Last night on THC, they delved into this one again.....a de-bunker, a Canadian Astronomer, explained a blue light seen by witnesses, as "Teenagers, running around in the woods with a camera strobe...." This struck me as baloney...Since this incident was in 1965, I would ask where did the anonymous teenager get a strobe light with a sufficient power supply in those ancient times??? Why didn't the de-bunker give the names of those kids who possessed this anachronistic device?? I don't buy ufo war stories at face value, especially this one, but I hold the rationalists to the same standard as the fabulists.......

Dale in Ala

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"Ad astra per aspera"

Sorry if I don't know a lot about old UFO stories. I need more details. A link would help.

But I do know a thing or two about light. Strobe lights don't have to be exceedingly powerful to be seen for miles away at night. In the dark, the human eye becomes more sensitive to light when the pupils dilate. Consequently, a moderate light could seem more powerful.

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My son is my universe.

Yeah everybody knows that people only had torches for light until the internet came along and showed everybody how to make lights and Ipods. '65 is ancient? I think I've been insulted. As I recall I had a strobe light on my bicycle around that time and while I didn't have a camera strobe until some years later, I'd imagine something similar was around in 65 (if it simply has to be a camera strobe).

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

That certainly makes the rationalists explanation plausible. But I'd agree that any explanation presented as "definite" (presuming that is how it was presented) should be well supported.

Otherwise it should be presented as "plausible".

Remembering, of course, that "plausible" should be given more weight than "implausible", everything else being equal. (more familiarly known as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence")

That is the problem, no further description of what kind of strobe light the kids supposedly had. I know that I had one in the Army in 1967, for rescue purposes, but as a rule in the 60's most people, especially out in the woods in Pa, had the flash attachments for their Argus Camera, the GI's brought the modern stuff from the Orient during the Vietnam War, and made the flash totally obsolete, but I think that was after 1967. My only objection to the debunking was the lack of specific names of who was running in the woods, the UFO proponent interviewed many people and had his data ready for the interview, even if he was wrong, he still did his homework, the debunker just tossed off that some teenagers were loose in the woods with a strobe, and let it go at that, an interview with the people who told him this, would have at least helped the case.

About the link, I am sorry but I cannot get it to work, try the History Channel site, which I am sure has the whole thing. Phillip Klass was on this episode, and he explored the idea that the incident was the Cosmos 96, a failed Soviet Venus Probe, that did not escape earth orbit, re-entering over Canada and the mid west, crashing into Pa.....I have trouble with the varying reports and feuds between factions angle of this story......Phillip says that according to Air Force and NASA, the Cosmos re-entered over the Indian Ocean...so this one is still hard to explain...

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"Ad astra per aspera"

What's mentioned in the OP sounds rather odd indeed. According to Sheaffer and others who've researched the "incident," it was most likely a bolide (more here). That strikes me as much more feasible.

I agree, the best candidate for this one is a bolide, but the ufo buffs have turned into a big deal lately......and their fallback position was the Venera-Cosmos-Probe re-entry story....A mere meteor is not good enough!!!

Dale in Ala

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"Ad astra per aspera"

I still have the basic parts for a party strobe I built in 1967. Real strobes. Transformer converted 120VAC to 35VDC, which was transformed by a switching power supply into the some 120,000 Volts needed to fire the strobe. Variable timing with a varister, something like one strobe a second to as many as twenty.

All discrete components. Radio Shack.

I agree that a strobe could be purchased or built, but they needed a power supply in those days, and I found it odd that they did not track down the kids in question and confirm the story....

Dale

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"Ad astra per aspera"

I've heard that it's also quite possible that this UFO could have been part of Kosmos 96. Take a look here. Science writer, Jim Oberg, discusses this possibility:

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

The "Kecksburg acorn" moniker is a good description of what was found. It would look like a UFO to individuals who knew little about spacecraft. That acorn/ headlight shape is similar in a very rough way to the CORONA inspired t/Space craft and Soyuz type designs.

Now here is one for the books. Klass was known for debunking a "ufo' that was said to be the ZOND circumlunar craft (rump Soyuz)on re-entry. The ZONDs were launched atop UR-500, but the actual capsules came back over the ocean and headed due north towards Russia after skipping once. Some of the Zonds fell into the Indian Ocean. At no point did the ZOND spacecraft come over the US on its return. Perhaps it was an upper stage that was seen over the US if I recall the event correctly.

So let me get this straight:

A fireball was seen across the NE US ending in Kecksburg, on the same day that at least part of a Soviet craft crashed in Canada.

Eyewitness accounts of the thing that landed in Kecksburg were that it was acorn shaped.

It's later learned that part of the Soviet craft (the part protected by a heat shield) was acorn shaped.

And we're supposed to conclude that alien visitors is the most likely explanation?

Depends of if you are talking alien; foreign, or alien; ET.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I (regrettably) do not know enough about the case to comment one way or the other, though my feelings are that the Cosmos 96 explanation is at least plausable.

