Today’s post is written by Joe Gillette, a processing archivist at Archives II.
During the Vietnam War, American army commands maintained daily journals documenting assorted events. Most entries were relatively mundane, documenting staff meetings, personnel travel, incoming or outgoing messages, and the like. Some were more administratively significant, such as changes in command, the awarding of medals, or the filing of reports. Naturally, many contain descriptions of combat against the enemy.
Then there are entries that more closely resemble an episode of the X-Files than a war movie.
One such entry appears in the January 6, 1969 daily journal of the 23rd Infantry Division’s Chu Lai Defense Command. The command’s mission was to coordinate ground defense of the Chu Lai Defense Sector on the Vietnamese coast about 40 miles southeast of Da Nang. Base defenses included a system of numbered observation towers ringing the base. Towers routinely reported anything unusual or potentially threatening to the base. At 0152 hours (1:52 am), the day’s journal records Tower 72 making such a report:
Twr 72 rpts object flying into their area about 700m infront [sic] of them, AZ 310°. Object came in slow over the ASP & landed. When object moves it has a glowing light. It is about 15 – 20 ft across. It is shaped like a big egg. Control twr rpts their radar did not pick anything up. Object also does not seem to have any sound to it when it moves.
The only logged follow-up action was notification of the Duty Officer. Subsequent journals provide no further information on the incident. Peculiarly (if one is conspiratorially-inclined), the journals for the next two days, January 7 & 8, are missing.
Possible conventional explanations for the sighting exist. Tracer rounds and flares both create illumination. But tracer rounds don’t float to the ground and certainly aren’t shaped like an “egg”, and flares might float to the ground, but aren’t egg shaped either. Additionally, drug use by soldiers, particularly by 1969, was a known problem in Vietnam. But two or more soldiers typically manned these towers. Assuming this was a drug-induced vision, it’s difficult to imagine they each experienced the same hallucination, although if they were observing something they could not readily identify, one might have convinced the others they were seeing a UFO. Boredom too could have resulted in a bout of creative storytelling, but if discovered, the soldiers risked disciplinary action. So while potential conventional explanations exist for both the sighting and the report, nothing in the journals tells us which of those might have been at work.
The truth may be out there, but it isn’t in these records.
Maybe Soviet experimental technology? Crazy sighting…
Great finding, thanks for this article. Is there any chance a digital copy will be available in the future? Also, are just the journal entries of the next two days missing and everything else is still there? If so, it would be quite odd.
By the way, egg-shaped solid objects have often been sighted in history.
If the soldier who reported this is still alive i think he will still remember that night. But i guess it wouldn’t be easy to try to find out the name of the person who reported this.
There has been another report of a “UFO” in Chu Lai just days before the incident, but that case was probably a drone: http://25thaviation.org/id287.htm
(scroll down to the bottom of the page)
CHU LAI: NOT AN ALIEN CONTACT !
IT IS ONLY THE WELL-KNOWN BALL LIGHTNING PHENOMENON:
AS JANUARY 3rd, 1969 WAS FULL MOON’S DAY, NO DOUBT THE JANUARY 6 “EGG-SHAPED” OBJECT IS ONLY THE BALL LIGHTNING PHENOMENON, NOTHING TO DO WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS. I AM STUDYING THE UFO SUBJECT SINCE 1962, ASK JACQUES VALLEE AND RICHARD HAINES ABOUT ME.
BOTH THE JOURNALIST ANTONIO HUNEEUS AND THE ARCHIVIST JOE GILLETTE ARE TOTALLY WRONG, IT LOOKS SIMPLY AMATEURISH WORK!
FRENCH SECRET SERVICE AND UFO DISINFORMATION:
gazetteandobserver
british-ufo-files
Bastide,
is not serious writing with SHIFT.
Furthermore, it is like you stunned and explains nothing scientific.
Look for information on the United Nations and was appointed ambassador to contact other civilizations.
knows a sailor on ships and their trajectories to identify them.
I do not accept trivial stories where everything is resolved with a balloon. UFO globe.
do not forget that we are Type 0 civilization.
this is type of accident, but i think they is some one who knows all about this and they wanted to write on news, but their hands are tied. if they open there mouth, they will lost their family.
something is there. be careful.