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\sectd \guttersxn0\linex0\endnhere1 \pard \qc \plain \f3\fs28\ul
Comments on Dave Clarke/Andy Roberts interview with Sq Ldr Victor
Mitchell\par
\plain \f3\fs28 \par
\plain \f4 Martin Shough\plain \f4\ul \par
\pard \plain \f3\fs20 \par
\pard \qc \plain \i\f3\fs20 This commentary confined to
references to Neatishead/Lakenheath/Bentwaters August 13 1956\plain
\f3\fs20 \par
\pard \par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 DC: So something that was at low
level you could only detect it, using one of these radars, within
that small distance, ie 30 miles?\par
\par
VM: Yes that\rquote s right because low level, the level is in
relationship to the earth. So low level operations, and this is
the thing that I looked at briefly...if you draw a map showing
the distance between Neatishead, Bentwaters and Lakenheath, it is
a roughly a triangle, about 60 miles. So whoever was at
Neatishead is unlikely to have seen anything low level above
Woodbridge or Bentwaters, and vice versa, they won\rquote t see
it at Bentwaters, not at low level.\par
\par
DC: That\rquote s interesting.\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 That's what I kept banging on about in our
debates, of course. And I also discussed the radar horizons at
great length in the \plain \f5\lang2057 Blips! \plain \i\f5\lang2057
manuscript. This is why the 23 Squadron interceptions were not
under Neatishead control and can't therefore have been the same
event(s) recalled by FW, by FW's oppo Sq Ldr Clift, and by the
other Neatishead Sq Ldr interviewed by DC on 13.03.02. \plain \f5\lang2057
\par
\par
\pard \li720 VM: Now the important point about what they did, and
I can see this happening...that the airbase had a problem. They
had seen something, something odd of course. They had scrambled,
or they had told the GCI and GCI had scrambled something and went
up to have a look at it. And it would be a sensible ploy to make
sure that the person who had control over the fighter aircraft to
put them in the right position would be the guy who had the best
coverage. So if it is flying at low level around Bentwaters then
it would be the GCA guy there who would have it . . . . From what
I can see they are talking about 3-4,000 feet aren\rquote t they?
So it\rquote s got to be local to them. These guys [GCI
Neatishead] are unlikely to see it unless it pops up.\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 Ditto. Last time we reviewed this issue you
said you still weren't convinced by all my arguments for the
absence of GCI control for 23 Squadron. Is this still an open
question?\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 Now, you can argue, I think you
may want to look in greater detail at the propagation. The
transmission of a radar signal out, and striking the moon. [point
to drawing]..you make a transmission here, and the radar pulse
will travel out into space; the measuring system that you have
got will receive the returns from objects that you have got
within this time frame, but this pulse is still carrying on,
it\rquote s still keeping going. So you send out the next pulse,
and the same thing happens. So you have now got two pulses going
out into space. It\rquote s perfectly reasonable if the moon is
low, or high for that matter, that at some stage some return
energy would displayed from the moon itself, but it wouldn\rquote
t be displayed there, it would be displayed down here. So there
would be no correlation between that pulse that went out there
and the return that comes up there. So it would be a spurious
return. However, looking at what these guys saw, I cannot
conceive that that was the answer to it because if it were, it
would follow the normal pattern of a return. It might be a bit
more blodgy, but it would follow that sort of pattern. Plus there
is evidence there that says this thing moved around. So, of the
things they suggest that is a possibility but I don\rquote t
think it would do because if you had sequential pulses going out
and coming back in they would appear on sequential time bases all
the way down, and it may well be that they would move around. But
I think that anyone who with knowledge of the use of the radar
system.....\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 With the greatest of respect to Sq Ldr
Marshall I have to dispute this idea. Moon echoes on a 1956
airfield surveillance radar?? First, since he refers at one point
to 'third or fourth [trip] returns from the moon' this suggests
some confusion about the physics or the geometry of multiple-trip
echoes. Second-trip echoes on a CPN-4 would be from targets
between 60 and 120 miles; third-trip echoes from targets between
120 and 180 miles and so on. Such echoes are normally displayed
from large volume- or plane-targets such as weather or the ground
because the power of the set is matched to the designed range so
as to minimise power wasted on point targets where the scope is
not designed to 'see' them. For example, an aircraft 600 miles
