RB-47

1. Public Record

RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft, 17 July 1957, Gulf Coast toward Mississippi and Louisiana. An electronic intelligence crew working a routine bag. The on-board receivers pick up a signal that behaves like a ground radar and is not where a ground radar should be. Visual: a light that closes, opens, and sits on the wing for stretches. The pilot, Lewis D. Chase, and the ELINT men spend the small hours trying to make the contact into an airliner or a ground site. It will not stay either.

They land. They write it. Blue Book takes the paper and, in the later telling, sits on a case that should have been a jewel and treats it as an airliner anyway. James McDonald later walks the crew again and says the airliner close does not survive the ELINT. The RB-47 is a working intelligence platform. That is why the night is heavier than a farm light.

A receiver. A light on the wing. A folder that chose an airliner.

A signal that behaves like a ground radar and is not where a ground radar should be.

2. Date of Incident

17 July 1957, pre-dawn into morning, Gulf Coast.

3. Location

Airway over the Gulf Coast, Mississippi / Louisiana. Approximate 30°20 N 089°00 W.

4. Official Narrative

Blue Book: misidentified airliner in the usual summary. Official narrative does not give the ELINT the last word. McDonald's later paper is the dissent.

5. Witness Layer

Chase and the RB-47 crew, including the electronic operators. Blue Book officers. McDonald as the man who went back to the crew.

A light that closes, opens, and sits on the wing for stretches.

The airliner close does not survive the ELINT.

6. Recovery Logistics

Crew statements. Receiver logs as described. No object.

7. Assessment

An RB-47 is not a farm truck. When the set says a radar is moving and the window says a light is on the wing, the night is already an intelligence problem. An airliner does not usually paint like a ground site and fly like a lamp. That is why McDonald would not let the close rest.

This folder takes the crew as working men on a bag. It leaves Blue Book's airliner in the summary because the summary put it there. It does not let the summary outrank the receivers.

8. Materials & Remains

Crew paper. Later McDonald analysis. No wreckage.

9. Key Personnel

Lewis D. Chase and RB-47 crew : The bag.

James McDonald : The later walk-back.

10. Aftermath

The case becomes a jewel in the civilian literature and a shrug in the official one. The airframe type is retired. The argument is not.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: 17 Jul 1957. RB-47. ELINT plus light. Airliner stamped.

Confidence: High that a working ELINT crew logged a moving signal and a visual. Low that airliner is a complete close. Low that the object was typed.

Filing note

A reconnaissance bag over the Gulf, receivers talking like a radar that would not stay on the ground, a light that sat on a wing, a later professor who would not let an airliner eat the tape.

The set said the site was moving. That is not how ground radars spend a morning.