Bethpage, New York: Grumman observers photograph retrograde 'dark satellite' five times
On 25 August 1960, observers at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in Bethpage, Long Island, New York, saw and photographed the so-called dark satellite five times and proposed to the US Air Force to share data to fix its orbit.
Background
The so-called dark satellite was seen and photographed five times by Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation at Bethpage, Long Island, New York. It was said to move three times faster than the Echo 1 satellite and to travel east to west in a retrograde orbit inclined about 135° to the equator. Its color varied from "carrot to straw." The Grumman observers estimated an eccentric orbit with an apogee of up to 4,200 miles and a perigee of about 300 miles. They promptly sent the US Air Force a proposal to share data in the hope of plotting a firm orbit; the proposal is in the Blue Book files. 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.