The Big Sur UFO Incident-The Flight of Buzzing Bee

[Tim Hebert]

Here is a rather "unknown" UFO incident supposedly involving the Air Force, SAC and CIA. Of course the DOD's involvment is predicated on what side of the issue that one looks. This happened to be the very first "debate" topic that I attempted to engage Robert Hastings. Little that I knew, this would expose me to how these incidents take on an almost "religious" narrative including villians and heroes all fighting for the "cause."

In the early morning hours in September, 1964, SAC launched an Atlas D ICBM (code name Buzzing Bee) from its Western Test Range located on Vandenberg AFB, CA. This was a routine launch where the ICBM was programmed to "fly" over the Pacific releasing a test Re-entry vehicle and the RV impacting near the Johnston Island Atoll. Interestingly, the flight was filmed by a photographic crew stationed up the coast line in the mountains near Big Sur. The photographic crew was using an image orthicon device that provided then top of the line video recordings. (This was before the days of VCRs and CDs!) It was hoped the the image orthicon would be able to enhance and track the ICBM during its flight path looking for any anomalies or malfunctions. Lt. Bob Jacobs was the Air Force officer incharge of the photographic crew. Jacobs interpretation of the filming would cause contraversy, as the ICBM failed in mid-flight and he would state that the film showed that a UFO had knocked the ICBM and its RV off course.

Robert Hastings provided an article to cufos.org and also available on his website, hastingsufo.com, A Shot Across the Bow: Another Look at the Big Sur Incident. I'll let Hastings interpretation of the event speak for itself.

Kingston George rebuttal via the Skeptical Inquirer, 'Buzzing Bee' Missile Mythology Flies Again. Kingston George was involved with Buzzing Bee in 1964.

As usual, we're talking about a supposed event that occured forty-five years ago. As of this date, the film itself has not surfaced so we're left with Jacobs' account versus that of George.

Tim

P.s. Having difficulty with setting up the links, I'll clean it up soon!

edit note: Ok, links are established! Damn near had to get a neighborhood teenager to help me!

[astrophotographer]

I spent a lot of time discussing this with Hastings on the BAUT forum. The bottom line is that he really never researched anything beyond what Jacobs told him and some letters he had copies of. There is a lot about this case that Hastings never examined. I would rather take the informed opinion of George that has actual documentation to back him up than some wild stories told by a low grade officer. As I state on my website,
http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/bigsur.htm,Until somebody can provide additional documentation that the Jacobs/Mansmann story is true or that there is another answer then the most likely scenario is the Kingston George story where Jacobs/Mansmann misinterpreted what they saw on the film.

[Access Denied]

I spent a lot of time discussing this with Hastings on the BAUT forum.

Indeed, although I wouldn’t exactly call it a “discussion” per se… basically he tried to use a whole lot of irrelevant stuff to ignore all of your, Jay’s, and other's salient points and questions.

This was my summary of the case early in that thread…

UFOs and Nukes

The suggestion that I address the Malmstrom incidents, and the Big Sur Incident, is a good one.

[snip all the stuff irrelevant to the actual case]

So let me see if I got this straight…

Basically what we have here are three people who claim to have seen a film of a nuclear missile test.

No actual nukes were involved.

Two of these people claim the film reveals space aliens shot it down and the government covered it up.

One of these people claims the film reveals a previously undemonstrated ability to differentiate between actual and dummy warheads and the government classified it.

Zero evidence has been presented to support the notion space aliens were involved other than the opinion of two of the alleged eyewitnesses.

Did I miss anything?

[yawn]

What else have you got?

I think it went downhill from there…


P.S. Tim, I went ahead and cleaned up your links for you. Unfortunately you can’t use the “URL” button alone to do what you want, you have to do some of it manually. First, type what you want the link to say, then (optionally) highlight it and use the “Font colour” button to change it to what you want, then highlight that (including the color tags, if you use them) and click the “URL” button, and then finally, manually add the = sign to the left side URL tag and and paste in the link after that as follows…

Code: Select all

[url=http://www.url.com][color=#0000FF]Text Goes Here[/color][/url]

[astrophotographer]

Thanks for the link correction.

As for the Big Sur case, I am aware of research that has been going on for the past two years that I can not divulge. I have been tempted to discuss some of it here but that would result in me breaking a promise I made. Let's just state that my original statement about Hastings' research being inadequate has been shown to be accurate by what I have seen so far. I keep asking the author if they will be publishing soon but they are trying to make sure all the loopholes are closed. They are concerned about Hastings and Jacobs taking legal action. Tom knows what I am talking about since, more than once, Hastings threatened to take people to court in the BAUT forum when they questioned if his witness might be mistaken.

