The Minot AFB sighting: B-52 radar-visual encounter over a Minuteman missile field, 24 October 1968 (1968)
Missile-field personnel and a B-52 crew at Minot AFB reported, from about 3 a.m. on 24 October 1968, an object tracked on radar that paced the bomber for some 20 miles, plus a light apparently near the ground. Blue Book suggested ball lightning and stars.
- Case number
- TU-1968-900001
- Date
- 24 October 1968
- Location
- Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, USA
- Coordinates
- 48.416° N, 101.358° W
- Shape
- light
- Colour
- Unknown
- Witnesses
- 15
- Status
- unresolved
Case summary
In the early hours of 24 October 1968, military and civilian personnel at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, reported objects over the surrounding Minuteman missile complex. The Project Blue Book case file records that a missile maintenance technician was first to report a bright orange-red object hovering at roughly 1,000 feet with a sound like a jet engine, which appeared to follow his car. Blue Book's files later held reports from fourteen missile maintenance crew at five sites describing a similar object.
A returning B-52H was vectored by radar approach control towards the reported position. Its navigator observed an unidentified blip holding about three miles off through a 180-degree turn, then closing to roughly one mile at high speed and pacing the bomber for nearly 20 miles before breaking off; radarscope photographs were taken. The file notes both of the B-52's UHF transmitters malfunctioned during the close radar encounter and recovered afterwards. RAPCON then vectored the crew to a bright light apparently hovering on or near the ground, which the pilots observed for several minutes.
Blue Book chief Major Hector Quintanilla suggested the radar return was 'a plasma of the ball-lightning class' and that some ground observers had watched first-magnitude stars. No convincing identification was produced, and the case is generally treated as one of the more substantial radar-visual reports of the Blue Book era.
Nearby strategic sites
- Minot Air Force Base — 0 km away
- Malmstrom Air Force Base — 738 km away