"...and then there was light..."
By Hugh Eaton
By Hugh Eaton
Sometimes, incidents which are provocative and perplexing find comfortable resting places in out-of-the-way places in our minds. They become memories and settle down to grow old gracefully with us.
Suddenly, they get a startling wake-up call, which sounds much like a drill sergeant waking his basic trainees at 4:45 a.m. Our memories, dimmed by their slumber, stagger to the front of our minds where we try to make sense of them once again.
This happened to me recently. I saw an ad on TV promoting a program on unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Memories slumbering in rooms 1952 and 1953 of my mind were made fresh again.
UFOs were in the news frequently during the 1950s. Sightings by experienced pilots seemed credible. Others, by less credible sources, made the UFOs seem a pulicity hoax. Not wanting to risk ridicule by the press, their coworkers and neighbors, many reliable sources did not report their sightings.
That's my situation. In 1952, during the Korean War, I was an air traffic controller at the Taegu, Korea, Matcon (military air traffic control center). One summer evening, about 100 of us airmen sat on a hillside, waiting for the sun to set so the movie would start. We only had one outdoor theater so the audience was made up of officers, mostly pilots, flight line personnel and many others experienced with the flight of airplanes.
"Look", somebody yelled! What we saw quieted the whole group instantly. Parallel to the western horizon, on a north to south course, a huge pale-orange ball of light, outlined in green, was streaking through the air. Its speed defied logic. We saw jet traffic constantly, but never anything this fast. In seconds it covered what seemed like a hundred or more miles. The weirdest part - it was completely silent.
We stood in disbelief. Our speculation ranged from a UFO to a new secret plane.
That's not the end of it. The next night a similar light returned on a south to north course. It was unsettling to say the least.
The news of the second sighting came about 9 p.m. as I was working the control board at Taegu Matcon. Just then I heard a plane, call sign "Watchman Zero", call Fukuoka Control in southern Japan, the adjacent control area to ours. The Watchman flights, Australian seaplanes, flew from Japan up the west coast of Korea on reconnaissance flights to places unknown. We surmised they flew to North Korea and perhaps Manchuria and China. Watchman Zero reported to Fukuoka Control he was over the Korea Strait with a strange unidentified light off his left wing. He described the same light we had seen at Taegu. Radio reception was good that night, and as I listened to Watchman Zero's position report cold chills crept up my back.
Fukuoka Control scrambled two F-94C fighter-interceptors which chased the light at their max speed, until the light leveled off at 33,000 feet. At that point the lead F-94 pilot said, "Fuk, the light left us like we were standing still".
The only traffic in my control area that night was a C-47 transport, just south of Taegu, on its nightly courier run. I informed the C-47 pilot about the light over the Korea Strait. He immediately said, "Taegu, the light is just off my left wing about fifty miles." If it was the same light, it had traveled about 175 miles in a matter of two minutes or so. The light stayed with the C-47 for a while, then disappeared.
My shift ended at 11 p.m., but I had agreed to work the overnight for the next team chief. The overnight was normally deadly dull with little traffic - a real opportunity to seek new and creative ways to stay awake. Sometimes the huge B-29 bombers from Guam and Japan, on their way home from their nightly bomb runs on North Korea, would call for weather or other information.
This night things were different. Several B-29 pilots, normally on a tactical control frequency which we didn't have, called on our frequency and told us strange lights were diving at their planes and harassing them. While creating anxiety, the lights seemed to be more of a nuisance than a threat. After that week we heard no more reports of lights.
In December 1952 I completed my one year tour in Korea and rotated to my new permanent change of station at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, headquarters of the Tactical Air Command. During my control tower orientation, our team chief described an interesting procedure.
As each team came on duty for its shift, the Team Chief was required to make an entry in the tower log that a camera, which took 3D pictures (remember this was 1953 - early for 3D) was in the tower, loaded with film and ready to take pictures. We were instructed to take pictures of any strange lights we saw. Things were getting "curiouser and curiouser".
Slack shifts were rare in Langley tower, but on one particular night there was only one plane flying locally, a T-33 two-place jet trainer. He was ready to land so we gave him landing instructions for runway 17.
We couldn't believe what happened on his final approach. From out of nowhere, the same color light I had seen in Korea dove straight down at the T-33, then climbed straight up in the fastest, steepest vertical climb any of us in the tower had ever seen. The chills came back again. It happened so fast we didn't get any pictures.
The T-33 wobbled a few times on final but landed safely. We watched in silence from the tower as the pilot taxied to his parking place on the ramp. Just before he shut down his power the pilot calmly asked, "Tower, did you see that light?" "Affirmative", we replied. That was all he said. All I could think of on the way back to the barracks that night was "the same light...the same damn light!"
A lot of years have passed, and I've only told these incidents to a few close friends. I find the memories, though aging comfortably and undisturbed for years, still a source of mystery.
Tonight, the sky over the Colorado Front Range is laden with stars and planets - twinkling, shimmering, breathtaking. As I try to absorb the masterpiece that is outer space, I wonder what to do with the memories of that light. I decide to share them with you and then put them away again, perhaps for good this time.
Still, I wonder who they are and what they want.
