UFO Caught on Tape
Date: August 15, 1950
Location: Montana, United States
The Mariana UFO sighting is considered to be one of the first UFO cases that included photographic evidence. It was August 15, 1950, when Nick Mariana, the manager of a minor-league basketball team, together with his secretary Virginia Raunig, was inspecting an empty baseball field in Montana prior to their fixture.
It was a beautiful sunny day, not a single cloud in sight. The time was around 11:25 when Mariana and Raunig were in the empty baseball field. Mariana’s attention was caught by a bright light in the sky. As he looked up, he brought the sighting to Raunig’s attention and the pair then noticed there were two objects in the sky. The objects were flying too close in proximity and too fast to be conventional aircraft. Apart from that, the objects were rotating on their axis. Mariana rushed to his car where he had his 16mm camera and was able to record part of the sighting before the two silvery UFOs disappeared.
The sixteen second footage shows the two objects traveling at a great speed before they disappear out of sight. This was the first time anyone had caught a flying saucer on camera, undeniable proof that these saucers, which were a topic of popular discussion at the time, truly existed. The following day the local newspaper wrote an article about the footage and the news spread like wildfire, becoming the most famous UFO videotape to date.
The Footage
The Mariana UFO footage can easily be found online. The sixteen second video footage shows the two bright objects in the daylit sky. Mariana and Raunig estimated that the UFOs were traveling around two hundred to four hundred miles per hour. They also estimated the UFOs’ diameters to be approximately fifty feet and the distance between the two objects to be approximately 150 feet apart.
When the footage was forwarded to the United States Air Force, the case was immediately shrugged off and an explanation was provided without any investigation. The air force stated that the two bright objects were reflections from two F-94 jets that were in the sky at the time. The explanation seemed legitimate and difficult for the ordinary person to disprove. With that being said, two years later in 1952, Edward J. Ruppelt, the head of Project Blue Book, believed that the case had been prematurely dismissed without a proper investigation. Ruppelt reopened the case and sent the footage to a laboratory for analysis.
The analysis indicated that the objects could not have been birds, weather balloons or meteorites. Firstly, if the two objects were weather balloons, they would have traveled along the wind’s direction, not in the opposite direction, and at a much slower speed. Secondly, the speed of the objects was significantly faster than a bird, yet slower than a meteorite. The analysis also showed that the objects had different properties than a jet. The shape and color did not substantiate the air force’s statement. Later in 1952, an intelligence officer in Great Falls, Montana, went through Malmstrom Air Force Base’s entire records to check if any fighter-jets had been in the sky at the time of the sighting. It was the case that two F-94 jets were in the sky, however, in a completely different part of the city, clouding the official statement even more.
The investigation that Ruppelt was leading was indicating that the air force was either involved in a cover-up or else they had an explanation that they were not disclosing to the public. In regard to the official explanation provided by the air force, Ruppelt stated that “the two jets weren’t anywhere close to where the two UFOs had been. We studied each individual light, and both appeared too steady to be reflections. We drew a blank on the Montana movie. It was an unknown.” 19
To confirm the findings from the analysis, Ruppelt sent the footage for a second independent analysis. This time the footage was analyzed by Robert Baker who worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company. Baker’s findings were similar to the first analysis; the objects could not have been natural phenomena or reflections.
“Preliminary analysis excluded most natural phenomena. After about 18 months of rather detailed, albeit not continuous, study using various film-measuring equipment at Douglas and at UCLA, as well as an analysis of a photogrammetric experiment, it appeared that neither of these hypothesized natural phenomena explanations had merit.” 20
Conclusion
The two independent analyses came to the same conclusion, that the two objects caught on footage by Mariana could not have been reflections as the air force had stated. The contradiction led many to believe that a cover-up was involved, and the truth was being concealed from the public. Although the statement was debunked by many scientists, the air force did not comment further on the case.
If the two aircraft were not weather balloons, fighter jets, or birds, could it be that they were interplanetary objects? Could it be that the air force dismissed the case because they couldn’t disclose to the public that an extraterrestrial aircraft had infiltrated American airspace and there was no way the air force could protect the nation?