Saudi Arabia.Saudi Arabia · something only a B-52's tail radar picked up

Between January 16 and 18, 1957, three B-52B bombers of Strategic Air Command's 93rd Bombardment Wing made the first nonstop round-the-world flight by jet aircraft, Operation Power Flite (the report spells it "Operation Powerflight"). Five took off from Castle Air Force Base, California, on January 16 at 1 p.m. Pacific time. One could not refuel and diverted to Goose Bay, Labrador; another, a spare, left the flight over North Africa for England as planned, and the remaining three landed at March Air Force Base, also in California, 45 hours and 19 minutes later, after four in-flight refuellings from piston-engined KC-97 tankers. One of those refuellings took place over Saudi Arabia. The lead aircraft was B-52B 53-0394, "Lucky Lady III", commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Morris, with Major General Archie J. Old Jr., commander of Fifteenth Air Force, on board.

According to the intelligence report written afterwards, aircraft 394, of the 328th Bombardment Squadron, was leading its group, call sign "Runner 11", at 39,000 feet and 642 knots. The report's drawing labels that figure as true airspeed, but it exceeds the B-52B's maximum (547 knots at about 20,000 feet, according to This Day in Aviation); most likely it is ground speed with a tailwind (our own reasoning). It was night and the aircraft was at about 27° N 47° E, coordinates the report itself gives as approximate and which fall in north-eastern Saudi Arabia.

Just before the rendezvous with the tanker, the tail gunner, Master Sergeant C. H. Ballew, saw on his screen what the report calls an unidentified aircraft. It was the screen of the A-3A, the radar that aimed the tail turret: it looks backwards, shows anything that reflects its waves as a dot of light, a "blip", and has markers for range. The blip stayed at the 6,000-yard marker (about 5.5 km), in the center of the screen (the middle column of the drawing): directly behind the bomber, for about five to seven minutes. The B-52 then banked left and the blip went off the screen to the left.

The report adds three points. First, that the disappearance "may have been caused by the change in direction of the B-52", that is, by the turn itself. Second, that the blip nevertheless seemed to vanish in the direction of the Baghdad Flight Identification Region. Third, that it was smaller than the blip of a second B-52 in the group, showing at the same time at the 3,000-yard marker. The second page is a drawing of the screen showing both blips: the unidentified aircraft's, on the 6,000 marker, annotated "Smaller return than that produced by B-52", and the second bomber's, on the 3,000 marker. In the drawing the exit arrow points to the right-hand edge, while the text says the blip went off to the left; the report does not explain the difference, which could be because the tail radar's screen is read looking aft, so that the aircraft's left appears on the right (our own reasoning). In the paragraph on significance, the report says the unidentified aircraft "appeared on the scope where no aircraft were expected".

The report was written on January 19, the day after the landing, by Captain Alva Smith of the 22d Bombardment Wing, based at March, under the title "Report of Unidentified Aircraft Sighting". It is an Air Intelligence Information Report (AF Form 112, report number IR-1-57) on Saudi Arabia, with January 18 as the date of information and the crew of B-52 number 394 as source. It is signed by Major Robert Sullivan, assistant chief of the intelligence division; it went to Fifteenth Air Force, Strategic Air Command headquarters, the 93rd Wing and Air Force headquarters, and carries the evaluation "B-2": usually reliable source, information probably true.

The report does not say whether anyone on board saw anything, whether the second B-52's radar or any ground radar recorded the same blip, where the third bomber was flying, or at what time the contact occurred. The January 18 it gives as the date of information, which the document's official description uses to date the event, is the day the formation landed; from the flight's schedule, the pass over Saudi Arabia must have been on the afternoon or night of the 17th (our own calculation). The digitized Blue Book collection on archive.org, which holds 25 files for January 1957, has none on this event.

The contact was recorded by a military radar during a record flight, with the crew identified and an intelligence report written the next day giving the aircraft, its commander, the gunner, altitude, speed, coordinates and a drawing of the screen. The report itself does not exaggerate: it attributes no maneuvere to the blip, allows that the loss of contact may have been caused by the bomber's turn, and only notes that it appeared where no aircraft were expected.

What the record does not allow is to say what it was. A blip that stays on the same range marker for five to seven minutes, while the bomber is flying at cruise speed, is something that kept that distance; the report gives neither the blip's altitude nor its heading. By our own calculation, that rules out a KC-97 tanker: the radar looked aft, and a piston-engined aircraft a hundred knots or more slower than the B-52 would have dropped back about 3,000 yards a minute and left the scale within one or two; at the rendezvous, moreover, the tanker sits ahead of the aircraft taking on fuel, not behind it. No source examines the other possibilities, among them another aircraft of the operation itself, traffic the crew did not know about, or a false signal from the equipment.

That the blip was smaller than the second B-52's does not mean the object was: it was twice as far away, and the energy returning to a radar falls with the fourth power of range, so at twice the distance about sixteen times less comes back (our own calculation). Over Saudi Arabia the group had three bombers and the report does not say where the third was flying, though it does say the blip appeared where no aircraft were expected.

There are no visual witnesses either. The report does not mention anyone seeing a light or an aircraft, and it was night, so the radar is the only evidence and the drawing is an illustration of the screen, not an image of the object. The official description accompanying the document warns that the report's descriptive language reflects the reporter's subjective interpretation at the time and should not be read as a conclusive indication of the object's characteristics.