-1960 commemorating a Discoverer (a.k.a. Corona) "acorn" shaped object (Corona recovery vehicle or photo bucket) for the once top-secret Corona project [5] and also [6]. Many Kecksburg UFO eyewitnesses mention an "acorn" shaped object. Could this photo at the US national Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C. be the cousin of the infamous Kecksburg UFO acorn? [2]
Watch this video of a Corona launch and deployment: [7]. Notice the ACORN shaped object being released? Does this look familiar to people in Kecksburg PA? The alleged Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Kecksburg UFO acorn could have been melted (from reentry) NASA lettering on the vehicle. The alleged lights, sounds, and so-called alien body could all have been circumstantial scenarios normal to a sophisticated NASA space vehicle reentry with unintended biological hazards to recovery personnel (i.e. guidance lights, pressurized gas chambers, radioactivity, etc.).
US President William J. Clinton declassified the once top-secret Corona project during his term of office in 1995 under Executive Order 12951 [8] allowing this "connect-the-dots" type information to be finally released. Therefore the Kecksburg incident in my opinion was no aliens from outer space. Just good old American Cold War secrets.
IN SUMMARY: I have just described NOT a crashed 1,500 kg (3,300 lbs) surveillance satellite (i.e. KH-4A 1027) trying to solve or explain away the Kecksburg UFO, as some will undoubtedly misinterpret here. But it was a a much smaller PIECE of the satellite being strategically released by design into reentry to Earth atmosphere, hypothetically temporarily lost control of parachute deployment system, burning like a fireball from air friction, missed recovery rendezvous, and unintentionally simulated a UFO incidence on December 9th 1965 in the late afternoon coinciding with the Kecksburg incident on the same date. The actual errant satellite was successfully recovered on December 11th, 2 days later. So please make sure to not misquote me please. Not solved... just one very credible probable explanation.
Random IP
[edit]On April 15, 2006, my wife and I took our long awaited day trip to Kecksburg, PA. I was able to find the fire hall, and various webpages had shown pictures of the UFO model and its pedestal, so I figured it'd be worth seeing. But when we got there, only the pedestal was left. No sign of the UFO. Maybe it went back to outer space.
so was the model stolen or taken down by people?
- It may have been stolen. Please use four "~" to sig your statements. Martial Law 21:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)
- ^ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CORONA_film_recovery_maneuvar.jpg
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-119_Flying_Boxcar
- ^ http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1967JRASC..61..184D&data_type=PDF_HIGH&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
- ^ http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/smc_hist/Ike.jpg
- ^ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Eisenhower_inspects_the_capsule_from_Discover_XIII.jpg
- ^ http://www.nrojr.gov/teamrecon/res_vid-corona.html
- ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12951