Wild Weasel UFO detections claim
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 10
| Date | 22 June 1986 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Jacques Vallée, James McCampbell |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 99 |
| Year | 1986 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1986 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
The Wild Weasel UFO detections claim is a story recorded by Jacques Vallée in his journals on 22 June 1986. The engineer James McCampbell told him he had made "an interesting contact" with military pilots from the U.S. Air Force's Wild Weasel units, whose aircraft were equipped to detect enemy radar.[1] "The story goes that they have detected many UFOs," Vallée wrote, "and have continued this role in the United States."[1] Michael Shellenberger's 2024 UFO timeline, submitted to the House Oversight Committee, describes McCampbell as a former Bechtel Corporation contractor. It summarises the claim as Wild Weasel F-4s detecting UAP during the Vietnam War and continuing that role in the U.S. into the 1980s.[7] The account is second-hand, and no record of such detections has been published.
The entry
The Australian researcher Keith Basterfield quoted the passage, from page 248 of Forbidden Science Volume Three, in a 2016 post collecting "little snippets" from Vallée's journals.[1]
- The contact. "Jim McCampbell has made an interesting contact with some military pilots from the Wild Weasels."
- The aircraft. "According to Jim, these are expert pilots who use F-4 planes equipped for electromagnetic detection, designed to identify ground radar, and first deployed during the Vietnam war."
- The claim. "The story goes that they have detected many UFOs and have continued this role in the United States."
The entry gives no names, dates, places or details of any specific detection. Basterfield listed it among items he would "really like to know more about", and invited readers to add information.[1]
The Wild Weasels
According to the Wikipedia account, "Wild Weasel" is the Air Force code name for aircraft equipped with anti-radiation missiles to suppress enemy air defences by destroying radar and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites. A Wild Weasel crew baits enemy radars into tracking them, then traces the emissions back to their source.[2]
- Origins. The concept was developed in 1965, after Soviet-supplied SAMs began downing American aircraft in Operation Rolling Thunder over North Vietnam. The program was headed by General Kenneth Dempster. Missions were first authorised on 12 August 1965 under the code "Iron Hand". The historian Walter J. Boyne dated the first success to soon after the first mission on 20 December 1965.
- Aircraft. The first Wild Weasels were two-seat F-100F Super Sabres. The first squadron, the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli in Thailand, lost most of its aircraft and crews within 45 days. An attempt to use the F-4C Phantom failed, and the role passed to the F-105F Thunderchief in summer 1966. It later went to the F-105G, and then to 36 converted F-4C Phantoms, designated Wild Weasel IV.
- The F-4G. The F-4G Wild Weasel V, the "Advanced Wild Weasel", replaced the F-4E's gun with the AN/APR-38 radar homing and warning receiver. 134 were converted from F-4Es, the first flying in 1975, and squadron service began in 1978. F-4Gs were based at George Air Force Base in California, Spangdahlem in Germany and Clark in the Philippines, and saw combat in the 1991 Gulf War.
- Motto. The crews' unofficial motto is "YGBSM", attributed to the back-seat electronic warfare officer Jack Donovan's reaction to learning what the job involved.
McCampbell's description of F-4s "first deployed during the Vietnam war" broadly fits the record, though the first Vietnam-era Wild Weasels were F-100s and F-105s. By 1986, when he spoke to Vallée, the role was flown by F-4Gs at bases including George Air Force Base in California.[1][2]
Other journal snippets
Basterfield's post collected several other unexplained items from the same volume of Vallée's journals.[1]
- Helicopters as saucers. On 11 March 1984 Vallée recalled that the CIA scientist Kit Green had once interviewed "a soldier of fortune, specialised in nuclear security testing, whose group used helicopters designed to appear as flying saucers".
- A Russian sighting. On 20 November 1980 Green told Vallée of an NSA intercept in which a Russian ship off Gibraltar reported a "flying cigar" that split into two objects.
- Naval intelligence. In November 1986 Rear Admiral Bill Houser had Naval Intelligence analyse a Costa Rica photograph Vallée brought back. They took "a very cursory look" and called it a hoax. Vallée disputed their reasoning.
The journals
Vallée's journals have been published as the multi-volume Forbidden Science series. The third volume, On the Trail of Hidden Truths, covers 1980 to 1989.[3][4] Reviewers describe the series as an intimate record of the people Vallée met and the stories they told him.[5][6]
Assessment
The claim passes from unnamed pilots through McCampbell to Vallée, and is framed in the entry itself as "the story goes".[1] Wild Weasel aircraft were built to detect and home in on radar emissions. The sources read here contain no record of UFO detections by Wild Weasel crews, and the entry gives nothing that could be checked.[1][2]
Notes on the earlier version
- F-4Gs. The earlier version said F-4G Phantoms flew the role "from the late 1970s". The Wikipedia account gives a first flight in 1975 and squadron service from 1978.[2]
- McCampbell. The earlier version called McCampbell an engineer. Shellenberger's timeline describes him as a former Bechtel Corporation contractor. Other details of his career are not covered in the sources read here.[7]
People and topics
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- James McCampbell — Engineer and author of Ufology (1973).
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- National Aero-Space Plane contracts (1986) (April 1986) — Defense contractors receive contracts to develop a hypersonic single-stage-to-orbit plane.
- GAO testimony on special access programs (1986) (24 July 1986) — A GAO official testifies about secret 'black' defense programs.
See every 1986 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Keith Basterfield, "Little snippets from Jacques Vallée's journals", UFOs – scientific research (Oct 2016) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Wild Weasel — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- Michael Shellenberger, written testimony to the House Oversight Committee (13 November 2024), p. 99 · oversight.house.gov
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Wild Weasel”, 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.
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