away is hardly likely to be displayed by, say, tenth-trip returns
on a CPN-4 because the energy-on-target at this range is designed
to be negligible. Lunar echoes would be \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
4000th trip\plain \i\f5\lang2057 . Thus the attenuation of
signals returned from 1/4 million miles will be fantastically
extreme and of vanishing intensity at the receiver. You can
easily prove this:\par
\par
Obviously the moon is a very big target in absolute terms. If you
consider a 1/2 degree spherical target at 240,000 miles range
compared to a 1/2 degree target at the maximum unambiguous range
of 60 miles then you compare a 2000-\plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 mile
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 sphere and a 2000-\plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
foot \plain \i\f5\lang2057 sphere. The moon has an effective
echoing area on the order of 10^6 times as large. But the moon is
4000 times further away, which, because the intensity falls off
as the 4th power of the distance for point targets (spheres are
'point targets' for theoretical purposes however big they are)
means that the intensity is 4000^4 times weaker, which is a huge
number, 10^15 or a few hundred thousand billion! Now you could
argue that 10^-15 of an extremely strong signal like that from a
1/2-mile sphere at 60 miles might still be quite strong. To get
an idea of how strong one can compare it with a 20-foot sphere (about
30 sq m radar cross section, roughly equivalent to a well-aspected
smallish aircraft) at the same range, which has an effective
echoing area only about 10^4 times smaller than the 2000-foot
sphere. In other words, the echo strength from the moon will
still be \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 eleven orders of magnitude or
one hundred billion times weaker \plain \i\f5\lang2057 than that
from a small aircraft at the edge of the scope. If it were even
theoretically possible to adjust the sensitivity to display such
a level of signal I'm sure the entire scope would be bright white
due to thermal noise in the circuitry.\plain \f5\lang2057 \par
\par
\pard \li720 DC: What about this condition where you have got
trapping and ducting of radar signals so that you are seeing
things many miles away...\par
\par
VM: Yes, absolutely right. Your wave is bent down and all that. I
have only seen it once, and I cannot recall in detail, but I
don\rquote t think it would be...it\rquote s the same sort of
philosophy as the moon. You know, you bend the beam down and its
trapped, and it goes out and it goes on and on and on and picks
up the Ural mountains and throws it back in your face!\par
\par
DC: But perhaps it is that very rarity! So that something like
that happens and causes a case like this, which when looked at
years later can\rquote t be explained, but you don\rquote t know
everything about the conditions at the time....\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 Caution again please - saying that a radar
response of \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 some sort \plain \i\f5\lang2057
might be caused by ducting is not really good enough. A radar
response of some sort might in principle be caused by LGMs too,
or even the moon. But if you want to rule those out it means
looking at the detail of exactly \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 what
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 sort of responses in exactly \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
what\plain \i\f5\lang2057 circumstances, and it isn't true that
you have to know 'everything about the conditions at the time' to
make reliable inferences about the limits of the possible range
of effects due to this or that mechanism. Restricting discussion
only to the 23 Squadron events as recalled by the aircrews,
stationary echoes detected in the same approximate location by
fixed ground and mobile airborne radars, at different
frequencies, different pulse and scan rates, approached
repeatedly at changing bearings and elevations by two separate
aircraft over two extended periods, \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 is
not at all easily explainable as AP. \plain \i\f5\lang2057 (And
this is disregarding reports of coherent movements etc. detailed
in other sources of course.) \par
\pard \li720 \par
\plain \f5\lang2057 VM: . . . A summary of my feeling is that
those guys saw something. I\rquote m fairly happy with what they
said, and what they picked up that something occurred which they
had not normally, or hadn\rquote t experienced before. You have
only got to look a few years later at the Rendlesham incidents.
Rendlesham is not too far away is it? You may well argue that the
Americans have been messing around with things, I don\rquote t
know. There is a question in my mind as to what was going on in
that time-frame that we were doing, or that we and the Americans
were doing. It is unlikely that they would have advised the Air
Defence system if they were doing experimental operations.
