Jack Pickett and the MacDill discs
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 1966-1967 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Military encounters (topic) |
| People | Jack Pickett |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 69 |
| Year | 1966 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1966 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
Jack D. Pickett (1926–2008), a Wyoming-born publisher, said that in 1967 he saw four disc-shaped aircraft at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and was shown hundreds of photographs of saucer-shaped aircraft by an Air Force colonel.[1][2]
Pickett
Pickett served in the Second World War and later owned an advertising and publishing company. He published the newsletter of MacDill's NCO club, and in 1967, he said, he was asked to produce an issue featuring experimental aircraft.[1][2]
What he saw
Pickett said that on the outskirts of the base he saw four disc-shaped craft in a salvage yard, ranging from about 20 feet to more than 100 feet across. In the base adjutant general's office, he said, a colonel took out a stack of photographs of many kinds of flying saucers, confirmed they were what the saucer stories came from, and told him the craft could fly high and fast enough to reach space but had been dropped because of manoeuvrability problems.[1]
His campaign
Pickett concluded that many flying saucer sightings were of experimental military aircraft, and described the episode in "Flying Saucers – For Real!", published in Search magazine in 1982 and revised with researcher Michael Schratt in 2003. He then spent nearly two decades writing to Air Force personnel and officials, including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992, asking for the photographs and specifications to be declassified. The Air Force did not release them.[1][3]
The papers
Pickett's research files, including his correspondence, sketches and photographs, are held by the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.[1][2]
Context
The U.S. did fund disc-shaped aircraft, most notably the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar, which flew in 1959 but could barely leave ground effect. No released record confirms the craft Pickett described.[1][4]
People and topics
- Jack Pickett — Aviation journalist who said he saw Air Force disc craft at MacDill AFB.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Freedom of Information Act — The 1966 U.S. law that lets the public request government records.
- Project Silver Bug and the Avrocar — Project Silver Bug and the Avrocar
- NASA — The U.S. civilian space agency, created in 1958.
- Project Grudge — The Air Force's skeptical UFO project of 1949–51 that replaced Project Sign.
On the Timeline
- Cedar Breaks radar site crash claim (1966) — A radar technician reportedly saw a disc crash at a Utah radar site linked to Area 51.
- Yuma hangar photograph claim (1967) (1967) — A source says his brother photographed a saucer in a hangar in Yuma and then fled.
See every 1966 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "Flying saucers – for real! The papers of Jack D. Pickett", American Heritage Center blog (Apr 2022) · ahcwyo.org · archived copy
- Jack D. Pickett papers, 1950–2006, Archives West · archiveswest.orbiscascade.org · archived copy
- "Flying Saucers-For Real!" by Jack D. Pickett and Michael H. Schratt (2003), Wyoming History Day · wyominghistoryday.org · archived copy
- Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Unidentified flying objects: the Pickett papers — Wyoming Public Media · wyomingpublicmedia.org · archived copy
- manmade-ufos.com · manmade-ufos.com · archived copy
- nicap.org · nicap.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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