July 1956: a radar target makes a 180-degree turn at 2,400 mph over Massachusetts while Los Angeles backyards host a string of "Venusian" contact reports.
1956: July UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
On the night of July 17, 1956, the CPN-18A radar at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts acquired an object moving at up to 2,400 mph. Over four minutes it made a 180-degree turn in fewer than six seconds, accelerated, decelerated and disappeared. That same night, a USAF pilot at nearby Otis AFB saw a white-yellow circular object that reversed course. And an Air Force pilot at Mastic Airport, Long Island, watched a green teardrop-shaped object the size of a small door flash off and on for a few seconds, then saw three more green flashes five minutes later. July 17, 1956 was one of the busiest radar nights of the year on the U.S. East Coast.
The rest of the month spans three continents. On July 17, across the South African border in the Drakensberg foothills, Elizabeth Klarer photographed objects that became famous in South African UFO research. In California’s San Fernando Valley, a cluster of “Venusian” contactee accounts from the same handful of days drew investigators from APRO and Project Blue Book. A Pan Am DC-7 crew over the Atlantic tracked a pulsating blue-green light at a speed beyond any aircraft. A Chilean miner watched five men in shorts climb a ladder into a landed disc near Vallenar. And at Euclid, Ohio, a large white revolving sphere was tracked simultaneously by observers on the ground and by an AN/FPS-E radar, with fighters diverted to the area.
Date: July 1956
Location: Otterburn, Northumberland, England
Time: Morning
Summary: Mr. Stocker, a Territorial Army wireless operator, and his driver were crossing open moorland in a Land Rover on a single-track road. As they crested a slight hill after a bridge, Stocker saw what looked like an elderly woman in a long gray coat and shawl standing on a sandy patch under a hawthorn tree. After passing, he checked the mirror — she was gone. They turned back. There were no footprints in the sandy ground, and the open moor was empty in every direction.
Source: Paul Devereux, Haunted Land
Source Status: This is a paranormal/apparition account rather than a conventional UFO sighting. It appears in UFO catalogs of the period but has no aerial or craft component.
Date: July 1956
Location: Quebrada de Agua Chuya, Argentina
Time: Afternoon
Summary: Sheepherder Ernesto Salitonlay encountered on a ridge a large figure entirely covered in dark hair, making loud guttural sounds. His animals panicked and fled. He fired at the creature with his rifle; it ran up a hill and disappeared. He reported the incident to police.
Source: Gustavo Fernandez
Source Status: This is a humanoid/cryptid report. Single investigator source; no craft component.
Date: July 6, 1956
Location: Euclid, Ohio
Time: 9:37 a.m. (EST)
Summary: One large white spherical object was observed revolving at an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 feet. The sighting was both a ground visual and a ground radar contact, tracked on an AN/FPS-E radar set. Local fighters were diverted to the Cleveland lakefront area but made no visual contact.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index; BBU Files (BBU)
Date: July 10, 1956
Location: Near Joshua Tree, California (desert cabin area)
Time: Night (reported July 10)
Summary: Al Sterling, who owned a desert cabin near Joshua Tree, was awakened one night by a loud sound described as a whoosh. He and his wife initially thought nothing of it. The next morning he found strange straight-edged track-like impressions in the desert sand — a series of more than 20 large indentations, each about 3 inches deep, arranged in a semi-circle around the cabin. The tracks began and ended abruptly with no sign of approach or departure. An Anaheim Bulletin photographer and APRO member Ross Graham investigated; 16 frames of photographs were taken. Sterling concluded the marks had been made by some kind of airborne vehicle that had landed, traveled on the ground briefly and taken off again.
Source: APRO Bulletin, July 1956; Anaheim Bulletin
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Mastic Airport, Long Island, New York
Time: 8:55 p.m. (EST)
Summary: A USAF pilot made an air-visual sighting of one green teardrop-shaped object, appearing about the size of a 10 by 5-foot door, seen for 1 to 2 seconds. It appeared to flash on and off. Five minutes later the pilot saw three more green flashes in the same area.
