UFO sightings, are familiar to all who have studied flying-saucer
phenomena[III-1, p. 51]. Early on the afternoon of January 7, 1948,
the Kentucky State Highway Patrol received a large number of calls from
the towns of Maysville, Owensboro, and Irvington, reporting a strange
object moving west at high speed. Alerted by the police, officials at
Godman Air Force Base, near Ft. Knox, began looking for the unknown
craft. They soon located the object but could not identify it. Watching
it through binoculars, various observers described its shape as
circular, like a teardrop, or rounded and tapered like a parachute
or an ice-cream cone. At about 2:30 P.M. (all times in this account
are E.S.T.), as they were discussing the object, a flight of four
P-51 planes approached the base from the south. Led by Captain Thomas
Mantell, the planes were being ferried from Marietta Air Base, Georgia,
to Standiford Field near Louisville. The tower operator at Godman
thereupon radioed Captain Mantell for assistance:
[B] A “classic” in the literature of flying saucers is a particularly
dramatic UFO incident whose specific cause has not yet been found or,
if found, cannot be absolutely proved from the evidence available.
Lacking a completely airtight explanation, official investigators
classify the case as Unknown. Saucer fans classify it as proof that
flying saucers exist.
“We have an object out south of Godman here that we are unable to
identify and we would like to know if you have gas enough and if so
could you take a look for us if you will.”
The ferry had been planned as a low-level flight and none of the planes
had been serviced with oxygen. Captain Mantell, a combat pilot in World
War II, nevertheless agreed to help out: “Roger. I have the gas and I
will take a look for you if you will give me the correct heading and
any information you have on locating the object.”
The talk between Godman tower and Captain Mantell was not recorded
and transmission was sometimes garbled. Although many persons heard
the exchange of remarks during the next critical minutes and agreed
on the general content, no two remembered exactly the same words;
therefore the official reports[III-2] represent only the best possible
reconstruction of the conversation that took place.
One plane, short of fuel, continued on to Louisville. The other three
circled and began to climb. At about 2:45 Mantell notified the tower
that he was at about 15,000 feet: “I have an object in sight above and
ahead of me, and it appears to be moving at about half my speed or
approximately 180 miles an hour.” One of his wing men said: “What the
hell are we looking for?” When Godman asked Mantell to describe the
object, he said: “It appears to be a metallic object, or possibly a
reflection of sun from a metallic object, and it is of tremendous size.
I’m going to 20,000 feet.”
The other two pilots, who had seen nothing and were alarmed at flying
so high without oxygen, leveled off at 15,000 feet. Mantell was then
above 22,000 feet and still climbing. In ship-to-ship conversation
he said that he would go to 25,000 feet for about ten minutes, then
come down. When all further attempts to call Mantell went unanswered,
the other pilots discontinued the search and went on to their base;
although one returned after refueling and equipping himself with a mask
and oxygen, he found nothing in the area.
At about 3:15 Mantell radioed that the object was “directly ahead of me
and slightly above, and is now moving at about my speed or better. I am
trying to close in for a better look.” He did not call again. Less than
an hour later searchers found the crashed plane. Mantell was dead. His
shattered watch had stopped at 3:18.
During the period of search, ground observers at Godman Field had been
able to watch the UFO, gradually diminishing in size, and about 3:50 it
disappeared from view. Within a few minutes, however, observers farther
south in Kentucky and Tennessee were reporting an unknown object in the
sky.
A hundred rumors sprang up immediately after the tragedy: that the UFO
was a Russian missile; was a weird machine from outer space that had
deliberately or accidentally knocked the plane out of the air when it
got too close; that Captain Mantell’s body was riddled with bullets;
that the plane had completely disintegrated before striking the ground;
that the wreckage was radioactive.
Investigators rushed in to find the cause of the fatal crash and
brought confusion with them. Some facts could be quickly established.
There were no bullet wounds. The plane had not burned on impact and was
not radioactive. The left wing had come off while in the air and landed
100 feet from the main crash area. Parts of the plane were scattered
on a line north to south within six tenths of a mile of the central
wreckage. The emergency canopy lock was in place and apparently no
attempt had been made to release it. The throttle was set at one fourth
open, mixture control at “Idle cut-off,” and prop control at “Full
increase r.p.m.”
