Archival rendering of the August 13, 1960 Red Bluff Incident, in which CHP Officers Charles Carson and Stanley Scott watched a glowing object perform sustained aerial maneuvers near Corning, California.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT
1960: The Red Bluff Incident
Just before midnight on August 13, 1960, California Highway Patrol Officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley Scott were driving a rural road east of Corning, California, when what looked like a huge airliner came dropping silently out of the sky directly in front of them. They stopped, certain they were about to witness a crash. Instead, the glowing object leveled off around 100 to 200 feet, reversed course, climbed to 500 feet, and spent the next two hours and fifteen minutes performing maneuvers Carson’s own official report called “actually unbelievable” — sweeping the officers’ patrol car with a huge red beam on repeated approaches, jamming their radio each time it neared, and eventually being joined by a second object before both vanished below the horizon. A sheriff’s deputy got the local Air Force radar station to confirm an unidentified target on their scopes that same night. By the next morning, the Air Force was denying the radar contact ever happened.
Date: August 13, 1960 (Project Blue Book case; internal case number not specified in this entry’s source material)
Sighting Time: Approximately 11:50 p.m., lasting roughly two hours and fifteen minutes
Day/Night: Night
Location: Hoag Road, east of Corning, Tehama County, California, with the pursuit continuing toward the Vina Plains Fire Station
Urban or Rural: Rural
No. of Entity(s): Not Applicable
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: RV — Radar-Visual. The object was visually observed at close range by multiple witnesses and was independently reported as tracked on radar by the Red Bluff Air Force radar station the same night, though the Air Force later disputed the radar confirmation (see Researcher’s Notes).
Duration: Approximately 2 hours, 15 minutes for the primary sighting
No. of Object(s): 2 (a primary object observed for the full duration, joined later by a second object approaching from the south)
Description of the Object(s): A round or oblong object surrounded by a glow, with definite red lights at each end or side and, at times, approximately five white lights visible between the red lights; per witness Carson’s later letter, the object was football-shaped with clearly defined edges, and the glow was emitted by the object itself rather than reflected from another source
Shape of Object(s): Round or oblong, later described by the witness as football-shaped
Size of Object(s): Undocumented
Color of Object(s): Surrounding glow (color not specified by witnesses); red lights at each end/side; approximately five white lights between the red lights; a huge red beam swept from the object toward the officers on repeated approaches
Distance to Object(s): Descended to an estimated 100 to 200 feet before reversing course and climbing to approximately 500 feet; approached the patrol vehicle directly on at least two occasions
Height & Speed: Descended to 100–200 feet, then climbed and stabilized around 500 feet; described by witnesses as moving with incredible speed and performing aerial maneuvers beyond any known aircraft’s capability
Number of Witnesses: Primary witnesses: Officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley Scott (California Highway Patrol). Corroborating witnesses the same night: Tehama County Sheriff’s Deputies Clarence Fry and Montgomery, and the county night jailer, all of whom independently reported seeing the same object. An unnamed Air Force radar operator at the Red Bluff station also reportedly confirmed an unidentified radar contact to Deputy Fry. A separate sighting the following evening was witnessed by four Corning residents and a Corning police officer.
Special Features/Characteristics: Complete silence during the object’s initial descent; radio interference experienced by the officers each time the object approached; the object appeared to react to the patrol car’s own red spotlight, retreating when Officer Scott directed it at the object; the object swept its red beam across the sky and ground an estimated six to seven times; a second object joined the first near the Vina Plains Fire Station before both departed below the eastern horizon; Officer Carson was an Air Force veteran and private pilot, Officer Scott a Korean War veteran paratrooper, both citing this background in rejecting the official explanations offered; a follow-up sighting of two cigar-shaped objects with red and white lights was reported by four Corning residents the next evening, maneuvering erratically for roughly ten minutes before departing to the northeast; sightings in the area reportedly continued at least through August 19
Case Status: Unexplained
Source: Loy Lawhon, About.com; NICAP (1964); J. Allen Hynek, The Hynek UFO Report (1977), pages 92–94; Officer Carson’s original police teletype report and November 14, 1960 letter to NICAP advisor Walter N. Webb; atmospheric physicist Dr. James E. McDonald’s meteorological review
Summary/Description: On the night of August 13, 1960, California Highway Patrol Officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley Scott watched a glowing, red-lighted object descend silently near Corning, California, reverse course, and perform extended aerial maneuvers over roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, including repeated approaches during which it swept the officers’ patrol car with a red beam and caused radio interference. A local Air Force radar station reportedly confirmed an unidentified target the same night, a claim the Air Force denied the following day. Multiple sheriff’s deputies and a night jailer independently corroborated the sighting, and a further sighting by Corning residents occurred the following evening. The Air Force’s official explanation, a refraction of Mars, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse compounded by a temperature inversion and forest-fire smoke, was undermined when NICAP pointed out that all three objects were below the horizon at the time; the Air Force then substituted the star Capella, which does not account for the objects’ observed departure below the horizon. Physicist James E. McDonald’s review of meteorological records found no evidence of the claimed temperature inversion.