Source: Dan Wilson; BBU Files
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Westover AFB, Massachusetts
Time: 9:30 p.m. (EST)
Summary: A larger-than-normal radar target was acquired on a CPN-18A radar set. The target reached speeds as high as 2,400 mph and made a 180-degree turn in fewer than 6 seconds. It increased and decreased speed repeatedly within seconds. Total observation time was approximately 4 minutes. [Full Report]
Source: Dan Wilson; BBU Files (BBU)
Source Status: Note: this is a separate case from the March 26, 1956 Westover AFB intercept (Keyhoe account; single source; pending Blue Book file search). This July 17 case is confirmed in the Blue Book files via Dan Wilson.
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Otis AFB / Westover area, Massachusetts
Time: 11:42 p.m. (EDT)
Summary: A USAF jet fighter pilot saw a white-yellow circular object that reversed course.
Source: McDonald list; Weinstein; FUFOR Index (BBU)
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Drakensberg foothills, South Africa
Time: Unknown
Summary: Elizabeth Klarer photographed objects over the Drakensberg area. The photographs became among the most discussed in South African UFO research. [Full Report]
Source: Elizabeth Klarer; South African UFO archives
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Jasper, Colorado
Time: Sunset
Summary: Farmer Miles Oman reported seeing an oval-shaped object cross the sky and disappear at sunset. The sighting reportedly initiated a period of unusual activity in the Jasper area over the following weeks. [Full Report]
Source: APRO
Date: July 17, 1956
Location: Van Nuys, California
Time: Afternoon
Summary: Awakened by a sonic boom and his dog’s barking, Todd Kittredge saw a golden ball about 8 feet in diameter descend into his front yard, splitting a tree. Three men approximately 6½ feet tall emerged, apparently passing through the wall. They had shoulder-length blond hair and wore green one-piece coveralls with attached shoes. Their eyes appeared unusual, described as looking like stone. They shook hands with Kittredge and said in mechanical-sounding voices that they were from Venus and had come to help Earth people. When a dog snapped at one, all three walked back through the wall; the ball ascended and departed. [Full Report]
Source: Idabel Epperson for CSI (Civilian Saucer Intelligence)
Source Status: This is part of the July 1956 Southern California “Venusian contact” cluster. Idabel Epperson was a APRO/CSI investigator who collected multiple accounts from the Los Angeles area over the same days. The contactee framework and the “from Venus” claim are typical of the era’s contact narratives and have no independent corroboration.
Date: July 19, 1956
Location: Panorama City, California
Time: Afternoon
Summary: A housewife identified as Mrs. M.J. reported that a large steel-like ball landed in her rose garden. Three 6-foot tall men with shoulder-length blond hair and wearing green ski suits got out and told her they were from Venus. She called a local newspaper to report the encounter. [Full Report]
Source: Idabel Epperson for CSI
Date: July 19, 1956
Location: Van Nuys, California
Time: Unknown
Summary: An anonymous telephone lineman called the Hollywood Citizen News to report that a large ball descended near his utility pole, and three tall men in green ski suits emerged, walked through the wall, shook his hand and told him they were there to help Earth people. [Full Report]
Source: Idabel Epperson
Date: July 19, 1956
Location: Hutchinson, Kansas
Time: Unknown
Summary: Hutchinson Naval Air Station tracked a moving unidentified object on radar. Kansas state police observed it visually as a teardrop-shaped light source making noticeable maneuvers both vertically and horizontally over a wide area of the sky. The Wichita Eagle mapped the object’s movements.
Source: The UFO Evidence (NICAP), Section VIII; BBU Files
Date: July 19, 1956
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Time: Unknown
Summary: A luminous round object hovered, then sped away.
