Ed Balocco's night chase near Edenton (1953)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
.jpg)
| Date | Evening of 19 February 1953 (per the APRO Bulletin's dated news item) |
|---|---|
| Place | Eastern North Carolina, from near Edenton toward Cherry Point; object first seen over Washington, N.C. |
| Pilot | 1st Lt. Edward "Ed" Balocco, USMC, VMF-224, age 24, of Antioch, California |
| Aircraft | Grumman F9F Panther jet, flying at more than 500 mph |
| Object | White-hot glow with two flashing red lights; climbed about 10,000 feet in seconds |
| Other witnesses | Capt. Thomas W. Riggs; a Navy pilot from Norfolk; Gerald Midget of Oriental, N.C. |
| Result | Unidentified; a small forest fire found, but no crash |
| Topics | Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Ed Balocco, Timothy Good |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 48 |
| Year | 1953 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1953 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
In February 1953 Marine 1st Lt. Ed Balocco of fighter squadron VMF-224 chased a glowing unidentified object in an F9F Panther jet over eastern North Carolina. The chase was reported in the Navy's magazine Naval Aviation News in April 1953.[1][4] A wire report reproduced in the APRO Bulletin dates the chase to the night of 19 February 1953. It quotes a Cherry Point spokesman as saying, "It's the first time we've had anything that comes close to being anything to release."[3] The object outpaced the jet and was never identified.[1]
The chase
Balocco was on a local night flight from the auxiliary landing field at Edenton. Norfolk's Navy tower alerted him to watch for a silver object reported from the ground near the North Carolina–Virginia line.[1] According to the APRO account, he was at 20,000 feet near Edenton when alerted and was heading toward Cherry Point.[3] Over Washington, North Carolina, he said, "I saw what looked like an airplane with red lights which appeared to be below me.... It moved from below me 10,000 feet vertically in a matter of seconds."[1][3]
Balocco "poured on the coal" but could not close on it at first. Then he closed rapidly, "as if it were waiting for him", before it sped up again.[1][3] His description of the object:[1]
- Size. At about ten miles it looked roughly a quarter of an inch wide and three inches long to him, which he took to mean a "big" object.
- Colour. It was "the color of white heat" and threw out a glow.
- Lights. It had two flashing red lights on its left side, "bouncing off the end, inscribing an arc".
The end of the chase
As the object pulled away again, Balocco radioed other aircraft in the area to help track it. Diving toward the spot where it disappeared, he thought he saw a flash but could not find it again.[1] Other reports followed:[1]
- Riggs. Capt. Thomas W. Riggs of the same squadron, who had joined him, saw an object flying near the coastline but could not identify it.
- The flashes. A Navy pilot from Norfolk and Gerald Midget of Oriental, North Carolina, also reported flashes. Midget said a ground fire followed, but there was no explosion.
- The search. Marine helicopters later searched the area and found a small forest fire but no trace of a crash.
Details
The timeline and conditions, as reported:[1][3]
- Timing. A helicopter first reported the object at 1747 (5:47 p.m.). Ground-control intercept radar failed to detect it. Balocco saw it at about 1800 and kept it in view for three or four minutes.
- The pilot. He had about 550 jet hours and 1,000 flying hours. The APRO report described him as a 24-year-old from Antioch, California.
- Visibility. From 20,000 feet over Washington he could see the lights of Norfolk and the Cherry Point beacon.
The magazine said the story had become "a favorite ready room conversation" for Second Marine Air Wing pilots at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.[1] The APRO Bulletin, edited by Coral Lorenzen in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, carried the case among its "recent sightings" for March 1953.[3] The bulletin is no longer at its original web address and was read from an archived copy.[3] A copy of the book Need to Know on the Internet Archive is also cited for the case, but its pages could not be read online.[4]
A later Edenton sighting
A separate case from the same airfield was investigated by the Air Force. On 7 December 1954 Capt. Dayton Robinson Jr. and Cpl. Edwin G. Capone of Marine Aircraft Group 14 at Edenton were flying a TV-2 jet trainer at 20,000 feet.[2] What happened:[2]
- The sighting. They saw a sharply outlined, white, half-spherical object with a dark object hanging beneath it, apparently at about 15,000 feet.
- The speed. It seemed to accelerate and climb, and the pilot estimated its speed at 2,700 mph. The sighting lasted about 20 seconds.
- The analysis. Dr. Uco van Wijk of Princeton suggested that the apparent size, speed and motion were optical illusions caused by the aircraft's own movement, the sun angle and the observers' expectations.
- The verdict. Capt. Chester B. Hanson of the 4602d Air Intelligence Squadron concluded it was most likely a weather balloon caught in high winds.
No such explanation was offered for Balocco's object.[1][2]
Assessment
The object was never identified. The original accounts rest on Balocco's report, the related sightings by Riggs and others, and the radar's failure to detect anything.[1][3] Some later retellings add details not found in the 1953 reports, such as the object coming within a few hundred feet of the jet.[1] The 1954 case from the same field shows how high-speed impressions from a moving jet could later be explained as a balloon.[2]
People and topics
- Ed Balocco — Marine fighter pilot who chased a red-lit object near Edenton, North Carolina, in 1953.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- APRO — A civilian UFO research group founded by Coral and Jim Lorenzen in 1952.
- Timothy Good — British author of books on UFO secrecy including Above Top Secret and Need to Know.
On the Timeline
- CIA memo on Civilian Saucer Investigation (9 February 1953) — A CIA officer admits monitoring a public UAP meeting in Los Angeles.
- Kingman UFO crash (21 May 1953) — An engineer using the pseudonym Fritz Werner swears he investigated a crashed craft near Kingman, Arizona.
See every 1953 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "Jet pilot chases odd object", Naval Aviation News (April 1953), reprinted by UFO Archive · ufo-archives.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Edenton, N.C. report — UFOScans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- files.afu.se · files.afu.se · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
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.