Related Cases: None documented
Full Report
“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” — Corning, California, August 13, 1960
California Highway Patrol Officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley Scott were patrolling on Hoag Road, east of Corning, California, at approximately 11:50 p.m. when they saw what looked like a huge airliner descending from the sky directly in front of them. Thinking a plane was about to crash, they stopped and got out of the car to get a better look. The object descended in complete silence to an estimated 100 to 200 feet from the ground, then suddenly reversed and climbed back to about 500 feet, where it stopped.
Officer Carson described it in his official police teletype report: “At this time it was clearly visible to both of us. It was surrounded by a glow making the round or oblong object visible. At each end, or each side of the object, there were definite red lights. At times about five white lights were visible between the red lights. As we watched the object moved again and performed aerial feats that were actually unbelievable.”
The officers radioed the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office and asked Deputy Clarence Fry to contact the local Air Force radar station at Red Bluff. Deputy Fry reported back that the radar station verified an unidentified object was visible on radar. As the officers continued watching, Carson reported: “On two occasions the object came directly towards the patrol vehicle; each time it approached, the object turned, swept the area with a huge red light. Officer Scott turned the red light on the patrol vehicle towards the object, and it immediately went away from us. We observed the object use the red beam approximately 6 or 7 times, sweeping the sky and ground areas.”
The object then began moving slowly east, and the officers followed. When they reached the Vina Plains Fire Station, a second object approached from the south. The two objects moved together, stopped, and hovered for some time, occasionally emitting red beams, before both vanished below the eastern horizon. The officers had observed the first object for a total of about two hours and fifteen minutes. Returning to the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office, they found that Deputies Fry and Montgomery, along with the night jailer, had also seen the object and described the same details independently.
The next day, Officers Carson and Scott drove to the Red Bluff Air Station to discuss the sighting and speak with the radar operator who had reportedly tracked it. The Air Force now denied that any object had been seen on radar, directly contradicting what the radar operator had told Deputy Fry the previous night. The visit was unproductive. A separate inquiry from Air Technical Intelligence Center personnel to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on August 16, asking whether anything unusual had appeared on radar, likewise received a negative response.
NICAP advisor Walter N. Webb later obtained further material directly from Carson, including a copy of the original report, drawings of the object, and a letter dated November 14, 1960. In that letter, Carson wrote: “We made several attempts to follow it, or I should say get closer to it, but the object seemed aware of us and we were more successful remaining motionless and allow it to approach us, which it did on several occasions.” He also noted: “Each time the object neared us, we experienced radio interference,” and described the object further: “The object was shaped like a football, the edges, or I should say outside of the object were clear to us…[the] glow was emitted by the object, was not a reflection of other lights.”
The Air Force’s official explanation, relayed in a letter to a NICAP member, held that the officers had witnessed a refraction of the planet Mars and the stars Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, with a temperature inversion projecting the image upward and a layer of forest-fire smoke contributing to the effect. When NICAP pointed out that Mars, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse were all below the horizon at the time of the sighting, the Air Force revised its explanation to the star Capella, which was slightly above the eastern horizon at the time — without accounting for the fact that Capella would have continued rising through the sighting’s duration, while the observed objects departed below the eastern horizon. Astronomer Donald H. Menzel separately promoted the temperature-inversion explanation. Atmospheric physicist Dr. James E. McDonald reviewed the meteorological records for the area that night and found no evidence supporting the claimed temperature inversion.
