"He reported that to the Air Force and some red-hot character met
him in Memphis on his next trip. He talked to Adams a few minutes and
then told him that he'd seen a meteor. Adams felt like a fool. Hell,
I know Jack Adams well and he's the most conservative guy I know. If
he said he saw something with glowing portholes, he saw something
with glowing portholes--and it wasn't a meteor."
Even though I didn't remember the pilots' names I'll never forget
their comments. They didn't like the way the Air Force had handled
UFO reports and I was the Air Force's "Mr. Flying Saucer." As quickly
as one of the pilots would set me up and bat me down, the next one
grabbed me off the floor and took his turn. But I couldn't complain
too much; I'd asked for it. I think that this group of seven pilots
pretty much represented the feelings of a lot of the airline pilots.
They weren't wide-eyed space fans, but they and their fellow pilots
had seen something and whatever they'd seen weren't hallucinations,
mass hysteria, balloons, or meteors.
Three of the men at the Caffarello conference had seen UFO's or, to
use their terminology, they had seen something they couldn't identify
as a known object. Two of these men had seen odd lights closely
following their airplanes at night. Both had checked and double-
checked with CAA, but no other aircraft was in the area. Both
admitted, however, that they hadn't seen enough to class what they'd
seen as good UFO sighting. But the third man had a lulu.
If I recall correctly, this pilot was flying for TWA. One day in
March 1952 he, his copilot, and a third person who was either a pilot
deadheading home or another crew member, I don't recall which, were
flying a C-54 cargo airplane from Chicago to Kansas City. At about
2:30P.M. the pilot was checking in with the CAA radio at Kirksville,
Missouri, flying 500 feet on top of a solid overcast. While he was
talking he glanced out at his No. 2 engine, which had been losing
oil. Directly in line with it, and a few degrees above, he saw a
silvery, disk-shaped object. It was too far out to get a really good
look at it, yet it was close enough to be able definitely to make out
the shape.
The UFO held its relative position with the C-54 for five or six
minutes; then the pilot decided to do a little on-the-spot
investigating himself. He started a gradual turn toward the UFO and
for about thirty seconds he was getting closer, but then the UFO
began to make a left turn. It had apparently slowed down because they
were still closing on it.
About this time the copilot decided that the UFO was a balloon; it
just looked as if the UFO was turning. The pilot agreed halfway--and
since the company wasn't paying them to intercept balloons, they got
back on their course to Kansas City. They flew on for a few more
minutes with "the darn thing" still off to their left. If it was a
balloon, they should be leaving it behind, the pilot recalled
thinking to himself; if they made a 45-degree right turn, the
"balloon" shouldn't stay off the left wing; it should drop 'way
behind. So they made a 45-degree right turn, and although the
"balloon" dropped back a little bit, it didn't drop back far enough
to be a balloon. It seemed to put on speed to try to make a turn
outside of the C-54's turn. The pilot continued on around until he'd
made a tight 360-degree turn, and the UFO had followed, staying
outside. They could not judge its speed, not knowing how far away it
was, but to follow even a C-54 around in a 360-degree turn and to
stay outside all of the time takes a mighty speedy object.
This shot the balloon theory right in the head. After the 360-degree
turn the UFO seemed to be gradually losing altitude because it was
getting below the level of the wings. The pilot decided to get a
better look. He asked for full power on all four engines, climbed
several thousand feet, and again turned into the UFO. He put the C-54
in a long glide, headed directly toward it. As they closed in, the
UFO seemed to lose altitude a little faster and "sank" into the top
of the overcast. Just as the C-54 flashed across the spot where the
UFO had disappeared, the crew saw it rise up out of the overcast off
their right wing and begin to climb so fast that in several seconds
it was out of sight.
Both the pilot and copilot wanted to stay around and look for it but
No. 2 engine had started to act up soon after they had put on full
power for the climb, and they decided that they'd better get into
Kansas City.