Air Defense Command on 'fast tracks' and radar phantoms
In late 1952 the Air Force's Air Defense Command told headquarters that unexplained radar 'fast tracks' could waste missiles and interceptors. It urged that their causes be found.
1952 CE · 38.83, -104.82 · status: official
The account
On 27 October 1952 Air Force headquarters asked the Air Defense Command at Ent AFB, Colorado Springs, whether radar operators were rejecting saucer echoes without reporting them. ADC's reply of 24 November said a May 1952 study had traced many 'fast tracks' to mutual interference between radars. Reported speeds ranged from 700 to 2,500 knots. ADC warned that by 1955-56, when defences would react at once to fast tracks, such phenomena could cause 'unnecessary expenditure' of missiles. Brig. Gen. Alfred R. Maxwell of the Research and Development Board told its chairman, Walter Whitman, that the Air Staff showed no undue concern. He admitted 'we are unable to explain a sizeable percentage of the reports', and added that studying the subject was becoming 'respectable'. The correspondence went to ATIC and the CIA.
The sceptical view
ADC itself attributed many fast tracks to radar interference and anomalous propagation; the documents treat the problem as one of operations, not of craft.
Connections in the atlas
- The CIA's 1952 flying-saucer study (Chadwell memos)
- The Robertson Panel
- Project Blue Book begins
- Washington D.C. flap