Welcome to bite-sized UFOs, a show where we break down lesser-known UFO cases in 20 minutes or less.

And now here's your host, Graham Rendell.

Oak Ridge was founded as the Clinton Engineer Works in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project.

The X-10 reactor built there produced plutonium from natural uranium. It was the first one designed for continuous operation.

By 1946, Oak Ridge had turned to scientific research rather than military applications.

The following year, the site was renamed as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A school of reactor technology was established there in 1950, and research conducted at the site concentrated on energy production.

Despite the move away from weapons, however, the site was still considered to be a very, very sensitive facility.

But where does the story of the UFO that try to ram a plane come in?

For that we have to turn to the 1956 book by Edward J. Ruppelt, former director of

Project Blue Book, the third official United States Air Force UFO investigation program.

The following can be found on page 44 of that book. On June 21st, 1952, at 10.58 p.m., a ground observer corps spotter reported that a slow-moving

craft was nearing the AEC's Oak Ridge Laboratory, an area so secret that it is prohibited

to aircraft. The spotter called the light into his filter center and the filter center relayed the message to the ground control intercept radar.

They had a target. But before they could do more than confirm the GOC spotters report, the target faded from the radar scope.

An F-47 aircraft on combat air patrol in the area was vectored in visually, spotted a light,

and closed on it. They fought from 10,000 to 27,000 feet, and several times the object made what

seemed to be ramming attacks. The light was described as white, six to eight inches in

diameter, and blinking until it put on power.

The pilot could see no silhouette around the light.

Rupelt chose to include this story amongst others which had already been written off as nothing more than weather balloons.

But what was the truth behind the Oak Ridge encounter?

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