Ed Balocco's night chase near Edenton (1953)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 19 February 1953 |
|---|---|
| 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 early 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, according to an April 1953 report in the Navy's magazine Naval Aviation News.[1]
The chase
Balocco was on a local night flight from the auxiliary landing field at Edenton when Norfolk's Navy tower alerted him to watch for a silver object reported from the ground near the North Carolina–Virginia line. Over Washington, North Carolina, he saw what looked like an aircraft with red lights below him, which then climbed about 10,000 feet in a matter of seconds. He could not close on it at first, then closed rapidly. 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 large object. It was the colour of white heat, gave off a glow, and had two flashing red lights on its left side.[1]
The end of the chase
As the object pulled away, Balocco radioed other aircraft for help. Diving toward where it had disappeared, he thought he saw a flash. Capt. Thomas W. Riggs of the same squadron saw an object near the coastline but could not identify it. A Navy pilot from Norfolk and a resident of Oriental, North Carolina, also reported flashes, the resident saying a ground fire followed. Marine helicopters later found a small forest fire but no trace of a crash.[1]
Details
A helicopter first reported the object at 5:47 p.m.; ground radar did not detect it, and Balocco saw it at about 6 p.m. and kept it in view for three or four minutes. He had about 550 jet hours and 1,000 flying hours, and said visibility was good enough to see the lights of Norfolk and the Cherry Point beacon from 20,000 feet.[1]
Assessment
The object was never identified. Some later retellings add details not found in the 1953 report, such as the object coming within a few hundred feet of the jet.[1]
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.
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