Chanute Training Center History, 1960: Six UFO Cases and a Moondust Alert
An Air Training Command base history describes six UFO investigations around Champaign, Illinois, in 1960: a green fireball that may have been satellite debris, the Moon, a contrail, and one star-like object the investigator couldn't match.
What this record is
This is the history of Chanute Technical Training Center, the Air Training Command’s technical school at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, for 1 July to 31 December 1960. The cover sheet (page 3 of the PDF) is a quarterly unit historical data report to the commander of Air Training Command at Randolph AFB, Texas, under the name of the center’s commander, Maj Gen Lloyd P. Hopwood. The metadata names the historical officer, Capt Maxine Henius. The PDF has 326 pages, covering training courses, staff changes, disaster control planning and base services. It was unclassified.
It is in the UAP transfer because of a three-page passage in the operations chapter. That passage is a compact record of how an ordinary Air Force base handled UFO reports under AFR 200-2.
What it says about UFOs
The UFO material is on pages 59, 61 and 63 of the PDF (typed pages 18 and 19 and the page after). It follows a note on disaster control staffing and comes before the new base disaster control plan. It opens by saying that Operations Services investigated an unusual number of UFO sightings during the period, “all but two” of them in the “so-called ‘silly season’” of July, August and September. It then summarises six cases.
The first was on 2 July 1960 near Chanute, and the base investigated it on 12 July. The object was a flash of brilliant green light, the size of an orange at arm’s length, that lit up half the sky. It appeared in the northwest at 70 to 80 degrees elevation, moved south and faded out at about 45 degrees, leaving a trail of light fifteen to twenty times the object’s diameter. The Moondust project officer had already been alerted to a possible satellite reentry. An inquiry to the Smithsonian about predicted orbits of known satellites confirmed that the object could have been a spent Russian satellite or a spent rocket casing beginning to reenter. The investigating officer recommended no further action at the base.
On 26 July a woman reported a brilliant reddish-orange crescent, the size of a half-dollar at arm’s length, between Monticello and Oreana, Illinois. She had seen it from a car travelling at about 70 miles an hour. The investigator concluded it was the quarter moon seen through haze or fleecy cloud.
On 1 September a UFO was reported on WCIA-TV in Champaign, and the base investigated on 6 September. The reports varied. Colours ranged from white to white-green and red, and sizes from a star half the size of the Echo I satellite to “a Piper Cub aircraft flying backward”. Some people heard a low rumble like a jet engine. The investigator thought it was probably an earth-launched satellite, a rocket booster or something similar.
On 23 September an oval, yellowish-white, silent object four times the size of Echo I was seen northwest of Champaign. After interviewing all the witnesses, the investigator decided it was a high-flying bomber with a vapour trail catching the light.
On 29 September another object near Champaign looked like a star. It was white, with a pulsating dull red light trailing behind it, and it crossed the sky to the north-northeast and went below the horizon in 15 to 20 seconds. The history says that speed meant it was travelling about three times as fast as Echo I. This is the one case the base left open: the investigator “could not compare the object with any of the known satellites.”
On 4 November two objects were reported near Monticello. They were round flat discs the size of a bushel basket at arm’s length, flying silently in trail, moving back and forth in an elongated circle, and vanishing 20 to 25 degrees above the horizon. It was dark and cloudy near the objects and clear elsewhere, and the investigator concluded they were lights playing on the base of a cloud layer.
The history lists six cases, only one of them outside July to September, so its “all but two” does not quite match its own list. It may have left one case out.
Context
Under AFR 200-2 each base was the first investigator of UFO reports in its area, and only unexplained cases went on to Project Blue Book. The site’s page on the 1962 edition of AFR 200-2 covers the regulation. Project Moondust was the Air Force effort to find and recover returning foreign space hardware. Its mention here shows that by 1960 base UFO officers were also expected to watch for Soviet satellite debris. Echo I, a 100-foot reflective balloon launched in August 1960, was the brightest satellite of its day, and it gave both witnesses and investigators a handy yardstick.
Status
This is one of the more candid records in the collection. It shows the Air Force explaining most local reports as the Moon, a contrail, satellites or cloud lighting, and one case left unmatched. The explanations were the investigating officer’s judgements and are not tested in the record. Calling a green fireball possible reentry debris after a Smithsonian check is reasonable, but a bright meteor would fit just as well. The unmatched 29 September object, star-like, trailing a pulsing red light and crossing the sky in under twenty seconds, reads more like an aircraft or a meteor than a satellite. The file shows how routine UFO work had become for a training base by 1960. It gives no reason to think any of these six cases was anomalous.