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Big Sur Atlas launch film claim

When
Launch of an Atlas missile by the 6595th Aerospace Test Wing at Vandenberg AFB
An Atlas launch from Vandenberg AFB; the Big Sur film recorded an Atlas D test flight from the base in 1964 SDASM Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Former Air Force Lt. Robert Jacobs claimed from 1982 that telescope film of a September 22, 1964 Vandenberg Atlas launch, shot from Big Sur, showed a craft circling the warhead and hitting it with a beam. Project engineer Kingston George said it showed decoys and debris, not a UFO.

Sources

  1. FirsthandThe Big Sur 'UFO': An Identified Flying Object (Kingston A. George, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 17, Winter 1993)Skeptical Inquirer / Center for Inquiry / 1993

How sources are chosen and tiered

How the story came out

Happened 22 Sep 1964. First made public 57 years later (19 Oct 2021).

  1. 22 Sep 1964It happened (this event)
  2. 19 Oct 2021Former Air Force officers' UAP and nuclear weapons press conference - first made public

See it on the timeline: happened vs became public

Where it fits

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