From this evidence investigators concluded that because of lack of
oxygen Mantell had lost consciousness at about 25,000 feet, while his
plane continued to climb to about 30,000 feet; leveling off, it then
began a gradual turn to the left because of engine torque, and went
into a spiraling dive that produced a speed and a structural stress
greater than the plane could stand--the plane was “red-lined” (Air
Force jargon for the limit of safety) at 525 mph. Pilots who have
flown the P-51 in combat conditions have agreed with this conclusion
and have suggested that, as the plane fell, Mantell may have regained
consciousness, realized what was happening, pulled the throttle back
and tried to pull back on the control, thus producing a stress so great
that the wing was torn off and the plane then fell vertically.
As an immediate result of this tragic accident, Air Force officials
recommended that all pilots be briefed again on the use of oxygen
and the effects of lack of oxygen. New orders were issued; that no
pilot go above 12,000 feet without oxygen under any circumstances;
that no aircraft be cleared for cross-country flight unless it had
been serviced with oxygen; that classes in the use of oxygen start
immediately for all pilots and crew members; that all aircraft be
equipped with oxygen; and that all pilots carry mask, helmet, goggles,
and gloves on all flights.
The cause of the crash was known. But investigators had still to solve
the problem: what was the unknown object that Mantell had been chasing?
[Illustration: _Figure 5._ UFO sightings in the Mantell case. The
broken line indicates the path a balloon would have followed.]
An Air Force official had announced to the press that the unknown had
been the planet Venus. This explanation, while not impossible, was not
very probable. The position of Venus that afternoon had indeed been
very close to that of the unknown object. But with a stellar magnitude
of -3.4, less than half its maximum brilliance, in the daylight sky
the planet would have been visible, if at all, only as an exceedingly
small, bright point of light. Furthermore this answer did not fit
the pattern of sightings. The accompanying map (see Figure 5) of the
Ohio-Kentucky-Tennessee region illustrates the succession of events:
1:15 P.M., Maysville, Kentucky. Strange object sighted moving
west.
1:35 P.M., Owensboro and Irvington, Kentucky. Circular object
sighted, 250 to 300 feet in diameter, moving west.
Shortly before 1:45 P.M., Godman Air Force Base, Kentucky.
Circular or parachute-shaped object sighted; in view for about
two hours, slowly moving south.
4:00 P.M., Madisonville, Kentucky. Strange object; through
binoculars identified as a balloon.
4:45 P.M., Nashville, Tennessee. Strange object sighted;
through binoculars identified as a balloon.
5:00 P.M., Lockbourne Air Force Base, Columbus, Ohio. Round
glowing amber object sighted on southwest horizon in horizontal
flight; in view about twenty minutes, then disappeared below
the horizon.
All but the last observation in this series suggested a balloon flight,
but a quick check with the weather stations in the area failed to turn
up any record of a routine launching. Air Force investigators knew
about the Skyhook project and could have obtained information on secret
launchings, even though it was classified. But, since many of the
investigators in these early days of the saucer era were more than half
convinced that the unknown had been an interplanetary vehicle, they
abandoned the inquiry at this point and officially labeled the case an
Unknown. Flying-saucer addicts pounced on this conclusion as proof that
the object had actually been a spaceship, that the Air Force knew it to
be a spaceship and was deliberately concealing the news from the public.
_A Probable Solution of the Mantell Case_
Although the case remained unsolved for nearly four years, the
original analysis of the evidence, carried out by Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
scientific consultant for the Air Force, made certain facts clear
from the beginning. The final sightings in Ohio, so inconsistent with
the general pattern of the other observations, obviously were not
related to the reports from Kentucky and Tennessee. The object seen at
Columbus had undoubtedly been the planet Venus, glowing brilliantly
on the sunset horizon (see _Chapter_ IV). But the object that traveled
southwest over Kentucky and Tennessee had almost certainly not been
Venus. At least two objects--balloons or other aircraft--must be
involved. It was possible, though not probable, that the unknown
over Godman Field had been the planet Venus, or it might have been
still a third object. The senior author of this book, after studying
the facts available at the time and analyzing the weather conditions
prevailing that winter afternoon, suggested that the object could have
been a “mock sun” created by ice crystals in the cirrus clouds at high
altitudes[III-3, p. 22].
