Palomar Observatory, California: Silver objects in V formation, Navy Geiger counter jumps

At 1:15 p.m. Harley C. Marshall, manager of public relations at Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, was driving away from the observatory when he saw a perfect "V of V's" formation of about 16–18 silver objects without tails or wings flying fast to the northwest with a jet-like sound. Electrician Benjamin B. Traxler, phoned by Marshall, saw one dark object traveling southwest at 1:20 p.m., and the Navy Electronics Laboratory Geiger counter on site had jumped off scale for several seconds. Over the next 10 days another 21 off-scale readings occurred, fitting a periodic 1.5-hour schedule that was not explained by equipment failure or aircraft radio interference. Two representatives each of the Office of Naval Research and of the Naval Electronics Laboratory in Point Loma, among them Joseph P. Maxfield and Gene Luther Bloom, investigated; on 21 October and 2 November Navy aircraft flown near the observatory failed to trigger the counter. The investigators also obtained a telescopic photo from George Adamski, which the laboratory attributed to an electric discharge in the camera; Eberhart cites NICAP, Sparks, Swords, Fate (1950), Flying Saucer Review (1989) and Clark. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.