Clyde Tombaugh
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 5
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Tombaugh |
Clyde Tombaugh (4 February 1906 – 17 January 1997) was the American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930. He was probably the most eminent astronomer to report seeing an unidentified flying object, and he later took part in a government-funded search for small natural satellites of the Earth that became tangled up with UFO rumours.[1]
Astronomer
Raised on a Kansas farm, Tombaugh built his own telescopes and sent drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, which hired him in 1929. In 1930, during a systematic photographic search for a planet beyond Neptune, he discovered Pluto. He also found hundreds of asteroids and many variable stars and star clusters.[1] After the war he worked at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and taught at New Mexico State University from 1955 until 1973.[1]
His sighting
On 20 August 1949, near his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Tombaugh saw a group of six to eight faint, rectangular lights in formation crossing the sky. He said he was "petrified with astonishment" and doubted it was a reflection from the ground. He later suggested it might have been a rare optical effect in the atmosphere, but said he had never seen anything like it before or since.[1] He reported a second, very bright object at White Sands a year or two later and said he had seen three of the "green fireballs" reported over New Mexico from 1948.[1] In 1952 he told J. Allen Hynek, who was quietly surveying astronomers for Project Blue Book, about his sighting and offered his telescopes to the Air Force for photographing UFOs.[1]
The satellite search
Tombaugh's offer may have led to his involvement in an Army-funded search, announced in late 1953, for small natural objects orbiting the Earth. In August 1954 Aviation Week reported that two such satellites had been found, and some UFO writers, including Donald Keyhoe, linked the search to UFOs. Tombaugh and astronomer Lincoln LaPaz, who was also linked to the reports, publicly denied them, and Tombaugh said the search had no connection with flying saucers.[1]
Legacy
Tombaugh supported continued scientific study of UFOs in his later years.[1] He died in Las Cruces in 1997. Some of his ashes were carried on NASA's New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto in 2015, and the bright heart-shaped region on Pluto was named Tombaugh Regio.[1][2]
References
- Clyde Tombaugh — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Clyde Tombaugh: Astronomer who discovered Pluto", Space.com · space.com · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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