Source: The UFO Evidence (NICAP), Section XII
Date: July 20, 1956
Location: Panorama City, California
Time: Unknown
Summary: Three witnesses independently reported observing a large ball-shaped object from which emerged three beings nearly 2 meters tall with long blond hair, wearing tight green suits. [Full Report]
Source: Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia, case 384
Date: July 23, 1956
Location: Near Vallenar, Chile (between Huasco and Freirina)
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Summary: A miner in a desert location encountered a round silvery craft about 50 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters in height, resting on three legs about 150 meters away. It emitted green flashes and had a cabin-like structure on top with portholes and a ladder. Five humanoid figures, described as athletic, rosy-white skinned men about 1.8 meters tall wearing shirts, shorts and military caps, emerged from the brush and quickly climbed the ladder into the cabin. The cabin was immediately sealed with a disc-like lid. The craft took off emitting multicolored light flashes and quickly disappeared.
Source: Ovnis, Extraterrestres y Otros en Chile
Date: July 25-26, 1956
Location: Rio de Janeiro harbor, Brazil / USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42)
Time: Unknown
Summary: A cigar-shaped object was sighted and tracked on radar from the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chief Warrant Officer John C. Hau reported that the CIC radar tracked the object until it went off the scope in two or three sweeps.
Source: Carl Feindt catalog (Water UFO)
Date: July 26, 1956
Location: North Atlantic, approximately 500 miles southeast of Gander, Newfoundland (43°12’N, 49°30’W)
Time: 10:12 p.m. local
Summary: The civilian pilot of a Pan American Airways DC-7, flying at approximately 15,000 feet, observed a circular blue-green pulsating light the size of a golf ball held at arm’s length. The light moved at a speed greater than any aircraft known to the pilot.
Source: Dan Wilson; Blue Book files (BBU)
Date: July 29, 1956
Location: Pasadena, California
Time: Unknown
Summary: A hovering and then fast-moving light was observed by the Ground Observer Corps and tracked on radar.
Source: The UFO Evidence (NICAP), Section VII
Date: July 30, 1956
Location: Van Nuys, California
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Summary: Todd Kittredge went to his backyard and again saw the golden ball hovering, with two men beside it. He reported being taken aboard for a 20-minute ride to 700 miles above Los Angeles, where he saw a larger mother ship called a “Giganta-Liner.” Communication was described as telepathic, transmitted by the beings laying their hands on his shoulders. This follow-up encounter was logged by the investigating officer from Project Blue Book. [Full Report]
Source: Lt. Louis C. Sauter, USAF, Project Blue Book
Source Status: The Blue Book provenance for this entry is notable: the July 30 visit was investigated and logged by a named USAF officer, Lt. Sauter, which places it in a different sourcing tier from the other Kittredge/Venusian cluster reports.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
East Coast Radar Night and the Southern California Contact Cluster
July 1956 has two distinct centers of gravity. On the military radar side, July 17 was an exceptionally active night for the U.S. East Coast. The Westover AFB CPN-18A radar tracked an object at 2,400 mph making a 180-degree turn in under six seconds — this is confirmed in the Blue Book files via Dan Wilson and is a separate case from the disputed March 26 Keyhoe account at the same base. The same night: a green teardrop seen by a USAF pilot at Mastic Airport, Long Island, and a white-yellow object reversing course seen by an interceptor pilot in the same corridor. The Hutchinson, Kansas NAS radar-visual on July 19 adds another confirmed radar case to the month.
The Southern California cluster is the month’s most unusual phenomenon from a sociological standpoint: three or more independent witnesses in Van Nuys and Panorama City within a few days, all describing tall blond beings in green suits who emerged from ball-shaped craft and announced they were from Venus. Idabel Epperson of CSI investigated; the July 30 Kittredge follow-up was logged by USAF Lt. Louis Sauter under Project Blue Book. Whether these accounts reflect genuine sightings, media contagion, or hoaxes has never been resolved. The “Venusian contact” framing is a fixture of 1950s California contactee culture, but the Blue Book involvement in the Kittredge case distinguishes it from pure tabloid fare.
The target made a 180-degree turn in fewer than 6 seconds at speeds up to 2,400 mph.
Blue Book files summary, Westover AFB CPN-18A radar, July 17, 1956 (Dan Wilson; BBU Files)
