1953: Ellsworth Air Force Base UFO Incident

THINK ABOUTIT UFO SIGHTINGS REPORT

On August 5, 1953, one of the most significant radar-visual encounters in UFO history occurred at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. The incident began with Ground Observer Corps reports of a brilliant light, which was quickly confirmed by Air Defense Command radar at an altitude of 16,000 feet. Two separate F-84 jet interceptors were scrambled to chase the object, which demonstrated superior speed and a “reactive” behavior—maintaining a consistent 3-mile gap whenever the jets attempted to close in. The object was tracked across the state, eventually being reported by spotters as far as Fargo, North Dakota, after outrunning the military aircraft.

Date: August 5, 1953

Sighting Time:   Shortly after dark

Day/Night:  Night

Location: Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota

Urban or Rural:  

Entity Type:  

Entity Description: 

Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc) Metallic or whitish object was seen in the day.

Duration:

No. of Object(s):  1

Appearance / Description of the Object(s):  Extremely bright, large bluish-white light

Distance to Object(s):  Closest approach was 3 miles (jets could not get closer)

Size of Object(s):  Large

Color of Object(s):  Bluish-white

Shape of Object(s): Saucer

Number of Witnesses:

Special Features/Characteristics: Radar, Pilot/Aircrew, Military

Source: Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, Former Director of Project Blue Book

Summary/Description: Shortly after dark on the night of twelfth [sic], the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB, just east of Rapid City, had received a call from the local Ground Observer Corps filter center. A lady spotter at Black Hawk, about 10 miles west of Ellsworth, had reported an extremely bright light low on the horizon, off to the northeast..

Full Report

I first heard about the sighting about two o’clock on the morning of August 11, 1953, when Max Futch called me from ATIC. A few minutes before, a wire had come in carrying a priority just under that reserved for flashing the word the U.S. has been attacked. Max had been called over to ATIC by the OD to see the report, and he thought that I should see it. I was a little hesitant to get dressed and go out to the base, so I asked Max what he thought about the report. His classic answer will go down in UFO history, “Captain,” Max said in his slow, pure Louisiana drawl, “you know that for a year I’ve read every flying saucer report that’s come in and that I never really believed in the things.” Then he hesitated and added, so fast that I could hardly understand him, “But you should read this wire.” The speed with which he uttered this last statement was in itself enough to convince me. When Max talked fast, something was important.

A half hour later I was at ATIC – just in time to get a call from the Pentagon. Someone else had gotten out of bed to read his copy of the wire.

I used the emergency orders that I always kept in my desk and caught the first airliner out of Dayton to Rapid City, South Dakota. I didn’t call the 4602nd because I wanted to investigate this one personally. I talked to everyone involved in the incident and pieced together an amazing story.

Shortly after dark on the night of twelfth, the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB, just east of Rapid City, had received a call from the local Ground Observer Corps filter center. A lady spotter at Black Hawk, about 10 miles west of Ellsworth, had reported an extremely bright light low on the horizon, off to the northeast. The radar had been scanning an area to the west, working a jet fighter in some practice patrols, but when they got the report they moved the sector scan to the northeast quadrant There was a target exactly where the lady reported the light to be. The warrant officer who was the duty controller for the night, told me that he’d studied the target for several minutes. He knew how weather could affect radar but this target was well defined, solid, and bright.” It seemed to be moving, but very slowly. He called for an altitude reading, and the man on the height-finding radar checked his scope. He also had the target – it was at 16.000 feet.

The warrant officer picked up the phone and asked the filter center to connect him with the spotter. They did, and the two people compared notes on the UFO’s position for several minutes. But right in the middle of a sentence the lady suddenly stopped and excitedly said, “It’s Starting to move – it’s moving southwest toward Rapid.”

The controller looked down at his scope and the target was beginning to pick up speed and move southwest. He yelled at two of his men to run outside and take a look. In a second or two one of them shouted back that they could both see a large bluish-white light moving toward Rapid City. The controller looked down at his scope, the target was moving toward Rapid City. As all three parties watched the light and kept up a steady cross conversation of the description, the UFO swiftly made a wide sweep around Rapid City and returned to its original position in the sky.

A master sergeant who had seen and heard the happenings told me that in all his years of duty – combat radar operations in both Europe and Korea – he’d never been so completely awed by anything. When the warrant officer had yelled down at him and asked him what he thought they should do, he’d just stood there. “After all,” he told me, “what in hell could we do – they’re bigger than all of us.”

But the warrant officer did do something. He called to the F-84 pilot he had on combat air patrol west of the base and told him to get ready for an intercept. He brought the pilot around south of the base and gave him a course correction thai would take him right into the light. which was still at 16.000 feet. By this time the pilot had it spotted. He made the turn, and when he closed to within about 3 miles of the target, it began to move. The controller saw it begin to move, the spotter saw it begin to move and the pilot saw it begin to move – all at the same time There was now no doubt that all of them were watching the same object.