Officer Carson addressed the shifting official explanations directly: “I have been told we saw Northern lights, a weather balloon, and now refractions…I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness. We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.”
Over the following week, similar sightings continued in the area, including one the very next evening witnessed by four Corning residents and independently by a Corning police officer, who watched two cigar-shaped objects with red and white lights maneuver erratically for approximately ten minutes before departing to the northeast.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The Red Bluff Incident — 1960 and the Radar-Denial Pattern
- This is among the best-corroborated Blue Book cases on record. Two trained law enforcement officers, both military veterans with relevant technical backgrounds (Carson an Air Force veteran and private pilot, Scott a Korean War paratrooper), observed the object together for over two hours, with independent corroboration the same night from two sheriff’s deputies and a night jailer, and a further independent sighting by multiple civilians and a police officer the following evening. Multi-witness corroboration across separate observation points, sustained over this duration, is rare in the broader UFO case record.
- The radar confirm-then-deny sequence is directly documented. Deputy Fry’s same-night contact with the Red Bluff radar station reportedly produced a positive confirmation of an unidentified target. Within roughly 24 hours, Air Force personnel at the same station denied any such contact, and a subsequent inquiry to Wright-Patterson likewise returned a negative response. This specific sequence, a radar confirmation obtained informally through a deputy the same night, followed swiftly by institutional denial once the incident drew formal attention, is a documented pattern in several other radar-visual cases from this period and is treated here as an RV case with an explicitly disputed radar element, rather than either fully radar-confirmed or purely visual.
- The Air Force’s own explanation collapsed under its own timeline. The shift from Mars/Aldebaran/Betelgeuse to Capella after NICAP demonstrated the first three stars were below the horizon is a documented instance of an official explanation being revised specifically to survive a factual objection, rather than independently arrived at. The revised explanation still fails to account for the objects’ observed departure below the horizon at a time when Capella would have been rising, a discrepancy the Air Force’s response did not address.
- Independent atmospheric analysis contradicts the inversion claim. Dr. James E. McDonald, an atmospheric physicist, reviewed the actual meteorological records for the area on the night in question and found no evidence of the temperature inversion the Air Force’s explanation depended on. This is a rare instance in ufology of the specific meteorological claim underlying an official explanation being checked against the primary data and not confirmed.
- Witness qualifications directly undercut the misidentification theory. Both officers explicitly cited relevant personal experience, familiarity with Northern Lights and weather balloons from Air Force service, and paratrooper night-vision experience, in rejecting the successive official explanations. Their own navigational method (aligning the object against fixed horizon landmarks) addresses one of the most common objections to civilian sighting estimates.
Two highway patrol officers watched something silent and glowing drop from the sky, reverse course, sweep their patrol car with a red beam half a dozen times, and hold their attention for over two hours while sheriff’s deputies and a night jailer watched the same thing from separate vantage points. A radar station said yes, then a day later said no. The Air Force’s explanation changed twice and still didn’t survive contact with the actual position of the stars it named. J. Allen Hynek gave the case its own chapter. Six and a half decades later, it remains exactly what Officer Carson insisted it was: not a refraction.
“No one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.” — Officer Charles A. Carson, letter to NICAP, November 14, 1960
Focus Keyword: 1960 Red Bluff Incident California UFO
SEO Title: The 1960 Red Bluff Incident — Radar-Confirmed, Then Denied
Meta Description: On August 13, 1960, two California Highway Patrol officers watched a glowing object perform two hours of impossible maneuvers near Corning, California, radar-confirmed the same night and denied by the Air Force the next day.
Additional Keywords: Red Bluff Incident, Corning California UFO, Charles Carson Stanley Scott, Tehama County Sheriff, Red Bluff Air Station radar, James E. McDonald, J. Allen Hynek, NICAP Walter Webb, Project Blue Book unidentified
Tags: ufo, unidentified flying object, Red Bluff California, Corning California, 1960, RV, radar visual, Project Blue Book, unexplained
