Recreation of the 1963-1964 Clark Air Base incident, in which an Air Police sentry recalled two radar detections of a large object near the runway and two armed ground searches that found nothing.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1963-1964: The Unseen Radar Contact at Clark Air Base, Philippines
Sometime between February 1963 and August 1964, an Air Police sentry posted at the far end of Clark Air Base’s runway in the Philippines, where the base’s F-102 interceptors sat uploaded and ready, listened over his radio as the base’s radar site twice reported something large moving onto the runway out of the surrounding jungle — twice sending armed Strike Teams to search the area, and twice finding nothing at all.
Date: Sometime between February 1963 and August 1964 (the witness’s full tour of duty in the Air Police at Clark AFB; the specific date of this incident within that window is not given)
Sighting Time: Approximately 11:30 PM
Day/Night: Night
Location: Clark Air Base, Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines — specifically the far end of the runway, near the aircraft revetments where armed F-102 interceptors were kept on alert
Urban or Rural: Military installation, adjacent to jungle terrain — corrected/expanded from the original field’s bare “-AFB”
No. of Entity(‘s): Undocumented
Entity Type: Not Applicable — no entity described or implied by anything in the witness’s own account; the “aliens” reference in the narrative is the witness’s own speculative aside, not a claimed observation
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: Corrected from the original CE-I (Close Encounter I). CE-I requires direct observation of the object itself at close range; nothing in this account describes anyone visually seeing the object at any point — only radar detections relayed over radio, and searches that found nothing. This is better understood as an unconfirmed radar contact with no accompanying visual sighting, a category Hynek’s CE/DD/NL scale doesn’t cleanly cover, rather than a Close Encounter of any kind. See Researcher’s Notes.
Duration: Undocumented — the account describes at least two separate radar detections and search deployments in one night, with no total elapsed time given
No. of Object(s): 1, per radar detections (or possibly the same contact detected twice)
Description of the Object(s): Never visually observed by anyone in this account. The base radar site twice reported picking up something large: first somewhere on the runway itself, and the second time approaching the runway from the jungle. Both times, armed Strike Teams searched the reported area and found nothing.
Shape of Object(s): Corrected from the original field’s “Triangle” to Undocumented/Unknown. No shape of any kind is described anywhere in the witness’s account — the object was never seen, only detected by radar and searched for. The “Triangle” entry in the original filing has no support in the source material and appears to be an unsupported addition.
Color of Object(s): Not Applicable — never visually observed
Distance to Object(s): Undocumented — the witness’s post was near the reported area, but no specific range to the object itself is given, since it was never seen
Height & Speed: Not Applicable in the usual aerial sense — the object was described only as moving along the ground (on the runway, then approaching from the jungle), never as flying or airborne. No speed is given.
Number of Witnesses: 1 — the reporting Air Police sentry. No one in this account, including the Strike Team members who searched the area, is described as having visually observed the object itself; the witness’s knowledge comes entirely from overheard radio communications and observing the search response.
Special Features/Characteristics: The witness references that “uploaded 102s” — armed Convair F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors — were kept at his post, a detail consistent with Clark Air Base’s real history of hosting F-102 squadrons for Pacific air defense during this exact period, lending period-accurate credibility to the account’s setting. The witness explicitly frames his fear of being a potential “specimen” target for aliens as his own speculation in the moment, not a claimed observation of any entity.
Case Status: Insufficient Data — an unconfirmed radar contact relayed secondhand over radio, with two dedicated ground searches finding nothing, and no direct visual sighting by anyone involved
Source: Reported to Think AboutIt
Summary/Description: I was in the Air Police at Clark AFB from 2/63 to 8/64. I was on post one night about 11:30 p.m. on the far end of the runway where they kept the uploaded 102s. I had a radio on my post so I could hear all of the action. All at once CSC called the Strike Team to go down to the end of the runway close to where my post was and check to see if they could find anything on the runway. The radar site had picked up something large on the runway. I saw the Strike Team search the area and they called in that they did not find anything.
