Case files / oak-ridge-1950

Oak Ridge: radar over the atomic city

When
March to December 1950 · 1950 on the timeline
Where
Oak Ridge and Knoxville, Tennessee
Reported by
A Knoxville radio station owner, Air Force radar crews and Oak Ridge staff
Released
FBI file 62-HQ-83894, in the first 2026 release
Status
Investigated by the FBI, Army and Air Force; never identified

Late on March 1, 1950, Stuart Adcock, owner of Knoxville radio station WROL and a radio ham, phoned the FBI. He had set up an Army surplus radar set at home and said it showed an object circling at about 40,000 feet directly over Oak Ridge. He picked up an object again the next day. The Atomic Energy Commission's security chief at Oak Ridge checked with Smyrna Air Base, which had no flight plan for any plane there, and Army messages to Washington asked for a qualified radar operator to check the set.

A week later the FBI's Knoxville office reported that the object was not verified. The Navy Reserve radar in Knoxville never saw it, though its technicians said it was not built for very high altitudes. Air Force specialists from Oak Ridge examined Adcock's set, found it "not too reliable" and doubted parts of his radar theory, and the Army noted the set had been modified. The FBI did not investigate further.

The reports did not stop. In December 1950 the FBI asked Knoxville to look into possible radar jamming at Oak Ridge. On December 14, Air Force radar operators at McGhee Tyson Airport saw a group of objects blanket their scopes directly over the AEC plants; a fighter intercept found nothing. On December 18, two carloads of staff from the Air Force's nuclear aircraft project at Oak Ridge saw a bright, round light through their windshields on the way to work. On December 20 the same radar unit tracked a small, very slow target over the controlled area and guided an F-82 fighter to it, which found only a small cloud of smoke.

The file also holds photos of "flying saucers" said to have been taken at Oak Ridge in July 1947. An Air Force engineer there wrote in 1949 that they were not real. No file in the release says what the 1950 radar objects were.

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