Interesting read about the SAGE radar...


CPT John P DeWerth's Sage Memories - This is  the first
in an ongoing series John will be sharing with us!

We were constant having "unknowns" in our sector NYADS. This was usually
the Navy with their carrier ops. Sometimes they would let us know most
of the time not. We used to have to track them down to find out. One day
we had an unknown pop up out of sector center proceeding straight North
at mach 3. We scrambled the interceptors to find out what was going on.
and when they got there, no one was seen. So they turned around an came
back home. We checked with the site programming folks. System
Development Corporation, and told them what had happened. One of the
programmers when chasing through the code and came to the conclusion
that the only way that might have happened was if we had an instruction
failure on the B register. He proceeded to write a 1 card diagnostic
which exercised the B register when run and sure enough it failed. which
when on to prove that things  weren't  always  as they  seemed.


Another time a USAF LTC came down from North  Bay , Canada. He was
attached to the Atomic Energy Commission.  He was on a fact finding
mission. I met with him and  the programming site manager. He was
trying to find out if the maintenance folks could launch Bomarc
missiles. I said yes. And I  proceeded to tell him how. The Senior
Director had a keyed console. The maintenance  people had a console
which had a plug board to make it look like any other console in the
building  so we could diagnose  problems  ahead of going to fix them.
that console DID NOT have a key. Going through the process of plugging
up our console to look like Air Surveillance, Identification, And Weapons
we could have launched a Bomarc. The LTC asked the site manager if that
was right and he said yes. That was not the answer he wanted to hear. I
guess maybe I was the only one who figured it out. I seems we were not
on the Human Reliability Program. No one had checked the maintenance
people to find out if any one had a screw loose. I don't know what the
ever did because I separated shortly after that.

On of the features of the AN/FSQ-7 was a speaker attached to a bit in
the accumulator. We listened to the program cycle and after a day or so
you consciously forgot about the noise but unconsciously you knew it was
there. You could be doing work, but the minute the sound changed. you'd
run to see what was up. That would be the time we'd switch over to the
standby machine


When I first got to the site my chief NCO gave me a tour of the second
floor and the computer room.  One of the things in the computer room was
a Polaroid camera on a roll around stand. I asked what it was for and he
told me it was a piece of test equipment. I said you have to be kidding.
He said no. He said we used it to take pictures of the console lights.
It helps us to trouble shoot problems.

John P DeWerth
CPT USAF

I found a picture of a Sage radar screen. whats interesting is it appears to have X's/crosses?

This is McChord in the photo

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I emailed a gentleman who was a Sage radar operator back in Cooper's time. unlike some of the witnesses who come forward with clear minds about what happened that evening, Bruce seems to be normal. 

Dave,
44+ years is a long time to try and remember where you were and what you were doing on one particular day. At that time, I was stationed at the 761st Radar Sq. in North Bend, Or.
The SAGE system was state of the art, in its time, and I am sure the incident was tracked at SAGE 25th Air Division at McChord AFB which was the sector headquarters for NORAD. Our responsibility at the site would be to monitor and track direction and altitude of the aircraft. This would have all been done through the computer technology of the day.
I do not remember any talk of it within the ranks of my duty area. Upon separation from active duty in the USAF, I took an oath to not divulge any sensitive info. Although I am probably sure there is no sensitive issues here, I do still stand by that oath.
If there are any records available, I would think they would be housed at NORAD headquarters in Colorado. I wish I could be of more help, but I do not recall being on duty at the time.
Bruce .........

Here is a clear cut instance of a oath of confidentiality, as per our previous discussion that Rataczak may be under such a stipulation ?

It may have to do with confidentiality agreements vis-a-vis employment where FAA "incidents" are involved. The trigger for confidentiality, explained to me, is an "incident" and evidently the FAA has different levels of "Incident" ?

R99 should know about this if it is real ? I'm probably not stating this appropriately...

Describes 35mm film use.

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