Unlikely. They were very very cagey about Black Bird and people
like that zooming out. They would just say, here\rquote s a
special going out....\par
\par
DC: At the time of the 56 incident was the time the U2 was based
there....\par
\pard \par
\pard \li720 VM: That\rquote s right. So, what do you say? I
don\rquote t think you can dispute the honest reporting of these
guys. I can\rquote t suggest anything specific to you that could
point you in any one direction, because the anomalous propagation
is there, third or fourth return from the moon is a possibility,
but I think that that would become self evidence. \par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 See reference to 'third or fourth returns
from the moon' above. I think the points made by Andy Roberts
about the U2 during our 'debate' do cast doubt on the actual
basing of a U2 at Lakenheath that August. You'll recall that
similar doubts were expressed by the aviation expert who I asked
to comment on this, who believed the logistical arrangements made
it very likely that the focus had shifted to Turkey by this time.
The U2 history on the CIA web site supports this. But this
doesn't guarantee that visits were not made to Lakenheath, nor
does it mean that there was not some notional readiness to return
basing there in the future.\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 DC: Was it possible to pick up
meteors up on radar?\par
\par
VM: I\rquote ve never seen one. But then I haven\rquote t been
looking for them!\par
\par
DC: But these events were right at the height of a shower, the
Perseids.\par
\par
VM: Yes it was.\par
\par
DC: And certainly when the people at Bentwaters became aware that
something was being tracked, they went outside and saw shooting
stars...\par
\par
VM: That\rquote s right, yes. But they wouldn\rquote t manoeuvre.
And I get the impression from what\rquote s been written in there
that this thing did manoeuvre around. One time it was in front,
and then it was behind...\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 There's a lot of confusion here. Who is
talking about which body of information? VM is talking about the
Perkins/BOI-485 object at Lakenheath which manoeuvred around. The
23 Squadron 'object' didn't manoeuvre around but it certainly
wasn't a meteor either. If we're talking about the BOI-485/Perkins
report of the Bentwaters fast radar-visual or the others in IR-1-56
then these were straight tracks, but it is not accurate to say
that Bentwaters personnel went out and saw meteors. There is no
reference to meteors in any report from or referring to
Bentwaters. Lakenheath observers reported unusual numbers of
meteors but it is fair to point out that they mentioned them only
to \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 contrast\plain \f5\lang2057 \plain
\i\f5\lang2057 them with the visual 'UFOs' they described. \par
\par
Moreover it is not at all clear from BOI-485 that Lakenheath
ground observers looked for UFOs \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 because
they were aware of radar trackings\plain \i\f5\lang2057 . In fact
the specific answer in BOI-485 to this question about what drew
observers attention to UFOs is that the observers simply '\plain
\b\i\f5\lang2057 looked at sky and saw objects'\plain \i\f5\lang2057
, which you can interpret to mean something else - but something
else is not what it actually says. \par
\par
And Dave, the implication of your statement above is that the
presence of the Perseids and these fast radar tracks can't be
coincidence, which would be a fair point except that: \par
a) these fast, small particles at great height are \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
not even remotely favourable targets \plain \i\f5\lang2057 for
airfield surveillance radars for all the reasons I have adduced
before; \par
b) the types of large fireball bolides that \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
are \plain \i\f5\lang2057 potential targets are mavericks and are
\plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 not statistically associated with showers
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 anyway, so the 'coincidence' becomes just
that - a coincidence\plain \f5\lang2057 ; \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 c) diametric as opposed tangential tracks
are the \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 least \plain \i\f5\lang2057
favourable meteor orientation for radar tracking even for
fireballs; \par
d) the Bentwaters tracks were on widely divergent headings
whereas shower meteors originate in a common radiant; \par
e) none of these headings was anywhere near the azimuth of the
Perseid radiant; \par
f) quantitative deductions possible from the speeds and distances
of the Bentwaters fast radar-visual and from the known features
of the CPN-4 radiation pattern are all consistent \plain \f5\lang2057
in detail \plain \i\f5\lang2057 with the passage of a hypersonic
object at a height which closely matches the bracketed visual
height report. Again features of this report can be interpreted