The final solution of these UFO mysteries often depends on one key
fact. Without it, the puzzle may never be solved. With it, all the
pieces fall into place. The “mock sun” theory (see p. 244) remained the
most probable explanation until, some time after the Skyhook project
had been declassified, ATIC investigators discovered the key fact:
At the time of the Mantell crash, the Clinton County Air Force Base,
in southern Ohio, had been a launching site for Skyhook balloons.
Unfortunately records for the day of Captain Mantell’s death were not
available, and the men who had worked on the balloon project could no
longer remember whether they had launched a Skyhook on that particular
day. If an unacknowledged balloon had been in the area, however, only
one more piece was needed to complete the puzzle: What path would the
balloon have followed?
The records at Wright-Patterson Field show that the winds that
afternoon would have carried a balloon over exactly the course the
UFO followed: from southern Ohio west into Kentucky. It would have
climbed rapidly and at about 35,000 feet would have entered the
southward-flowing jet stream; shifting direction, the balloon would
have traveled south at a high rate of speed, still climbing. Somewhere
south or southwest of Godman Field it would have climbed through the
jet stream to enter a region of calm at about 60,000 feet; slowing
down, it would have drifted south or southeast into Tennessee. Of its
fate after that we can only guess[III-4, p. 19].
Without the Skyhook records for the day in question, this solution
cannot be called absolutely certain. But the chances of its being
correct are overwhelmingly high--infinitely higher than the
probability that Mantell died while chasing a spaceship from another
planet.
_A Radiosonde over Virginia_
In the years that followed, the pattern of sightings in the Mantell
case has often reappeared but, fortunately, without the same tragic
outcome. After each Skyhook launching, a flood of UFO sightings came in
to ATIC from towns that lay under the path of the balloon. The Skyhook
project sometimes was able to relocate a “lost” balloon by following
newspaper reports of flying saucers.
By the summer of 1952 the existence of giant balloons was no longer
classified information. When on June 15 an unidentified flying object
appeared over several towns in Virginia and followed a course that
closely resembled that of the Mantell UFO, Air Force investigators
recognized the pattern and began looking for a balloon as the probable
explanation. The reports were as follows[III-1, p. 192]:
3:40 P.M., Unionville, Virginia. Very shiny object sighted at
high altitude.
4:20 P.M., Gordonsville, Virginia. Round, shiny object sighted
in the southeast.
4:25 P.M., airliner near Richmond, Virginia. A silver sphere
sighted at eleven o’clock high.
4:43 P.M., south of Gordonsville, Virginia. Jet pilot sighted
and tried to intercept a round, shiny sphere.
5:43 P.M., south of Gordonsville. An Air Force jet pilot
sighted and tried to intercept a shiny sphere; at 35,000 feet
the object was still above him.
7:35 P.M., Blackstone, Virginia. A round, shiny object with a
golden glow sighted, moving south.
7:59 P.M., radio station at Blackstone. Shiny object sighted.
8:00 P.M., Blackstone. Jets from Langley Air Force Base tried
to intercept object.
8:05 P.M., object disappeared.
Investigators first of all checked with officials at Lowry Air Force
Base, which served as a plotting center for all Skyhook balloons, but
there were none in the East that day. Next they checked the possibility
that the UFO had been a weather balloon, but nearby weather stations
replied that none of their balloons could have been responsible for the
sightings. After calling other stations within a 150-mile radius of
Gordonsville with negative results, investigators called the weather
station at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A radiosonde (a small balloon
attached to an instrument for taking soundings in the upper atmosphere)
had been released that afternoon, but had been lost about sixty miles
southeast of the station when it apparently sprung a slow leak and
leveled off at 60,000 feet. The weather man at Pittsburgh offered
to plot its probable course as determined by the prevailing winds,
and soon telephoned Dayton to report that the UFO was probably their
balloon.
