Nike Ajax site W-93, Maryland: a disc crash and a landing (1958)
Two 1958 events at Nike Ajax air-defense sites north of Washington. Harland Bentley, a radar operator, says that in May 1958 he saw a disc hit a cornfield near his site and take off again, and Air Force crews in radiation suits load a glowing piece onto a lead-lined truck; the next night a nearby site tracked a dozen objects that left the radar in one sweep. Separately, on 29 September 1958 at site W-93 a sentry and a sergeant saw a green teardrop-shaped object land and found broken branches and scorched ground; the Air Force said welding trucks. Gerb could not verify Bentley's service records.
How plausible · Moderate
A named witness's crash account sits beside a Blue Book landing with ground traces at the same Nike site the same year and the Loch Raven case nearby; the crash itself rests on one man.
- ●●Access On site at the Nike facility.
- ●○Cost of speaking Went public under his name.
- ●○No gain sought Nothing sold.
- ●○Independent convergence Scanland and Ferris at W-93, Loch Raven nearby.
- ●○Checkable details check out The Nike sites and the W-93 Blue Book case are real.
- ●○Fits the documented skeleton Radiation suits and lead-lined trucks recur in retrieval accounts.
- −Lone source, no corroboration The crash rests on Bentley alone.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-10-24.
On the record
- The Blue Book file for W-93, 29 September 1958.Blue Book
- Baltimore Evening Sun, 23 December 1958.