Great Lakes shoot-down claim (1973)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 10
| Informant | "RK" of Columbus, Ohio, an E-4 gunnery school instructor at Great Lakes Naval Base, March 1973 – September 1974 |
|---|---|
| Claimed shoot-down | June 1973, by a Navy destroyer's missile, between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland (second-hand, from an unnamed sailor) |
| Claimed sighting | September 1973: a 30-foot, teardrop-shaped craft in a guarded Quonset hut at Great Lakes |
| Interview | At Stringfield's home, 14 July 1980, with researcher Don Jernigan |
| Published | Stringfield, Status Report III (June 1982), Case A-7; reprinted by Earthfiles in 2005 |
| Status | Unverified; no records, named witnesses or physical evidence |
| Date | June 1973 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Nuclear & missile sites (topic), Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Leonard Stringfield, Linda Moulton Howe |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 76 |
| Year | 1973 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1973 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
"RK" was one of Leonard Stringfield's anonymous informants, a gunnery school instructor at the Great Lakes Naval Base near Chicago. He said that in September 1973, while guarding a Quonset hut there, he glimpsed a strange metallic craft resting inside.[1][6] He linked it to a story he had heard from a sailor in San Diego. In that story a Navy destroyer shot down a UFO with a missile between Hawaii and the mainland in June 1973, and it was recovered from the sea and shipped by rail to Great Lakes.[6] Stringfield published the account in his Status Report III in 1982. Linda Moulton Howe republished it in 2005.[3][5] No records, named witnesses or physical evidence support it.[6]
The informant
Stringfield described RK, from Columbus, Ohio, as an E-4 instructor in the Gunnery School at Great Lakes from March 1973 to September 1974. RK said he was being groomed for Intelligence School.[6] He came to Stringfield's home on 14 July 1980 with the Columbus researcher Don Jernigan to tell his story. Stringfield listed it as Case A-7, among his first-hand accounts.[6]
The Quonset hut
RK's account, as Stringfield recorded it:[6]
- The guard duty. In September 1973 he was assigned to guard a large Quonset hut, with orders to let no one within 100 yards.
- The errand. An officer in a jeep gave him a sealed envelope to deliver to the Commandant inside the hut.
- The craft. Passing other guards, he saw "a strange metallic craft", about 30 feet long and 10 feet high, on a wooden platform. "It was light silvery blue and shimmering," he said. "It tapered like a tear-drop with a flange running along its topside from one end to the other and there were no windows."
- Leaving. With guards watching, he could not linger. He got the Commandant's signature, saluted and returned to his post.
The sailor's story
RK said the craft immediately reminded him of a story he had heard weeks earlier from a sailor in San Diego, whose name he could not recall:[6]
- The encounter. In June 1973, between Hawaii and the mainland, the sailor's destroyer picked up an object on radar. It made three close passes and one directly over the ship.
- The shoot-down. A missile brought it down, "a lucky hit", and it crashed into water about 350 feet deep.
- The recovery. It was retrieved by "a Glomar Explorer", shipped to Hawaii, then sent stateside and finally to Chicago.
- The sketch. The sailor drew a sketch, and RK said there was "little doubt" it showed the object in the Quonset hut.
Stringfield's summary says the Navy shot the object down with a surface-to-air missile and shipped it "secretly by rail" to Great Lakes, where it was kept under heavy guard. RK believed it was "by coincidence" that he came to guard it.[6]
Stringfield's comments
Stringfield thought the object might at first seem to be a military device of American or foreign make. He reasoned it through as follows:[6]
- The shape. RK's sketch "certainly was not the typical discoidal or ellipsoidal UFO".
- Not American. If it really passed menacingly over a U.S. warship, that seemed to rule out a secret U.S. aircraft.
- Not a target. A robot target for missile practice would hardly need a secret retrieval.
- Not Soviet. A Soviet origin was "hardly" likely, as flying so close to a U.S. warship would be too risky.
A self-described Wright-Patterson "insider" told Stringfield he knew of no case of a UFO being shot down by U.S. warships at sea.[6] RK called his sailor source credible. Stringfield wondered whether the sailor had been testing RK as a future intelligence recruit.[6]
The Glomar Explorer
.jpg)
The sailor's mention of "a Glomar Explorer" points to the Hughes Glomar Explorer, the deep-sea recovery ship built in 1971–72 for the CIA's secret Project Azorian to raise the Soviet submarine K-129.[7] Details from the ship's history:[7]
- Cover story. Howard Hughes told the press the ship would mine manganese nodules from the sea floor.
- Operation. It began operation on 20 June 1974, about a year after the claimed shoot-down, and recovered part of K-129 in 1974.
- Exposure. The project became public in February 1975.
The sources do not say whether the ship could have been used for a recovery in 350 feet of water in mid-1973.[6][7]
Publication
Stringfield (1920–1994) self-published seven status reports on alleged crash-retrievals between 1978 and 1994. The RK case appeared in Status Report III, Amassing the Evidence, in June 1982.[1][6] His first report in 1978 had already introduced the anonymous "Major J.M.", later identified as Jesse Marcel of Roswell.[2] Linda Moulton Howe's Earthfiles serialised Status Report III in 2005. Its Part 4 page, like most of the reprint, is for subscribers.[4][5]
Assessment
The story has two layers. One is RK's brief glimpse of an unexplained object in a guarded hut. The other is the shoot-down itself, which RK did not witness and heard from a sailor he could not name.[6] RK has never been publicly identified, and no Navy records, ship logs or other witnesses have been produced.[6] The ship named in the sailor's account entered service a year after the events described.[7] The claim remains one of many unverified crash-retrieval accounts in Stringfield's files.[1][6]
People and topics
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Leonard Stringfield — Former Air Force intelligence officer and NICAP researcher who collected anonymous crash-retrieval accounts from 1978 to 1994.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Linda Moulton Howe — Journalist and filmmaker who runs the Earthfiles website and has reported many crash-retrieval claims.
- Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.
On the Timeline
- UFOs: Past, Present, and Future documentary (May 1973) — Two Air Force colonels reportedly encourage filmmakers to make a UAP documentary.
- Dyess AFB weapons storage incident (1973) (October 1973) — A security policeman at Dyess AFB says his squadron encountered a UAP near nuclear bombers.
See every 1973 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Leonard H. Stringfield — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Stringfield's 1978 report — Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- Linda Moulton Howe — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Earthfiles — Linda Moulton Howe's news site · earthfiles.com · archived copy
- earthfiles.com · earthfiles.com · archived copy
- Leonard H. Stringfield, UFO Crash/Retrievals: Status Reports I–VII (compiled text), Internet Archive · archive.org
- Glomar Explorer — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Leonard H. Stringfield”, “Linda Moulton Howe”, “Glomar Explorer”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 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.
No discussion yet.