Everyone went back to normal and I did not think much of it at all. Then the radar site called back and they picked up the large object again, coming onto the runway from the jungle. This time they had a lot of troops searching the area. I was thinking that if this was some aliens and they were looking for specimens to take back with them, then I was probably the best candidate, as I was very close to the action but all alone. I would not even be missed for a long time. This is the only time I was really scared during my 4 years in the Air Police. I could feel the hairs going up on my back. To make a long story short, nothing was ever found, but it has to be something large enough for our radar to pick up.
Related Cases: Undocumented — no confirmed related case identified in the archive at this time
Detailed Report
This account is unusual in this archive for what it explicitly does not claim: at no point does the witness say he or anyone else saw the object itself. His entire knowledge of the event comes from overheard radio traffic and his own observation of the search response. Posted at the far end of Clark Air Base’s runway, near revetments holding armed F-102 interceptors, he heard Central Security Control dispatch a Strike Team after the base radar site reported something large on the runway; the team searched and found nothing. Later the same night, radar reported the object again, this time approaching the runway from the surrounding jungle, prompting a larger search involving more troops — which likewise turned up nothing. The witness’s vivid aside about being a potential alien “specimen” target is explicitly framed as his own frightened speculation in the moment, not an observation of any entity or craft. The specific detail of “uploaded 102s” at his post checks out historically: Clark Air Base did host Convair F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor squadrons for Pacific air defense duty during this exact 1963-64 window, a small but genuine period-accuracy marker for the account’s setting. What remains, stripped of any embellishment, is a twice-repeated radar detection of something large moving at ground level near a jungle-adjacent runway, searched for and never found.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The Unseen Radar Contact — Clark AFB 1963-64 and a Shape Nobody Described
- Classification Assessment: CE-I does not fit this account at all — it requires the witness to have directly observed the object at close range, and nothing here describes that. No one, including the search teams sent specifically to look for it, ever saw anything. This is more accurately an unconfirmed radar contact with no visual correlation, a case type not cleanly covered by Hynek’s NL/DD/CE scale, which is built around things people actually saw.
- Source Chain Assessment: The “Triangle” shape listed in the original filing has no basis anywhere in the witness’s own narrative, which describes no shape at all — the object was never seen. This appears to be an unsupported addition to the record and has been corrected to Undocumented. The account itself, by contrast, is internally modest and consistent: the witness explicitly frames his fear of alien specimen-collection as his own imagination in a tense moment, not as something he witnessed, which is a level of self-aware restraint uncommon in more elaborated reports.
- Evidentiary Weight: No photograph, radar printout, or official incident report is cited. The account’s credibility rests on internal plausibility (a period-accurate reference to armed F-102s at Clark, consistent with the base’s real history) and the described institutional response — two separate Strike Team deployments — which indicates the radar operators themselves took the contacts seriously enough to scramble armed personnel twice in one night, whatever ultimately caused the returns.
- Pattern and Comparative Context: A large object detected by radar moving at ground level onto a runway from adjacent jungle, never sighted despite armed searches, is also consistent with a mundane explanation worth weighing seriously: large wildlife (such as water buffalo, common throughout the rural Philippines and known to wander onto airfields bordering jungle or farmland) intruding onto a runway at night, a documented hazard at other Southeast Asian air bases during this era. Ground radar and perimeter sensor systems of the period were also known, in documented cases elsewhere in the region during the 1960s, to register false or ambiguous returns from animals, vegetation movement, or environmental conditions. Neither explanation is confirmed here, but both are more consistent with the described ground-level, non-flying nature of the contact than an aerial UFO would be.
- Geographic and Historical Context: Clark Air Base, near Angeles City in Pampanga province, was a major US Air Force installation in the Philippines from the early 20th century until its closure following the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. During the early-to-mid 1960s, it hosted F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor squadrons as part of Cold War-era Pacific air defense, consistent with the witness’s reference to “uploaded 102s” at his post. The base’s runway bordered jungle terrain typical of the region, environment relevant to the wildlife-intrusion candidate explanation above.
Stripped of a shape no one in the account ever described and a classification that presumes a sighting that never happened, what remains here is honestly modest: two radar contacts in one night, two armed searches, and nothing ever found. The witness never claims more than that, and his own fear in the moment is offered as exactly that — fear, not evidence. The case stands as Insufficient Data, a radar mystery rather than a confirmed encounter.
“Nothing was ever found but it has to be something large enough for our Radar to pick up.”