Once it began to move, the UFO picked up speed fast and started to climb, heading north, but the F-84 was right on its tail. The pilot would notice that the light was getting brighter, and he’d call the controller to tell him about it. But the controller’s answer would always be the same, “Roger, we can see it on the scope.”

There was always a limit as to how near the jet could get, however. The controller told me that it was just as if the UFO had some kind of an automatic warning radar linked to its power supply. When something got too close to it, it would automatically pick up speed and pull away. The separation distance always remained about 3 miles.

The chase continued on north out of sight of the lights of Rapid City and the base – into some very black night.

When the UFO and the F-84 got about 120 miles to the north, the pilot checked his fuel; he had to come back. And when I talked to him, be said he was damn glad that he was running out of fuel because being out over some mighty desolate country alone with a UFO can cause some worry.

Both the UFO and the F-84 had gone off the scope, but in a few minutes the jet was back on, heading for home. Then 10 or 15 miles behind it was the UFO target also coming back.

While the UFO and the F-84 were returning to the base – the F-84 was planning to land – the controller received a call from the jet interceptor squadron on the base. The alert pilots at the squadron had heard the conversations on their radio and didn’t believe it. “Who’s nuts up there?” was the comment that passed over the wire from the pilots to the radar people. There was an F-84 on the line ready to scramble, the man on the phone said, and one of the pilots, a World War II and Korean veteran, wanted to go up and see a flying saucer. The controller said, “OK, go.”

In a minute or two the F-84 was airborne and the controller was working him toward the light. The pilot saw it right away and closed in. Again the light began to climb out, this time more toward the northeast. The pilot also began to climb, and before long the light, which at first had been about 30 degrees above his horizontal line of sight, was now below him. He nosed the ’84 down to pick up speed, but it was the same old story – as soon as he’d get within 3 miles of the UFO, it would put on a burst of speed and stay out ahead.

Even though the pilot could see the light and hear the ground controller telling him that he was above it, and alternately gaining on it or dropping back, he still couldn’t believe it – there must be a simple explanation He turned off all of his lights – it wasn’t a reflection from any of the airplane’s lights because there it was. A reflection from a ground light, maybe. He rolled the airplane – the position of the light didn’t change. A star – he picked out three bright stars near the light and watched carefully. The UFO moved in relation to the three stars. Well, he thought to himself, if it’s a real object out there, my radar should pick it up too; so he flipped on his radar-ranging gun-sight. In a few seconds the red light on his sight blinked on – something real and solid was in front of him. Then he was scared. When I talked to him, he readily admitted that he’d been scared. He’d met MD 109’s, FW 190’s and ME 262’s over Germany and he’d met MIG-15’s over Korea but the large, bright, bluish-white light had scared – he asked the controller if he could break off the intercept

This time the light didn’t come back.

What he UFO went off the scope it was headed toward Fargo, North Dakota, so the controller called the Fargo filter center. “Had they had any reports of unidentified lights?” he asked. They hadn’t.

But in a few minutes a call came back. Spotter posts on a southwest- northeast line a few miles west of Fargo had reported a fast-moving, bright bluish-white light.

This was an unknown – the best..

The sighting was thoroughly investigated, and I could devote pages of detail on how we looked into every facet of the incident; but it will suffice to say that in every facet we looked into we saw nothing. Nothing but a big question mark asking what was it.

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt
Former Director, Project Blue Book

Historical Legacy: Why the Ellsworth Incident Matters

The Ellsworth AFB encounter remains one of the most significant cases in the Project Blue Book files due to the sheer volume of high-quality, multi-source data collected in a single night. Unlike many reports that rely solely on civilian eyewitnesses, this case was built on the testimony of veteran combat pilots, professional radar controllers, and trained Ground Observer Corps spotters. The fact that Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of Project Blue Book, personally investigated the event and later categorized it as one of the “best” unknowns in his private records underscores its enduring credibility.

For technical researchers, the case is a primary example of radar-visual (RV) correlation, proving that the phenomena was not a psychological mirage but a physical object with measurable mass. The behavior of the craft—specifically its ability to maintain a precise “buffer zone” against F-84 jet interceptors—suggested an advanced form of reactive intelligence that outclassed the highest-performing military aircraft of the 1950s. This specific characteristic led many investigators to conclude that the object was operating with sophisticated detection systems akin to modern electronic warfare technology.

Today, the Ellsworth incident serves as a vital historical benchmark for contemporary studies on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in sensitive military airspace. It remains a rare instance where the chain of evidence—from the first ground sighting to the final radar track 120 miles away—is so robust that it eliminates the standard debunking theories of weather phenomena or astronomical misidentification. By preserving this detailed account in the Think AboutIts archives, we maintain a record of an event that fundamentally challenged the U.S. military’s understanding of its own air defense capabilities.