Tinker AFB and the Summer of '65 Oklahoma UFO Wave

The wave

The Oklahoma wave of summer 1965 was one of several overlapping sighting episodes that month across the American Southwest and Plains. Reports ran from late July into the early hours of 2 August 1965 and covered Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and, according to later summaries, Wyoming and Nebraska. The best-documented contemporary coverage is in Oklahoma newspapers. The Oklahoma Journal of 2 August 1965 reported that the first Sunday-evening sighting came at 8:08 p.m., that sightings ranged from Purcell to Tulsa and Guymon, and that most came from law-enforcement officers, especially around Shawnee. Four highway patrolmen near Shawnee reported four objects in a diamond formation. An earlier report, on the Saturday, came from a Wynnewood police officer who saw a red, white and blue object that was tracked on two radar screens before it disappeared and reappeared 29 miles south of Tinker. A later summary of the period records a night watchman at Wynnewood, Lewis Sikes, watching flashing lights for 45 minutes, and a telescope-equipped observer at Ardmore counting as many as eight objects.

Tinker radar

The central claim is radar. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Tinker had up to four objects on its screen at once, at an estimated altitude of about 22,000 feet. The Journal reported that base security first confirmed the sightings, then officials declined to confirm or deny the radar tracks. Its account also says that the radar approach-control tower, using four scopes with a 40-mile range, 'reported no contacts during the height of the local sightings', which conflicts with the Highway Patrol's account. Lt. John Walmsley of the base information office said the sightings 'will be investigated by Air Force personnel' and declined further comment. Radar sites at Sherman, Fort Worth and Wichita Falls reportedly could not detect the objects even while Tinker had them.

Explanations and disputes

The Air Force's public explanations shifted. The first press line on 2 August blamed Jupiter or a dozen stars. Oklahoma planetarium staff disputed that Jupiter was visible from Oklahoma at that hour, and an unnamed officer later said the Jupiter explanation applied only to the Kansas and Wyoming sightings, which were in the early morning. Weather balloons launched from Will Rogers Airport on 30 July and from Tinker on 31 July were also cited. A ufoskies blog post argues that balloons were common around bases and would not have alarmed ground observers. That blog is opinion-heavy and its tallies are internally inconsistent, so it is used here only for the balloon timings and that argument.

Several cases resolved quickly. Two teenagers, Sherry Rutledge (18) and Marybeth Tucker (16), reported a sighting that police identified as a parachute flare, which they confiscated. A Bartlesville man who thought he saw a burning plane later said it could have been an aircraft or a large meteor. No crash was ever found.