Southeast of Pittsburgh above 50,000 feet there was a strong current
of air that fed into a stronger southerly stream flowing parallel to
the Atlantic coast, just east of the Appalachian Mountains. The balloon
would have floated along in this current like a log floating down a
river, and should have arrived in the neighborhood of Gordonsville
and Blackstone in the late afternoon or early evening. The UFO had
been sighted near Gordonsville between 4:43 and 5:43 P.M., and near
Blackstone between 7:35 and 8:00 P.M. The unknown was thus clearly
identified as the lost radiosonde.
_Skyhook and Pibal UFOs_
The year 1952 was a big year for experimental balloons--and for
UFO sightings. Weather balloons in clusters, 100-foot Skyhooks,
radiosondes, pibals (pilot balloons sent up to show the direction and
speed of the wind) were released on schedule all over the continent.
Launchings were recorded and the balloons were tracked, as far as
possible, so that for any given day or area ATIC could consult a map
and try to correlate the position of a known balloon with that of a
reported flying saucer. When a balloon was lost, any UFO sightings
it caused were not always easy to account for until--and unless--the
balloon could be found again.
These spheres of gas vary in size from a few inches in diameter to some
two hundred feet. Often they look and behave very unlike the popular
concept of a “normal” balloon, and under the right conditions they can
fool even the most wary observer--particularly if he is more or less
expecting to see something strange.
A man on the ground or even in a plane, watching the maneuvers of an
object some 20,000 to 100,000 feet above him, finds it impossible to
make an accurate estimate of its true height, diameter, distance, or
speed. Strong windcurrents can change the orientation of the sphere,
and the particular angle of vision of the observer can make the object
look wholly unlike a balloon. It may assume the shape of a disk, a
lens, a teardrop, a parachute, a sausage. Temperature inversions can
produce a double image of a balloon so that it looks like a linked
pair. Balloons released in pairs or clusters may seem to be traveling
in formation under intelligent control. Sunlight, moonlight, or the
lights of a city reflected from the surface may cause them to look
white, gray, amber, red, silvery, or metallic. Since balloons often
carry a heavy instrument load, they may give a radar return that
indicates a solid object.
When balloons develop a leak, they may drop some distance at high
speed and then level off, as though under intelligent control. At the
extreme cold of high altitudes they may burst and suddenly vanish.
High in the sky at morning and evening twilight they may appear to be
self-luminous, taking their light from the invisible sun just as our
artificial satellites do. They often travel high above the air lanes,
higher than any plane can go, where varying wind streams may propel
them at great velocities, slow them until they seem to hover and be
almost stationary, abruptly change the direction of their motion so
that they reverse course, dive toward the earth, or ascend rapidly into
the sky.
At night all these illusions are magnified because the observer has
fewer visible reference points by which to evaluate the true shape,
distance, and type of motion of these wandering spheres. They can
deceive even the most hardheaded and able pilot. The pilot is only
human when he doubts that any balloon can fool him--until it does.
_The Guantánamo “Dogfight”_
An American Navy pilot, practicing night flying over the Guantánamo
City base in Cuba on the night of September 24, 1952, engaged in a
“dogfight” with a balloon that exhibited all the characteristics
associated with this type of flying saucer. It seemed to take evasive
action, deliberately elude the pilot, make head-on passes, and respond
to every move of the plane with a countermove.
The pilot was at 4000 feet and slowly climbing when he spotted an
orange light approaching the city from the east at 10,000 to 15,000
feet. Realizing that the object was not a Navy plane, he tried to
intercept it, but the light had started a left turn and he could get no
closer than eight to ten miles. The object appeared to be as large as
a Navy bomber and had a greenish tail five or six times the diameter
of the light, visible only intermittently. When he reached 10,000
feet, the light was still circling left and climbing in a ten- to
fifteen-mile orbit. To keep the nose of the relatively slow TBM on the
light required about 40 degrees of bank. At 12,000 feet the light was
still climbing faster than the plane; the pilot then stopped climbing
and reversed from a left to a right turn. The light seemed also to
reverse direction.
