IncidentThe Rex Heflin Photographs (3 August 1965)

Around 12:37 pm, Heflin photographed a domed disc through his county truck’s windshield and side window near the Santa Ana Freeway by MCAS Tustin, then a fourth frame of a dark smoke ring after the object departed. The Santa Ana Register ran one image in September 1965 and it went national. The Condon Committee (William Hartmann) rated it ‘inconclusive’ - his own model-on-a-string test shots reportedly failed to reproduce the originals. The chain of custody broke: ~a month later, men claiming NORAD affiliation took the first three prints and never returned them (NORAD denied involvement); in 1993, after anonymous calls, three originals reappeared in Heflin’s mailbox bearing his blue-ink numbering plus unexplained added markings. The analytical record splits: NICAP and JPL’s Robert Nathan found no support thread, and Ann Druffel with Robert Wood and Eric Kelson reaffirmed this on the resurfaced originals, citing consistent overcast lighting and a particulate trail linking the object to the smoke ring; Ground Saucer Watch’s Bill Spaulding reported a line suggesting a string, and a 2006 stereo/parallax reading (Sheaffer/’Enkidu’) argued the object is tiny and nearby, consistent with a small suspended model. A classic mid-1960s photographic case where the verdict turns on contested micro-details.