We call this a "snag retrieval" because the flying saucer involved didn’t crash into the ground, nor land in one piece to be somehow captured. This retrieval involves the craft being accidentally snagged out of the air by a large net strung between two B-52 aircraft. A net strung between two B-52s? Preposterous you say? Well, that is what we thought at first, and we still do. But, for what it is worth, what follows is what we were told by two people who appear to be attempting to tell the story the best they can as they heard it.
The prime story teller here is, as is so often the case, unable to provide further assistance. He isn’t dead, but he is extremely ill. The story as we have it comes from his wife and daughter, who have requested to remain anonymous. The story includes as much as they presently remember of what their husband and father told them twenty five years ago.
The husband and father worked for a large defense contractor in the mid-1950s, and he continued in this business until he retired. He wasn’t in the habit of talking about his work with his family because much of it was highly classified. He would occasionally talk of his work when it was not classified or when if became public knowledge. In this instance, he had been called upon to work on a captured flying saucer and never talked about it until he and the others on the project were told by their superiors that the government’s knowledge of alien visitors and flying saucers was soon going to become public knowledge through a public announcement by then President Eisenhower. Before this announcement occurred our story teller felt free to discuss his involvement in the captured saucer project with his family. When it was later decided that this announcement was not going to be made, he had to advise his wife and daughter that they should not talk about what he told them outside of the immediate family.
Perhaps the most potentially preposterous part of this story is the alleged government project that had nothing to do with flying saucers. According to the father, the project involved flying two B-52 intercontinental bombers with a large net between the two. The purpose of the flight was to retrieve "some kind of ammunition" out of the air in the net. The net was attached to the aircraft in a manner similar to aerial refueling procedures. During one of the flights, possibly in 1956, a flying saucer was accidentally caught in the net. The "snagging’ of the saucer in the net almost caused the two aircraft to come together in a mid-air collision. This didn’t occur and somehow the pilots were able to get the saucer back to their base. (The mother thinks the base was located in Kansas; the daughter believes it was Dayton, probably Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.) The ammunition was reportedly from a government installation located in Omaha, Nebraska. Three alien bodies were found inside the saucer when it was opened. They were approximately 5’ 4" in height. Their skin had a golden hue and pores which were much larger than ours. Their eyes were also larger, but not so much so that they didn’t look human. They apparently did, to a surprising extent. They were not what we have come to call "grays." Their brain was not multi-lobed. It was one uniform organ.
Our story teller was called in to study the exhaust which came out of the craft. Apparently government project personnel were able to start the craft, although they couldn’t make it fly. The exhaust was described as "web-like." (This sounds suspiciously like the so-called angel hair which was seen on occasion coming out of disk shaped craft in the 1950s.) Interestingly, the controls in the craft were thermal. These controls could be activated through body heat when a hand was passed over them, much like some elevator controls in use today, except contact with the control surface was unnecessary. The seats in the saucer would swivel and were designed to absorb g-forces on the alien bodies when the craft was turned quickly.
The craft was large enough that it had to be hoisted onto a large flatbed semi-truck trailer when the B-52s got it back to their base.
The wife remembers her husband talking about a "Project April Showers" but does not know if that name was associated with either the B-52 net project or the study of the saucer.
That’s what we have been told. Can anyone out there add to the story?
As preposterous as this story sounds, it is possible that it might be coming to us in some way distorted from reality. There might be a kernel of truth in its telling, distorted by the family members attempting in good faith to remember what their husband and father told them when he was free of the increasing affliction that is now consuming him.
In April of 1996, in order to see if there might be some truth to the concept of linking two large B-52 aircraft together with a large net, the purpose of which was to retrieve something from the air, we wrote letters to the Air Force Association, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, the US Air Force Museum, the Air Force Historical Agency at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, and the National Air Intelligence Center to see if such a project had ever been seriously considered, much less conceived. We did not mention the UFO aspect of the story. By mid-May 1996, we heard from three of these organizations.
Thomas M. Alison, Curator of the Aeronautics Department of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, responded with the following observation:
"No one here ... has heard of a project such as the one you describe in your letter. Further, it would be hard to imagine the B-52
aircraft used in a project where the two aircraft were connected to each other with a large net while in flight."
D. Menard of the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio was much more colorful in his response:
"I have been with the USAF for 40 some years now, 22½ on active duty, the rest of the time here at the museum with the civil service. In all of that time there hasn’t been even a hint of such a
preposterous scheme as you described, i.e. stringing a net between two B-52s! ... I can imagine that it was proposed, but when cooler heads, such as air crew members, got involved, the idea died ... And
[I] just cannot imagine SAC turning loose two of their 52s for such a project, either, when there were plenty of C-130s around that might have been better able to do such a thing. And even if they caught these larger loads, they sure couldn’t land with this thing hanging under, and there is no way to
safely put it into one or the other’s bomb bay while hung up in the "net." No, Sir. I think this is a good story, but it never got off the drawing board (thank goodness) ... It never happened."
Robert S. Dudney, Executive Editor of Air Force Magazine, wrote as follows:
Two B-52s catching satellites with a large net strung between them? Nope. Nobody has heard of such a thing. Two obvious places to go for information would be Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio and Edwards AFB, Calif. Edwards, I know, has an historical office, and maybe Wright-Pat does as well. Don’t bet on finding anything, though. Most of that satellite stuff still is classified. DOD released material only on the earlier satellites – Corona, Argon, and Lanyard. Nothing has been made public about any of the later systems. If this B-52 apparatus had anything to do with the later systems, it probably will be classified, too.
©1996 Mid-Ohio Research Associates, Inc.