Ascension Island USO Sighting
The Ascension Island USO Sighting occurred on June 25, 1960, during the Missile Test 1802 Data Recovery operation near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. Multiple technical witnesses including an RCA photographer and test observer, the missile recovery dive team, and aircraft crew observed a light emerge from beneath the ocean surface near the data cassette being recovered. Project Blue Book attributed the sighting to a flare, but the investigation confirmed no flare was released at the location. UAP Gerb connects this case to Luis Elizondo's account of a Navy diving team encountering a massive Unidentified Submerged Object (USO) during a similar missile recovery operation.
| Date | 1960-06-25 |
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Incident Description
At 2334 local time, an operation range vessel code-named Whiskey was recovering the floating data cassette from missile test 1802, illuminated by strobes and monitored from the ship and a recovery aircraft above. A small boat was launched to retrieve the cassette. As the small boat came within 300 to 500 yards of the cassette, crew members observed a steady white or yellowish light appear approximately 100 yards from the cassette, apparently from beneath the ocean surface and at roughly 25 degrees from their position. The light appeared to be at or very close to the surface; no waves were seen breaking over it. The event lasted approximately ten seconds. Witnesses included the RCA photographer and test observer, divers from the recovery crew, and the pilot and co-pilot of the recovery aircraft.
Blue Book Classification and Critique
Blue Book attributed the sighting to a flare. However, investigation established that no planes or vessels in the area released a flare at that location or time. A flare also would not explain the apparent emergence of the light from beneath the surface — flares are aerial devices, not objects rising from under water.
Connection to Elizondo Account
UAP Gerb explicitly connects this case to the account related by Luis Elizondo describing a Navy helicopter crew on routine cruise missile recovery operations who encountered a massive dark circular object emerging from thousands of feet below the surface — in that case, the object ultimately pulled the recovered missile back into the ocean. The structural parallel — a USO emerging from depth during a missile recovery operation — is treated as a meaningful pattern rather than coincidence.