to mean something different from what is stated, i.e. that the
object wasn't really 'beneath' the plane etc., or the existence
of the report can be discounted; but in such cases you have to
balance the 'saving of the phenomena' achieved by that
interpretation against the damage done to the internal
consistency or the arbitrariness of an assumption. \par
There really is no evidence that these radar tracks had anything
to do with meteors.\par
\plain \f5\lang2057 \par
\pard \li720 DC: It seems odd to me too that this began happening
at 9.30 in the evening and yet it wasn\rquote t until 2 am in the
morning that aircraft were scrambled to have a look...\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f3 Agreed.\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 VM: Again it comes back down to
the operational function of the air defence system. . . . If
something appears as a normal track and then stops and
doesn\rquote t move, it would be dismissed because it would be
ground clutter.\par
\par
DC: And if it was computerised, would it be removed from the
display?\par
\par
VM: Well, absolutely, if you have got Moving Target Indication (MTI),
you have got Circular Polarisation, designed to cut out returns
from raindrops, you have got all these features...now think about
the theoretical shape of a UFO. Here is an ideal large raindrop,
which Circular Polarisation says, piss off you, we don\rquote t
want you! [laughter] MTI, the same philosophy is the same thing,
it allows a moving target to pass through a dense area of clutter
and be displayed. It removes the clutter from it.\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 MTI was used on the CPN-4s at Lakenheath
and Bentwaters and on the CPS-5 at Lakenheath, but in 1956 the UK
air defence system did not use MTI because the detectors and
delay lines were not considered stable enough to be completely
reliable, so this was \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 not \plain \i\f5\lang2057
a factor at Neatishead. The fact that the 23 Squadron
interception didn't happen until 2.00 am is therefore either a
'delay' related to Neatishead's operational focus or indicates
that this target at 2.00 am. just wasn't in the Neatishead radar
pattern. We have good reason to believe (above) that it wasn't in
Neatishead's radiation pattern. \par
\par
The idea of circular and elliptical polarisations prejudicing
detectability of spheroids and ellipsoids is one I've raised
myself for twenty years without getting anyone to take any notice.
Thankyou Sq Ldr!\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 VM: . . . If they get reports of
aircraft buzzing the area he is not going to go too quickly to
the air commander and say shall I launch? So things could have
been happening earlier on in the evening and he sat there and he
thought \lquote well, it could be anything really.\rquote Wait
until you start getting verbals from the airfields...\par
\par
DC: Well he did say he didn\rquote t see anything until they rang
him, and that\rquote s when he started looking....\par
\par
VM: That\rquote s right. If he did that, it\rquote s unlikely
that he would have seen anything, because of the very reason of
the distance he was looking.\par
\par
DC: It begins to make sense now that you explain it like that.\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 We've always known this. The concentration
of the air defence radar is on inbound targets to seaward as I've
often pointed out and as FW also emphasised. They didn't look at
Lakenheath and didn't see anything; when they were asked to look
they saw something. But what they saw wasn't the target that
Lakenheath GCA and 23 Squadron were busy with at 2.00 am. There's
no way that FW was involved with any launch at 2.00 am - it
doesn't fit the pre-midnight time he reported and there's no need
to try and make it fit because \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 we know
Neatishead couldn't even see that target anyway\plain \i\f5\lang2057
. This leaves open the question of what Neatishead did see and
when. \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 If \plain \i\f5\lang2057 we accept
that an event did occur on the night of August 13, as reported by
FW and confirmed by two other Neatishead sources, then the
elements of the Perkins/BOI-485 scenario that don't fit in time
or in content with the 2.00 am events become natural candidates
for that same event. If the Neatishead event \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
didn't\plain \i\f5\lang2057 happen on the 13th then we have
another 'Lakenheath UFO tail-chase' on a different night around
that time that we know nothing about - and which the Americans
were \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 not \plain \i\f5\lang2057 involved
in, otherwise we would have a Blue Book record, or a reference in
one of the UFOB messages, or a recollection from Perkins, or
probably at least a rumour from some other source. All as
confusing as ever, I fear . . . !\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 VM: The Sector Commander . . .
