I recorded all of the video and audio―even when they called a Condition Zebra alert. Condition Zebra is the highest level of alert that the Navy has―or had at that time―it is generally used when dealing with global nuclear threats, in particular the Soviets. Soviet Bearcats were routinely patrolling up and down the eastern seaboard watching what we were doing. We would set a Condition Zebra if we had the need to put planes in the air to escort the Bearcats out of the area if they were a little too close to our airspace or if they had ships in the area that were acting suspicious.
We’d also have a drill where they would get out the books to wage nuclear war. The Watch Officer and the Junior Watch Officer, the JOD, had keys to a safe and they would get these books out called the MAD books―Mutual Assured Destruction―and they would have the codes that were necessary to transmit to the submarines if necessary, to launch a nuclear strike. Not many people were allowed in the Command Center when that was going on because they actually did use the codes.
The Zebra Classification… without that you were not allowed authorized access to these facilities during this drill, and the Zebra Drill was specifically for the highest level of top-secret information that was being exchanged between the Command Center and ships and/or submarines at sea―all of which leads me to the UFO incident, which took place in May of 1981.
The day started out pretty routine when they dimmed the lights (they did this first in the Command Center when they set a Condition Zebra alert). Most of the time when they set these drills they would say, “This is a drill… this is a drill. Set condition Zebra.” But they turned the lights down this time and they didn’t say, “This is a drill.” And the Watch Officer and the Junior Watch Officer looked at each other and told some of their assistants to verify whether or not this was a drill as the event was taking place. And the early warning system―I believe it came in from an Air Force base in Greenland or Nova Scotia at that time―said that we had contact with an unidentified flying object that had entered our air space. They said that this was not a drill and so it was treated with the utmost promptness and everyone started running around like mad once they realized that it wasn’t a drill.
It took on a whole different air.
When you set a Condition Zebra, whether it is a drill or not, people who do not have a Zebra Access Badge must leave the Command facility. We have Marines stationed inside and outside the building who were under orders to shoot any unauthorized personnel that remained in the Command Center during one of these episodes. That was for the interest of national security.
I recall one time when a Condition Zebra was called and the Marine comes in and wants to know what is going on―is this a drill or not because they have orders to start shooting people. I got the Junior OOD’s attention and said, “Hey, you guys need to tell this guy something. He is ready to start shooting people.” I remember wanting to just get the hell out of there because he came in there and he said, “You have got a minute or two. If I don’t find out something…”
He was ready to come in there and start shooting people, destroying evidence.
But this event was not a drill.
The Watch Officer summoned Admiral Trane over to the Command Center because this was a little out of his area of authorization and required Admiral Trane’s oversight. And within minutes Admiral Trane was rushed into the Command Center into his viewing booth that he had right under the mezzanine.
The first thing he wanted to know was how many contacts we had, where they were, which direction they were going, and were the Soviets responding. We knew that it wasn’t the Soviets that had entered our airspace. That was verified from the start.
Admiral Trane gave authorization to put two planes up to go see what this thing was. That was when the chasing up and down the eastern seaboard began. We launched planes from as far north as Greenland to NAS (Naval Air Station) Oceania. We had this object on radar almost an hour. You could hear the pilots’ live voice transmissions being piped into the Command Center―they had visual confirmation and made descriptions of the object. Pilots were able to close a couple of times and were able to see that the object was like nothing that we had or that the Soviets had. That was determined very quickly. This vehicle or whatever it was that they were chasing showed very erratic flight up and down the coast―very quick flight.
For instance, it would be off the coast of Maine and would leave the airspace in that area so fast that we had to send planes out of Dover Air Force base just to pick it up just in what seemed like moments. I know for a fact that it would take an F-14 probably thirty minutes to traverse that much distance; but this object, whatever it was, was just popping up. One minute it was here and the next minute bam, it was several hundred miles down the coast, just playing tag.
It went all the way down to a point off the coast of Florida around Mayport, the Naval Air station that we have down there at Cecil Field. That was before it turned and took what would have been an easterly direction from our vantage point back up towards the Azores before we lost track of it.
During all this, we were gathering information using KH-11 satellites, which have a very high capability of taking really good photographs of things literally within a few feet of the ground from a vantage point out in outer space. They were trying to get the KH-11 satellite to track this thing to get some photographs of it.
The only photographs we did get back in the Command Center came from the first encounters that the planes had with the UFO off of the northern North American coast.
I remember the shape was more like a cylinder; it was quite flat and long with abrupt ends that didn’t taper down like most aircraft. You could clearly tell that it was metallic. And the pilots were giving information such as it was not leaving behind a vapor trail, no discernable lights or markings on it, no cockpit windows or doors, nothing like that.
It just seemed to be one solid thing whatever it was.
What was really bugging Admiral Trane, what was really driving him nuts, was this thing absolutely had complete control of the situation and could be anywhere that it wanted to be in a matter of seconds. One minute we were closing on it off the coast of Maine; the next it is in Norfolk heading south toward Florida.
I would describe the officers as being scared. Admiral Trane was usually a very calm man; you never really saw him lose control or raise his voice or get excited about anything. But this really got him upset. The UFO was moving around so erratically and so quickly up and down the coast while we were trying to notify as many commands as we could to get a plane up. They would actually not track it; it would just appear hundreds of miles from the last sighting. Admiral Trane was scrambling and authorizing planes left and right up and down the entire eastern seaboard to try and cut this thing off. It was clear that they wanted to force it down by whatever means possible and recover it.
They wanted it and they wanted it bad.
When this event ended, the object headed out over the Atlantic. I remember them saying that it pulled up at a 66-degree angle as it approached the Azores without slowing down―it left the atmosphere and was gone into space. You are talking about something that covered thousands of miles in a blink of an eye and it was just gone and left everyone sitting around scratching their heads. “Gee whiz, I wonder what that was.”
It was comical in a way to see how the vast military might of the United States was put on its knees by something―they had no idea what it was, where it came from, where it was going or anything. The only thing that they knew for sure was that it wasn’t the Soviets.