Copyright 2010 Hugh Eaton
Suddenly, they get a startling wake-up call, which sounds much like a drill sergeant waking his basic trainees at 4:45 a.m. Our memories, dimmed by their slumber, stagger to the front of our minds where we try to make sense of them once again.
This happened to me recently. I saw an ad on TV promoting a program on unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Memories slumbering in rooms 1952 and 1953 of my mind were made fresh again.
UFOs were in the news frequently during the 1950s. Sightings by experienced pilots seemed credible. Others, by less credible sources, made the UFOs seem a pulicity hoax. Not wanting to risk ridicule by the press, their coworkers and neighbors, many reliable sources did not report their sightings.
That's my situation. In 1952, during the Korean War, I was an air traffic controller at the Taegu, Korea, Matcon (military air traffic control center). One summer evening, about 100 of us airmen sat on a hillside, waiting for the sun to set so the movie would start. We only had one outdoor theater so the audience was made up of officers, mostly pilots, flight line personnel and many others experienced with the flight of airplanes.
"Look", somebody yelled! What we saw quieted the whole group instantly. Parallel to the western horizon, on a north to south course, a huge pale-orange ball of light, outlined in green, was streaking through the air. Its speed defied logic. We saw jet traffic constantly, but never anything this fast. In seconds it covered what seemed like a hundred or more miles. The weirdest part - it was completely silent.
We stood in disbelief. Our speculation ranged from a UFO to a new secret plane.
That's not the end of it. The next night a similar light returned on a south to north course. It was unsettling to say the least.
The news of the second sighting came about 9 p.m. as I was working the control board at Taegu Matcon. Just then I heard a plane, call sign "Watchman Zero", call Fukuoka Control in southern Japan, the adjacent control area to ours. The Watchman flights, Australian seaplanes, flew from Japan up the west coast of Korea on reconnaissance flights to places unknown. We surmised they flew to North Korea and perhaps Manchuria and China. Watchman Zero reported to Fukuoka Control he was over the Korea Strait with a strange unidentified light off his left wing. He described the same light we had seen at Taegu. Radio reception was good that night, and as I listened to Watchman Zero's position report cold chills crept up my back.
Fukuoka Control scrambled two F-94C fighter-interceptors which chased the light at their max speed, until the light leveled off at 33,000 feet. At that point the lead F-94 pilot said, "Fuk, the light left us like we were standing still".
The only traffic in my control area that night was a C-47 transport, just south of Taegu, on its nightly courier run. I informed the C-47 pilot about the light over the Korea Strait. He immediately said, "Taegu, the light is just off my left wing about fifty miles." If it was the same light, it had traveled about 175 miles in a matter of two minutes or so. The light stayed with the C-47 for a while, then disappeared.
My shift ended at 11 p.m., but I had agreed to work the overnight for the next team chief. The overnight was normally deadly dull with little traffic - a real opportunity to seek new and creative ways to stay awake. Sometimes the huge B-29 bombers from Guam and Japan, on their way home from their nightly bomb runs on North Korea, would call for weather or other information.
This night things were different. Several B-29 pilots, normally on a tactical control frequency which we didn't have, called on our frequency and told us strange lights were diving at their planes and harassing them. While creating anxiety, the lights seemed to be more of a nuisance than a threat. After that week we heard no more reports of lights.
In December 1952 I completed my one year tour in Korea and rotated to my new permanent change of station at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, headquarters of the Tactical Air Command. During my control tower orientation, our team chief described an interesting procedure.
As each team came on duty for its shift, the Team Chief was required to make an entry in the tower log that a camera, which took 3D pictures (remember this was 1953 - early for 3D) was in the tower, loaded with film and ready to take pictures. We were instructed to take pictures of any strange lights we saw. Things were getting "curiouser and curiouser".
Slack shifts were rare in Langley tower, but on one particular night there was only one plane flying locally, a T-33 two-place jet trainer. He was ready to land so we gave him landing instructions for runway 17.
We couldn't believe what happened on his final approach. From out of nowhere, the same color light I had seen in Korea dove straight down at the T-33, then climbed straight up in the fastest, steepest vertical climb any of us in the tower had ever seen. The chills came back again. It happened so fast we didn't get any pictures.
The T-33 wobbled a few times on final but landed safely. We watched in silence from the tower as the pilot taxied to his parking place on the ramp. Just before he shut down his power the pilot calmly asked, "Tower, did you see that light?" "Affirmative", we replied. That was all he said. All I could think of on the way back to the barracks that night was "the same light...the same damn light!"
A lot of years have passed, and I've only told these incidents to a few close friends. I find the memories, though aging comfortably and undisturbed for years, still a source of mystery.
Tonight, the sky over the Colorado Front Range is laden with stars and planets - twinkling, shimmering, breathtaking. As I try to absorb the masterpiece that is outer space, I wonder what to do with the memories of that light. I decide to share them with you and then put them away again, perhaps for good this time.
Still, I wonder who they are and what they want.
Copyright 2010 Hugh Eaton
posted by easynan | 4:22 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for sharing this experience with us. Mitch was fascinated by it and he appreciated hearing from you before his big presentation in Copenhagen on the possibility of life on other planets.
Andy and Brenda
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