Big Sur UFO Filming: Ret. USAF Officer Saw UFO Shot Down Missile In 1964

For 18 years, Robert Jacobs had been participating in the official United States Government-ordered UFO coverup. He claimed that he had been ridiculed by his colleagues for writing about this cover-up that appeared in The National Enquirer. The cover-up was about the UFO shooting down one of the ballistic missiles back in 1964 in Big Sur, California.

Retired USAF Lieutenant Robert Jacobs had been an officer in charge of optical instrumentation at the 1369th Photo Squadron at Vandenberg from 1963 to 1966. Apart from it, he holds a Ph.D. and a university professor in the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting. According to him, while he served in the US Air Force in the photography career field, he was awarded the “Missile Badge” for his contribution to America’s Missile and Space Program.


Robert Jacobs

His job was to establish a long-range tracking site at Big Sur, California. Those days, ballistic missiles used to blow upon launch, and Dr. Jacobs’ duty was to determine the reason behind every missile failure at the Western Test Range. As the missiles had to carry a nuclear weapon to a specific target, they were monitoring the dummy warhead to find the reason behind their blow.

Kingston A. George, Operations Analyst for Headquarters, 1st Strategic Aerospace Division was monitoring all the missile activities and asked all the engineers, civilians, and military to provide him the side look at all stages of powered flight. Dr. Jacobs said due to the California coastline, that view was only possible for one side. It was a heck of work to send readings from Big Sur to Vandenberg base, as the distance between the two locations is 124 miles. They required a recording device capable of enhancing the image and a tracking system but fortunately, George had already arranged such a device that was Boston University telescope, owned by the Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR) at Patrick Air Force Base.

Dr. Jacobs and his team were given full access to the Boston University telescope. On August 28, 1964, they reached near the summit of Anderson Peak, 248 miles from Vandenberg AFB with their military equipment and waited for the telescope to arrive. On August 31, 1964, another crew arrived with the telescope for a 30-day test period, including chief Warrant Officer Guy M. Spooner from the Operations Section of the 1369th and Major Florenz J. Mansmann from 1st STRATAD. Meanwhile, Dr. Jacobs’ team was prepared for a total of 11 launches. Later, one of these launches resulted in the government UFO-cover-up.

The Atlas Missile/ Image credit: NICAP

Dr. Jacobs recalled that the UFO incident had most probably been associated with the launch of an Atlas missile happened either September 2nd, 3rd, or 15th, 1964.

“At the Big Sur tracking site, we were ready to go as the countdown from Vandenberg progressed loud and clear on our radio. At the call of “ignition… liftoff” all cameras rolled and scanned to the southeast for something to photograph. “There it is!”, I shouted out as the Atlas leaped through the snow-white coastal fog blanket and both trackings mounts homed in on the majestic “bird” in flight. The big Atlas could not have been more clean, clear, and majestic We were “Go” for the operation.”

“Our mission to provide the engineers with a side look at three stages of powered flight had been accomplished and we were a very happy bunch, congratulating each other and letting the film run out in the 35mm motion picture camera focused on the Kinescope.”

The next day, the film was ready to show. Dr. Jacobs was called into the office of Major Mansmann, where a screen and a 16-millimeter projector were set up. In the room, there was Major Mansmann and two unidentified men in grey suites, which was quite unusual for Dr. Jacobs. He was asked to watch the film taken during one of the launches.

Dr. Jacobs explained: “Because of the length of the telescope as the Atlas missile entered the frame, we could see the whole third stage which has two rocket nozzles like this and one in the center or gimballed one in the center fill in our frame from one hundred and about 160 miles it was pretty exciting optics we watched that stage burnout we watched the second stage burnout we watch a third stage burnout and into the frame came something else it flew into the frame.”

According to him, the warhead was approached by a UFO, fired a beam of light at it from different directions. Subsequently, the warhead malfunctioned and tumbled out of sub orbit hundreds of miles short of its target. “This… unidentified flying… thing had apparently shot down an American dummy atomic warhead,” Dr. Jacobs said.

He remembered that those men in grey clothes were kept staring at him as if they were not happy with what was going on there. He did not care about others’ opinions as he strongly believed that it was a UFO that hit the missile. He decided that it was shaped like a saucer’s cup with a ping-pong ball-like thing on its top that emitted the beam of light.

After that Major Mansmann asked him to never talk about it to anyone and suggested him if he was forced to talk about it then he could say it was laser tracking strikes. “Well in 1964 we didn’t have any laser tracking strikes we don’t have any laser tracking at all lasers were in their infancy in 1964 they were playthings and laboratories so I said yes sir and walked out and that was the last I talked about it for 18 years I didn’t talk about it to anybody at Vanderburgh.”

In 1982, Dr.Jacobs wrote his story and later, it was published by “The National Enquirer.”

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