[Tim Hebert]

Tim, Tom cleaned up my links. You seem to have your "act" together, where as, I have a tendacy to struggle with that damn "url" button!

Enjoyed your website! I was unaware that the Big Sur incident still captured so much interest. As a former missile crew commander, the story originally interested me due to the historical nature of the beginnings of the ABRES program (Advanced Ballistic Re-entry Evaluation System). If you look at the historical record showing all launches from Vandenberg AFB, there were numerous Atlas launches testing RVs and penetration aids. We were all trying to narrow the CEP.

In Hastings article and in his correspondance to me, he makes certain "qualifiers" about Jacobs' being a highly decorated officer. This is his attempt to make his witnesses sound trustworthy or as experts. Yet, Hastings does not state what decorations or awards that Jacobs had. Not that it mattered in Jacobs case, but a noted ploy by Hastings none the less.

When discussing Big Sur with Hastings, I virtually stumbled across Kingston George's article in the Skeptical Inquirer. Prior to that, I never had heard about George or his involvment in the launches from the Western Test Range. George's response to Hastings had the air of crediblity because he was there and involved with the program. Hastings presented a weak case, regardless of his copies of statements from Jacobs and Mansmann. And since the actually film footage was missing, I told Hastings that all was a mute point. Thanks for your information, I look forward to when more information is presented concerning Big Sur!

Tim

[astrophotographer]

As an ex-submariner, the term "decorated" is just window dressing. I believe the highlight of Jacobs career was getting some sort of missiler badge while he was at Vandenberg. I assume this is the equivalent of one receiving a surface warfare pin or dolphins (my fellow submariners will probably kill me for comparing the two) in the USN. It is a 'decoration' but I would not make it something to highlight my credentials as an officer. If that was his greatest achievement, then it is not saying much. He was a low level officer (I think he was just a Lt, which is an O-2) assigned to a task where most of the work was done by people like Kingston George. He was just a supporting role.

[Tim Hebert]

The rules have changed off and on concerning who is authorized to wear the missile badge. If you were assigned to Vandenberg chances were that you could secure the missile badge even if your duties were remotely connected to missile operations. B-52 crews at one time were able to wear the badge if they carried the Hound Dog missile or some other sort of "stand off" missile. Personnel that worked on missile related projects in AF System Command were allowed to wear the badge, which was a point of contention with the opeational crews and maintenance people.

True, awards and decorations were to a point "window dressing." For example, as an AF captain, O-3, I had an impressive rack of ribbions on my dress blues, yet my commanding officer had three or four ribbons. The difference...his eagles trumped my captain bars.

From what I gathered, Jacobs was only a Lt whose sole job was to oversee the orthicon. I don't know what other qualifications that he had as far as interpreting the film footage itself. This more than likely would have been left up to other "qualified" personnel either at Vandenberg or SAC HQ.

Tim

[astrophotographer]

Jacobs was not an expert on film interpretation to the best of my knowledge. He was just responsible for the scope operations/maintenance support since the AF was using the scope to track their missiles. He was just the token low ranking AF officer sent there to provide any support they needed. His rank indicated that the role he played was minimal. The actual operation of the scope was conducted by civilians involved(see the pictures at my site). The films were sent back to the base for developing and review, which was done by other analysts. After that the film would eventually be shown to those involved probably to improve guiding/tracking (a lot of this was manually guided from what I gathered) and see how the equipment was performing. I am sure that Jacobs was involved in viewing these films since he was part of the "team" at the telescope. As I have stated there seems to be every indication that Kingston George's recollections are probably most accurate on this matter. It makes sense and is a lot more realistic than Jacob's exotic story about a UFO shooting down a dummy warhead. BTW, there is no indication anywhere that dummy warheads from either Buzzing Bee or Butterfly net failed to make it to their target area so the UFO failed in its mission.

[Tim Hebert]

I also am of the understanding that the RV landed near its target area. I believe that the issues arose from the failure for the decoy penetration aids to deploy properly. This showed a potential vulnerability thus classifying the film footage. At least that is what I take from George's articles and from my experiences in SAC this seems quite logical and SOP. It was issues such as this that ultimately led to the earlier retirement of the Atlas as an ICBM. It was hoped at the time that the Atlas could remain on alert status up until 1967.

Tim