The Red Flare at Test 3018 (1956)

The rocket had been climbing for about a minute when he saw it. "A red flare was sighted high in the eastern sky." It was a spot of reddish light with short tails of the same colour sticking out on each side. He put it ten to twelve miles out to sea from where he stood, three miles north of the Patrick Air Force Base main gate, heading due north at an estimated 750 to 1,000 miles an hour. At about 95 seconds into the flight the missile seemed to be at the flare's height. Then "the flare made a wide turn to the east immediately after the missile 'passed' it". As it turned, the two tails disappeared. The sky was clear, with ceiling and visibility unlimited.

What is on the record

The source is a memorandum headed "Report of Unidentified Flying Object", dated 10 December 1956 and held in the CIA's files with a routing sheet. It was written by the observer himself. He knew the approximate launch time through his official duties, he says, but his employer's initials cannot be read in the scan. The signature at the foot of the memo reads J. P. Andersen in the archive's transcription of the scan, and the writer appears nowhere else in the file. He reported the sighting to a communications coordinator at the Cape and to the duty officer at Patrick within the hour. He asked for the test's optical coverage films to be studied.

Additional comments were added on 4 January 1957. They say the missile was already some 20 miles high at the time, so the light was either much closer to him or much higher and faster. The Air Force eliminated aircraft and weather balloons. The observer had spoken to two other men who saw it, but no details were obtained. "Study of most sensitive camera plates showed nothing." The note identifies Test 3018 as the launch of a Viking rocket, the first in the Vanguard programme. The archive's case name says 1955; the record says 1956.

Why it sits where it does

L0: a single document. It is a primary report, but the archive's fact sheet carries no identified witness for it. The signature is a transcription of a faint scan, and nobody else in the file is identified. The tier measures sourcing rather than truth, and the file reaches no conclusion. What turned east over the sea that night is not resolved here.