Foal Eagle Incident

2003 March

This event was reported to MUFON in July 2020, and can be found using case number 110165 - the full text is reproduced below.

Link to MUFON entry: https://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=110165&rnd=

Link to NICAP article discussing the case: http://www.nicap.org/match/papers/Team-Tracks-Objects-Part-One-(Nov%202020%20MUJ).pdf

Follow-up NICAP article: http://www.nicap.org/match/papers/Team-Tracks-Objects-Part-Two-(Dec-2020%20MUJ).pdf

I was a US Army Satcom operator. In 2003 during Foal Eagle RSO&I in South Korea, we ran across several fast movers and one hub. Our team was the first to report an entry to atmosphere.

We had just finished setting up our dish (AN TSC-85b) and had tuned our system to the beacon frequency for the satellite we were supposed to connect to. My shift mate noticed the directional readout going nuts. We immediately exit the shelter and see the dish moving all over the place. I look in the direction its facing and see an object. Coming down in a sort of zig zag. Once it reached around 40 to 50 degrees on the dish angle it stopped instantly.

Once it stopped, i went back in the shelter to see what we were locked on. The signal strength dropped almost to the floor signal noise level. You could still see it on the O-scope though. The bandwidth was unlike anything we’ve seen before. I was yelling out the numbers to my shift mate when he said something came out of it. Right then I see the signal strength peak, as in it maxed out the readout. I was so astounded I didn’t even think to attenuate the signal.

We radioed in to HQ what was happening. After about 5 minutes of this object flying all over, we had a couple NCO’s show up in a humvee asking us if we were getting anything on the scope. (Turns out several other satcom teams in the area were as well.) We showed the NCOIC the data, he told us to keep on it, our starting time was the earliest.

I do not want attention, or contact. But I also see that you are close to finding info and hope that this may just be that little “nudge” that helps you locate them.

Basically, these things function on a propulsion system beyond our understanding. No one reports sound because there is none. But they DO emit in the Ku Band. When they “throttle up” it spikes in power, way beyond megawatt territory. But it is apparently efficient as well because when they “idle” its barely able to be registered on the scope.

We saw these several more times during the exercise, along with other teams. They are easy to find if you have a wide enough bandwidth to look. But the common thing we did find was when the hubs show up, during decent, its almost always at the beacon frequency. So I would watch for that. Worked for us, should work for you.

Keep at it, the closer you get, the more likely we will give additional info…