All attempts at interception seemed to be met by purposeful evasive
action, and the object seemed to be guided by intelligence. When
the pilot followed the light to the north, it shifted to west, then
south, at about 25,000 feet. Suddenly it began to climb at an angle
of approximately 60 degrees and at a terrific rate. Although it had
been a large bright glow, it now appeared as a very small red point
which would have blended with the stars had it not been moving. It then
started a rapid descent. By this time the pilot was over the base and
headed northeast to intercept the light as it descended. He described
the ensuing “dogfight”[III-2]:
“The light appeared to level out rapidly, and I missed it on the first
run and started a tight port turn. As I headed for a point that would
give me a 90-degree collision course for the light, it appeared to
accelerate and crossed my bow at an incredible speed. I immediately
went into a tighter turn and the next intercept was the same except
that I was almost on the light, as it flashed from starboard to port.
At this close range nothing but the light could be seen, and it was a
brilliant white, approximately fifteen feet in diameter. After each
run, the light appeared to go out one-quarter to one-half mile, and
slowing in speed, continuing in a port turn. As I pulled out of the
third run the light appeared to start another rapid descent towards
Caimanera. This time I went into a steep dive to follow, when the light
appeared to shallow its dive and head towards the control tower. My
altitude was 6000 to 8000 feet, descending at a speed of better than
200 knots. The light was below me and going at more than twice my
speed. As I approached the north shore of the Bay, at approximately
2000 feet descending, the light seemed to veer to port, pass over the
army dredge, steady out on an easterly heading, level out over the
mangroves, slow down rapidly over the cove ... hover over the water
momentarily, and then fade from sight.” After the plane landed, harbor
police searched the area but found nothing.
When the pilot was informed that he had been fighting a lighted weather
balloon, released that night from the Naval Air Station at Guantánamo
Bay, he may very naturally have felt incredulous. Instead of arguing,
however, he helped carry out an experiment. On the following night the
station released another lighted balloon, at about the same time, and
the pilot took off to try an intercept. After comparing the experience
with that of the night before, he concluded that he had indeed fought a
balloon:
“Many of the illusions seen on the previous night could be duplicated
by maneuvering the plane appropriately. I tracked the balloon to 12,000
feet and made runs on it from as far away as ten miles. I could always
intercept and pass it at any predetermined position, as against the
fact that I could not get close to the other light, which at the time
appeared to be moving away at each attempt at approach.”
There were other differences, too. The rate of ascent was faster on the
first night, and the second balloon did not exhibit a tail. Discussion
with members of the Aerology Department brought out the explanation of
these differences. The first night had been clear, with a bright moon
that transformed the accompanying light into a flickering tail. On the
second night the dew point was higher and the atmosphere was hazy so
that no tail was visible, the balloon looked smaller, and showed an
orange glow instead of a bright white.
The rapid climb of the first balloon could be attributed to a vertical
air current, or to an air layer of variable density, or both. A
balloon often develops leaks at high altitudes and then descends to an
intermediate altitude where the loss of gas and the denser atmosphere
cause it to hover. One wind balloon, released earlier from the same
base, had developed a leak, started spinning, covered a horizontal
distance of about a mile, and then dropped into the water. Similarly,
the first balloon probably developed a large hole and fell very rapidly
for a while until the loss of gas and the increase in atmospheric
pressure caused it to shrink and close the hole, slowing its descent.
Some of his impressions, he decided, were the result of making tight
turns at high speed: “The last fast descent could be due to the fact
that I may have cut the balloon with my prop on the third run, causing
the light to fall free. My last three-quarter turn was diving to port
in a position northeast of the light, which could have produced the
illusion of the light arcing across Caimanera and the Bay and settling
into the water. The light’s crossing from starboard to port could have
been the result of my plane being in a vertical turn and the light
descending straight down instead of going horizontally. At the time of
intercept I thought my wings to be almost level, the light traveling in
a flat circle, but due to the afore-mentioned vertigo, a pilot cannot
rely on his senses to establish attitude.”