However it might be useful to know what the probe looked like. This page shows one of the early Venus probes (Venera 1).

However given the date Cosmos 96 probably looked more like this(Image of Venera 3). (Contrary to the picture on at least one UFO site.)

The 'acorn' would most likely be the Venus lander at the base of the ship in the Verena 3 picture.

Military interest in such things would be intense, especially if it was believed that the launch had something to do with the FOBS program.

Certainly the Soviets made similar efforts when they had the chance.

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We all know those Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

John Sladek, The New Apocrypha, pg 34.

IIRC, Cosmos 96 was a fly-by probe like Venera 2, not a lander like Venera 3, so it wouldn't have carried the "acorn".

Could you provide a citation for that, either a weblink/book reference or preferably both.

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We all know those Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

John Sladek, The New Apocrypha, pg 34.

I originally saw it in an article in Spaceflight magazine by Timothy Varfolomeyev(?) about ten years ago. Here's a web mention:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/space...ary_venus.html

Edit: Spaceflight March 1998

Thanks for the citation, however, the possibility of Russian space debris should not be discarded.

The Russians made at least two unannounced space launches (I think they were connected with ASAT development).

The Zenit spy-sat used a Vostok style landing capsule (See images here and here.)

If one of these came down out of control, then the military would be on it in a flash, especially if the launch had not been announced.

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We all know those Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

John Sladek, The New Apocrypha, pg 34.

Absolutely, if this happened the military would have gone in there and scooped it up as quickly as possible. This scenario fits with what many people describe as having happened in Kecksburg.

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

I've checked the Space-track database for decays around that time, and Cosmos 96 was the only possibility, even though the time of day doesn't fit. Soviet launch failures are pretty well documented these days, and there weren't any around the time. According to this list the previous Zenit launch failure was in July 1965. There were no Zenits in orbit at the time that could have re-entered off-target.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

Debris from a previous launch then? The SS-9 Scarp/SS-18 Satan (R-36/R-36 O, and R-36M) were rather popular launch vehicles, similar to our Titan II. They are still launched today as Tsiklon and Dnepr.

There are two smaller launch vehicles--and both of those are named Kosmos, so go figure.

The first orbital flights of the R-36 didn't occur until after the incident.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

HERE is a page of Kecksburg info, including Schaefer's "debunking" of it.

However, and while I don't know alot about the incident, the Why Kecksburg? article (pdf) puts the event more in context and to me, suggests there was more to it than a simple meteorite or bolide.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

That article makes assumptions of fact without evidence. So what (in the article) "suggests" that there is more to it...?

edited to change first sentence...

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

All of this is very fascinating, when I was in the Army, as an Aviator, I witnessed recoveries of fallen objects....I was told by the team, that most of what they recovered was Soviet, and once they recovered something that was of unknown origin. When I questioned the team leader further, he would only state that there were some objects that fall from orbit that cannot be attributed to a particular country......My opinion is that due to melting and damage, the men on the scene could not tell....until some "secret lab" looked at it and determined the origin, it would be a mystery

Dale

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"Ad astra per aspera"

There goes that idea.

In 1967, my father was in possession of a 2-1/2" x 3/4" x 4" strobe used by naval aviators in case they were downed either in the water or on land. It was called a "rescue beacon." It generated about one flash per second.

The device had been fielded for several years.

All solid state, waterproof, and the battery lasted around two hours.

I know, because I was the one who ran the battery down!

I feel that this is the smoking gun to the case. I don't know if NASA know's this but they may have inadvertently steered this case into the ETI hypothesis and hears why.

So you have a crash site, with no impact. Which means it was a crash landing. Which means it was controlled. Which means it was not ours.

It may also be of interest to note that a woman who reported the crash was told this; "Keep an eye on the area and if anything unusual develops, call us and let us know".

Were they worried aliens would come out? lol Or those pesky Russians?

Here is the entire article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Notice the paragraph immeadiately preceeding the J. Steven Kite quote...

Why did you not include this quote with your post?

I googled the quote from J. Steven Kite and found that it was repeated exactly on every page that it appeared...that is the only information available concerning Mr. Kite and UFO's.

The SciFi channel "connection" also bothers me...they are infamous for not critically examining...well, anything...and Mr. Kean is an "investigator" for the SciFi channel.

What woman?? What is her name?? Who told her?? What is that person's name?? And how are we suppose to determine if the statement "keep an eye..." is accurate or not given the complete lack of verifiable information???

Smoking gun???...hardly. More like the SciFi channel attempting to "milk" this story so they can produce "another" non-critical special...

...and I've really had enough of their "specials"...

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

The strobe was invented by Dr. Harold Edgerton of Edgerton, Grier, and Germeshausen, and MIT. A million watt strobe was belly-mounted on WW2 recon planes to photograph aerial views of damage from bombing runs in the Ruhr valley as we knocked out German industry. They've been around for a while.