Ellsworth Air Force Base UFO Incident

Shortly after dark on August 5, 1953, military personnel, civilian volunteers, and fighter pilots near Rapid City, South Dakota, tracked a light that former Project Blue Book chief Edward J. Ruppelt later singled out as one of the stronger cases in the program’s files.

The sequence began shortly after dark when a Ground Observer Corps volunteer at Black Hawk, roughly 10 miles west of Ellsworth Air Force Base, reported seeing an extremely bright light low on the horizon to the northeast. The local filter center relayed the sighting to the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB, which was positioned just east of Rapid City. Radar operators immediately shifted their sector scan to the northeast and picked up a well-defined target matching the civilian report.

A warrant officer serving as the duty controller studied the return for several minutes and described it as solid and bright, moving slowly. Height-finding radar placed the object at 16,000 feet. When the controller connected with the civilian spotter by telephone, they compared notes on position. She suddenly broke off to report that the object had begun moving southwest toward Rapid City.

Accounts differ on who went outside to look. Ruppelt’s account says the controller sent two of his men, who shouted back that they could both see a large bluish-white light moving toward the city, while a later summary of the official report says three airmen went out and described something Blue Book considered meteor-like. As ground observers and radar screens followed its progress, the object swept in a wide arc around Rapid City before returning to its original position.

The warrant officer then scrambled an F-84 fighter conducting combat air patrol west of the base. The pilot spotted the light and closed in, but when he approached within approximately 3 miles, the object accelerated away. Ground controller, civilian spotter, and pilot all observed it move simultaneously, confirming they were tracking the same object.

The pursuit continued north for roughly 120 miles into dark country. Whenever a jet got within about 3 miles, it burst forward at increased speed and climbed. The fighter pilot later told Ruppelt he was glad his fuel was running low, noting that being alone over desolate territory with an unknown object could cause worry.

A second F-84 pilot from the base’s interceptor squadron volunteered to attempt an intercept after hearing disbelieving radio traffic. He ruled out conventional explanations by turning off all cockpit lights, rolling the aircraft (the light didn’t shift), and tracking three nearby stars that confirmed the object moved independently. He flipped on his radar-ranging gunsight, and within seconds its red light blinked on, telling him something solid was ahead. The official file adds a caveat: on the flight home the indicator blinked on and off, suggesting a possible malfunction, and maintenance never checked it. The pilot readily admitted to Ruppelt that he had been scared, more so than during combat encounters with enemy fighters over Germany and Korea.

When the UFO disappeared from radar heading toward Fargo, North Dakota, controllers contacted the Fargo filter center. They soon received word that Ground Observer Corps posts on a southwest-to-northeast line west of Fargo had also spotted a fast-moving bluish-white light.

Today, Ellsworth Air Force Base is home to the 28th Bomb Wing, one of the Air Force’s two B-1B Lancer wings, and has been under Global Strike Command since October 2015. It sits by Box Elder, and sources put it about 10 or 12 miles from Rapid City.