as also picking up
the Air Guard F-51 and an F-51 that had been scrambled from Wright-
Patterson. The pilots of the Air Guard '51 and the Wright-Patterson
'51 could both see the UFO, and they were going after it. The master
sergeant who was operating the radar called the F-51's on the radio,
got them together and started to vector them toward the target. As
the two airplanes climbed they kept up a continual conversation with
the radar operator to make sure they were all after the same thing.
For several minutes they could clearly see the UFO, but when they
reached about 15,000 feet, the clouds moved in and they lost it. The
pilots made a quick decision; since radar showed that they were
getting closer to the target, they decided to spread out to keep from
colliding with one another and to go up through the clouds. They went
on instruments and in a few seconds they were in the cloud. It was
much worse than they'd expected; the cloud was thick, and the
airplanes were icing up fast. An F-51 is far from being a good
instrument ship, but they stayed in their climb until radar called
and said that they were close to the target; in fact, almost on it.
The pilots had another hurried radio conference and decided that
since the weather was so bad they'd better come down. If a UFO, or
something, was in the clouds, they'd hit it before they could see it.
So they made a wise decision; they dropped the noses of their
airplanes and dove back down into the clear. They circled awhile but
the clouds didn't break. In a few minutes the master sergeant on the
radar reported that the target was fading fast. The F-51's went in
and landed.

When the target faded on the radar, some of the people went outside
to visually look for the UFO, but it was obscured by clouds, and the
clouds stayed for an hour. When it finally did clear for a few
minutes, the UFO was gone.

A conference was held at ATIC that afternoon. It included Roy James,
ATIC's electronics specialist and expert on radar UFO's. Roy had been
over at the radar lab and had seen the UFO on the scope but neither
the F-51 pilots nor the master sergeant who operated the radar were
at the conference. The records show that at this meeting a unanimous
decision was reached as to the identity of the UFO's. The bright
light was Venus since Venus was in the southeast during midmorning on
March 8, 1950, and the radar return was caused by the ice-laden cloud
that the F-51 pilots had encountered.