Ben Guerir guards' sighting (1960)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | Unknown, about 1960–61, shortly after a French atomic test |
|---|---|
| Location | Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco; objects seen over the Atlas Mountains |
| Witnesses | Airman 3rd Class Larry W. Rogers and five other K-9 handlers, 3926th Air Police Squadron |
| Objects | About six bright, glowing objects |
| Duration | About 45 minutes |
| Response | Four or five jet fighters; guards debriefed and made to sign non-disclosure statements |
| Reported | February 2013, to Robert Hastings |
| Topics | Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Robert Hastings, Larry Rogers |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 63 |
| Year | 1960 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1960 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
The Ben Guerir guards' sighting is an account given in early 2013 by Larry W. Rogers, a former U.S. Air Force security guard. He told the researcher Robert Hastings that in about 1960, while guarding the runway at Ben Guerir Air Base in Morocco, he and five other dog handlers watched about six glowing objects over the Atlas Mountains. Jet fighters flew toward the objects, which then began moving erratically.[1] Afterwards, Rogers said, the guards were questioned separately, shown the Air Force's UFO regulation, and ordered to sign non-disclosure statements. The sighting happened shortly after one of France's first atomic tests in the Algerian Sahara.[1] His is the only account of the incident.[1]
Background
Ben Guerir, about 58 kilometres (36 miles) north of Marrakesh, was built in 1951 by the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC). It was one of five bases put up in French North Africa under a "crash program" begun in 1950, sited so that nuclear-armed B-47 Stratojets could be deployed quickly without aerial refuelling. KC-97 tankers were also based there.[5] SAC used the base until 1963. Its operating unit was the 3926th Air Base Group, later Combat Support Group.[5] It later served as an emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle and is now a Royal Moroccan Air Force base.[5]
In 1960 Rogers, an Airman 3rd Class, served in the K-9 section of the 3926th Air Police Squadron. His DD-214 service record, which he gave Hastings, confirms that he served at an Air Force base in North Africa in that period.[1] France was then beginning atomic testing at Reggane in Algeria, then a French colony, about 600 miles (970 km) southeast of the base.[1] Its first bomb, "Gerboise Bleue" (Blue Jerboa), was detonated on a 100-metre tower near Reggane on 13 February 1960. With a yield of about 70 kilotons, it was larger than the first American, Soviet and British tests combined.[6] Three smaller atmospheric tests followed:[6]
- Gerboise Blanche, 1 April 1960
- Gerboise Rouge, 27 December 1960
- Gerboise Verte, 25 April 1961
Gerboise Rouge prompted protests from countries including Morocco.[7] Hastings says all four tests took place while Rogers was at Ben Guerir.[1] Rogers said he never saw a flash. What he did see was the whole sky brilliantly coloured at sunrise and sunset for days after each test, which he put down to sand and debris thrown into the atmosphere.[1]
The sighting
One night shortly after a test, Rogers and five other members of his squadron were guarding the north end of the runway with their German Shepherds. They noticed a group of small glowing objects hovering low on the southeastern horizon, apparently over the Atlas Mountains, about 90 miles away.[1] There were perhaps half a dozen. Rogers said they were very bright, but he could not tell whether they were lit themselves or caught the light of the sun below the horizon. He also could not tell whether they were above the mountains, in front of them or beyond them.[1]
The guards called the squadron command post. A little later four or five jet fighters, which Rogers understood had been launched from Zaragoza Air Base in Spain, flew almost directly overhead with their afterburners showing blue flame, heading toward the lights.[1] When the fighters seemed to arrive, the objects, nearly motionless until then, began moving quickly and erratically. They made sharp-angled turns "like they were playing tag with the jets", and some flew full circles, as if around the aircraft.[1] The encounter lasted about 45 minutes, after which the fighters left, probably low on fuel. Rogers said his guess was that the objects had come because of a test, not to watch one.[1]
The debriefing
After returning their dogs to the kennels and their weapons to the armoury, the guards were told to get into an Air Force sedan. They were driven to the headquarters building, put in separate rooms, and debriefed by two uniformed officers.[1] Rogers described a "good cop, bad cop" routine. One officer was calm, while the other warned him he would deeply regret it if he talked. Rogers suspected they were from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) but did not know.[1] He was shown a UFO regulation headed "AFR 200-2" and ordered to sign a non-disclosure statement. He said the men were so frightened that they never discussed the incident among themselves again.[1]
Air Force Regulation 200-2, issued on 26 August 1953, restricted how UFO reports were handled and released, and required them to be sent to Air Force intelligence. A note in Hastings's material suggests that Rogers's memory of seeing it makes AFOSI interrogators likely.[3][4]
Assessment
On 30 January 2013 Hastings issued a press release urging veterans to come forward about UFO sightings at nuclear-weapons sites. Rogers was the first to respond. Hastings interviewed him twice by telephone.[1] Rogers could not fix the date, explaining that the Sahara had no seasons he could tie to the event.[1] Hastings suggested the objects' presence was probably linked to the French tests, perhaps monitoring drifting radiation clouds over the Atlas region. He acknowledged that this was speculation and that the objects were seen far from the test site.[1] He discusses the case in the context of his book UFOs and Nukes, which collects military accounts of UFOs at nuclear sites.[1]
No official record of the incident has surfaced. Project Blue Book does hold a record card for a Morocco sighting on 20 September 1960, at 7:50 p.m. near Sidi Slimane Air Base. A witness there saw a single "bright ball" with a long white tail for three to five seconds. It was evaluated as a fireball, and the report was routed under the "Moon Dust" program.[2] That brief single-object report does not match Rogers's 45-minute, multi-object account, and nothing ties it to his sighting.[1][2]
People and topics
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Robert Hastings — Researcher who has collected accounts of UFOs at nuclear weapons sites, author of UFOs and Nukes.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Larry Rogers — Air Force dog handler who described UFOs over Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco, in 1960.
- Air Force Regulation 200-2 — Air Force Regulation 200-2
- Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
On the Timeline
- Hillenkoetter's 1960 call for hearings (22 June 1960) — Former CIA Director Hillenkoetter tells a newspaper UFOs are under intelligent control.
- Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (1961) — Texas Instruments sets up a research center that hires gravitational physicists.
See every 1960 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Robert Hastings, "UFOs observed by U.S. Air Force security guards during French atomic testing in Algeria" (Feb 2013) · ufohastings.com · archived copy
- Blue Book file: Morocco, September 1960, UFO Scans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- ufohastings.com · ufohastings.com · archived copy
- nicap.org · nicap.org · archived copy
- Ben Guerir Air Base · en.wikipedia.org
- Gerboise Bleue (nuclear test) · en.wikipedia.org
- France and weapons of mass destruction · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Ben Guerir Air Base”, “Gerboise Bleue (nuclear test)”, “France and weapons of mass destruction”, 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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