Big Sur — Atlas "Buzzing Bee" film

In 1964 an Air Force team on Anderson Peak used a telescope borrowed from Boston University to film Atlas missile launches from Vandenberg. In 1982, Robert Jacobs, the officer in charge on the mountain, said the film of one launch, nicknamed "Buzzing Bee", showed an object fly around the warhead and hit it with beams of light, and that the film had been confiscated. The project engineer said it showed decoy deployment.

Explanation

Project engineer Kingston George wrote in 1993 that the film showed the re-entry vehicle releasing decoy warheads and chaff, a classified technology at the time, which Jacobs was not cleared to know about.

What was seen

Shape: Object circling a missile warhead
Witnesses: 1369th Photographic Squadron team
Duration: Seconds, on film

Browse

• United States
• 1960s
• Explained
• Military encounters
• Military witnesses
• Motion-picture film

Similar cases

• Malmstrom AFB Echo Flight shutdown 16 March 1967
• Long Beach — six F-86s chase an object they cannot reach 23 September 1951
• Battle of Los Angeles 25 February 1942
• Minot AFB — B-52 radar and missile-field sightings 24 October 1968