Arlie E. Judd Jr.

USAF Technical Sergeant, B-52 Gunner, Defense Instructor, 23rd Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Wing (Heavy), Minot AFB, N. Dak., (ret.)

The interviews with Arlie Judd can be read here: Transcription

Arlie Judd was born in Kansas. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Air Force and went to basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas. Selected for radar maintenance, he went to school in Denver for a year, and was stationed at Salina, Kansas working on the bomb navigation radar for B-47s. He spent about ten years at Smokey Hill; West Smokey Hill; and later, Schilling AFB, Kan. Following, he worked at a gunnery range outside of Salina, Kansas for about two years on radar tracking systems for gunnery drones. He applied for B-52 gunners training and went to school at Castle AFB, Calif., and was then assigned to Minot AFB in 1965.

Following five years at Minot, he was assigned as a flight instructor in the school at Castle AFB, and Kincheloe AFB, Mich., for 4 years as a gunner on B-52H models. He completed 60 missions in Southeast Asia in the B-52D model. When Kincheloe closed he was assigned to the flight school at Carswell AFB, Calif., training all B-52 specialties for personnel going to Southeast Asia. His commander at Kincheloe, Lt. Gen. Harley A. Hughes, was promoted to the 19th Air Division at Carswell and requested Judd to be his chief advisor. He completed his tour at Carswell as Senior Master Sergeant.

During the UFO events, Judd (seated behind the pilots facing aft) was monitoring the communications via his headset, and recalls having observed the UFO for a brief period on his rear-facing gunnery radar (Judd 2001, 10-13). He attended the crew debriefing later in the morning in the office of Gen. Holland, and was not interviewed during the official investigation.