has the authority to launch the weapons. They come under his
control. He authorises them, the controller at Neatishead would
launch them, scramble the QRA, and they would come under his
control for the purposes of interception. As we said earlier, if
he hasn\rquote t got the cover the sensible thing is to say call
Lakenheath, or call Woodbridge. \par
\par
DC: Which is what seems to have happened even though he [Freddie]
doesn\rquote t remember that, he seems to think he was still in
control of this.\par
\par
VM: Well he would have been in overall control, you see because
you see the radar systems that were employed they designed as,
you see this was a Control and Reporting System....\par
\par
\pard \plain \i\f5\lang2057 Again this is the situation I was
trying to explain. Assuming everybody \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057
is\plain \i\f5\lang2057 talking about the same date (!) the
question of operational responsibility has to be distinguished
from actual hands-on intervention when hearing people talk about
what they were 'in control' of. FW didn't initiate anything. It
was already underway when Neatishead was 'asked to look' (according
to FW) as a result of Sector being put on alert by (according to
BOI-485) the USAF 60th Anti Aircraft Artillery battalion at
Lakenheath. \plain \f5\lang2057 \par
\pard \li720 \par
DC: Well also they didn\rquote t have height-finders, at the
airbases, so he must have been supplying the height
information?\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 Absolutely not - see below.\plain \f5\lang2057
\par
\pard \li720 \par
VM: Now it is possible that he might have seen them on height-finder.
Because a height finder is nothing more than these [points to
radar diagrams] turned through 90 degrees...right? So this thing
is now looking down, it\rquote s got quite a wide coverage, and
it\rquote s looking along, so it could well be that they could
have got some height finding information, but who is to say?
Because the height finder, you move it around like this, so they
would not be necessarily a consistent tracking on it.\par
\par
DC: It\rquote s interesting but doesn\rquote t take us any nearer
finding out what it was.\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 It isn't possible either. A heightfinder is
less subject to ground clutter and extreme lobing at low
elevations due to the shape of the beam, so that it can be more
effective with targets at low altitudes. But FW's team certainly
was \plain \b\i\f5\lang2057 not \plain \i\f5\lang2057 supplying
any height information to supplement a fighter control being
carried out by the USAF. As always, go right back to Freddie's
first statements and the crux is always that there was no
knowledge of any involvement of US radars and certainly no
cooperation. In any case there could be no mistake about whether
only height info was being used or not because, as VM indicates,
the horizontal 'nodding fan' of the Type 13 heightfinder has
extremely poor azimuth resolution of about 4 degrees and moreover
doesn't scan in azimuth. In the ROTOR system the Type 13s were
azicated by the operator turning a knob to place a marker strobe
through the echo on the main PPI display. If you've only got
radar contact through the heightfinder you've got no echo on the
PPI in the first place and you're manually fishing in the dark
for your target. In these conditions you'd know you weren't
carrying out a 'proper' interception! And with 4-degree azimuth
resolution you certainly couldn't detect a target separation down
to 1/2 a mile at 40 miles range as reported (azimuth res. would
be five or six times this figure, and minimum range resolution
for the 1.9 microsecond pulse is twice this figure), nor would
you be able to say that the pursuer leapfrogged the pursued 'in
one sweep' as also reported, because the Type 13 doesn't 'sweep',
only a surveillance PPI 'sweeps'. Furthermore none of the 23
Squadron aircrews recalls any height information coming from
Neatishead and such a split arrangement would have been at least
as memorable as the exclusively American control that they did
remember. Ergo, the report we have from Neatishead cannot have
anything to do supplementing Lakenheath GCA's 2.00 am fighter
control effort, or any other, with height information.\par
\par
\pard \li720 \plain \f5\lang2057 VM: Personally I don\rquote t
see you ever getting an answer to it. I\rquote ll be quite honest
with you. I think we do see things, either you don\rquote t want
to go any further with it because you know you will be black-balled
or what have you, and things that are reported aren\rquote t
reported quite correctly through the appropriate intelligence
system and all the way down the line, but they tend to say
\lquote well we\rquote ll put this down to anomalous
propagation\rquote , you see?\par
\pard \par
\plain \i\f5\lang2057 This is pretty spot-on in my view.\plain \f5\lang2057
\par
\pard \li720 \par
\pard \plain \f3\fs20 \par
}