Part 5 (1/2)
Project Sign personnel were just getting settled down to work after the New Year's holiday when the ”ghost rockets” came back to the Scandinavian countries of Europe Air attaches in Sweden, Den about the reports Wires went back asking for ed by the newspapers, had first been seen in the su in the US There were many different descriptions for the reported objects They were usually seen in the hours of darkness and alh speeds They were shaped like a ball or projectile, were a bright green, white, red, or yellow and sometimes made sounds Like their American cousins, they were always so far away that no details could be seen For no good reason, other than speculation and circulation, the newspapers had soon begun to refer authoritatively to these ”ghost rockets” as guided missiles, and ireat German uided missiles, came in for its share of suspicion since it was held by the Russians By the end of the su froal, and Turkey In 1947, after no definite conclusions as to identity of the ”rockets” had been established, the reports died out Now in early January 1948 they broke out again But Project Sign personnel were too busy to worry about European UFO reports, they were busy at ho a UFO
On January 7 all of the late papers in the US carried headlines similar to those in the Louisville _Courier_: ”F-51 and Capt Mantell Destroyed Chasing Flying Saucer” This was Volume I of ”The Classics,” the Mantell Incident
At one-fifteen on that afternoon the control tower operators at Godman AFB, outside Louisville, Kentucky, received a telephone call frohway Patrol The patrol wanted to know if God about any unusual aircraft in the vicinity Several people from Maysville, Kentucky, a s a strange aircraft
God in the vicinity so they called Flight Service at Wright-Patterson AFB In a few ht Service called back Their air Traffic control board showed no flights in the area About twenty ain This titon, Kentucky, west of Louisville, were reporting a strange craft The report from these tas a little more complete
The townspeople had described the object to the state police as being ”circular, about 250 to 300 feet in diaood clip” God All this ti for the reported object They theorized that since the UFO had had to pass north of Godht co like it Later, in his official report, the assistant tower operator said that he had seen the object for several minutes before he called his chiefs attention to it He said that he had been reluctant to ” saucer report” As soon as the two men in the tower had assured themselves that the UFO they saas not an airplane or a weather balloon, they called Flight Operations They wanted the operations officer to see the UFO Before long word of the sighting had gotten around to key personnel on the base, and several officers, besides the base operations officer and the base intelligence officer, were in the tower All of theh the tower's 6 x 50 binoculars and decided they couldn't identify it About this time Colonel Hix, the base commander, arrived He looked and he was baffled At two-thirty, they reported, they were discussing what should be done when four F-51's ca the base froht leader, Captain Mantell, and asked him to take a look at the object and try to identify it One F-51 in the flight was running low on fuel, so he asked per wing men, made a turn, and started after the UFO The people in God him as none of the pilots could see the object at this ti toward the south and the flight was last seen heading in the general direction of the UFO
By the ti men later reported, Mantell had pulled out ahead of them and they could just barely see him At two forty-five Mantell called the tower and said, ”I see so”
All the people in the tower heard Mantell say this and they heard one of the wingfor?” The tower immediately called Mantell and asked him for a description of what he saw Odd as it may seem, no one can remember exactly what he answered Saucer historians have credited hi It looksto climb” Then in a few seconds he is supposed to have called and said, ”It's aboveto 20,000 feet” Everyone in the tower agreed on this one last bit of the transree on the first part, about the UFO's beingfrantically to call Mantell He had cliht Since none of theen they orried about Mantell Their calls were not answered Mantell never talked to anyone again The ting men leveled off at 15,000 feet, made another fruitless effort to call Mantell, and started to come back down As they passed Godman Tower on their way to their base, one of the to the effect that all he had seen was a reflection on his canopy
When they landed at their base, Standiford Field, just north of Goden, and took off to search the area again He didn't see anything
At three-fifty the tower lost sight of the UFO A few ot word that Mantell had crashed and was dead
Several hours later, at 7:20PM, airfield towers all over the Midwest sent in frantic reports of another UFO In all about a dozen airfield towers reported the UFO as being low on the southwestern horizon and disappearing after about twenty minutes The writers of saucer lore say this UFO hat Mantell was chasing when he died; the Air Force says _this_ UFO was Venus
The people on Project Sign worked fast on the Mantell Incident
Conte a flood of queries from the press as soon as they heard about the crash, they realized that they had to get a quick answer
Venus had been the target of a chase by an Air Force F-51 several weeks before and there were si and the Mantell Incident So almost before the rescue crews had reached the crash, the word ”Venus” went out This satisfied the editors, and so it stood for about a year; Mantell had unfortunately been killed trying to reach the planet Venus
To the press, the nonchalant, offhandritten off by the Air Force public relations officer showed great confidence in the conclusion, Venus, but behind the barbed-wire fence that encircled ATIC the nonchalant attitude didn't exist aence analysts Oneso The story about the tower-to-air talk ”It looks metallic and it's tremendous in size,”
spread fast Ru conversation with the pilots and that there was more information than was so far known Rumor also had it that this conversation had been recorded Unfortunately neither of these rumors was true
Over a period of several weeks the file on the Mantell Incident grew in size until it was theof that time, at least the file was the thickest
About a year later the Air Force released its official report on the incident To use a trite ter” It said that the UFO ht have been Venus or it could have been a balloon Maybe two balloons It probably was Venus except that this is doubtful because Venus was too dim to be seen in the afternoon This jolted writers who had been following the UFO story Only a feeeks before, _The_ _Saturday_ _Evening_ _Post_ had published a two-part story entitled ”What You Can Believe about Flying Saucers” The story had official sanction and had quoted the Venus theory as a positive solution To clear up the situation, several writers were allowed to interview a on ”expert” on UFO's The major was asked directly about the conclusion of the Mantell Incident, and he flatly stated that it was Venus The writers pointed out the official Air Force analysis The ain and it was Venus” He didn't knoho ”they” were, where they had checked, or what they had checked, but it was Venus The writers then asked, ”If there was a later report they had made asn't it used as a conclusion?” ”Was it available?” The answer to the last question was ”No,” and the lid snapped back down This interview gave the definite i to cover up so Venus as a front
Nothing excites a newspaper orstory and that soht this after the intervieith the major, and many still think it You can't really blaot a telephone call on ATIC's direct line to the Pentagon It was a colonel in the Director of Intelligence's office
The Office of Public Infor a number of queries about all of the confusion over the Mantell Incident What was the answer?
I dug out the file In 1949 all of the originalhad been spilled on the filible As I had to do with s that were now history, I collected what I could fro to people who had been at ATIC during the early UFO era Many of these people were still around, ”Red” Honnacker, George Towles, Al Deyarmond, Nick Post, and many others Most of them were civilians, the military had been transferred out by this tis in the file on major and his concrete proof of Venus I couldn't find this concrete proof in the file so I asked around about the on who had at one tience summary about UFO's He had never been stationed at ATIC, nor was he especially well versed on the UFO proble the Mantell Incident came down, a UFO expert was needed The ence summary on UFO's, became the ”expert” He had evidently conjured up ”they” and ”their later report” to support his Venus answer because the writers at the press conference had him in a corner I looked farther
Fortunately the man who had done the most extensive work on the incident, Dr J Allen Hynek, head of the Ohio State University Astronomy Departed to meet him the next day
Dr Hynek was one of theon the UFO project, and I s that soive you the answer before he knew the question; or iin to expound on his accomplishments in the field of science I arrived at Ohio State just before lunch, and Dr Hynek invited me to eat with him at the faculty club He wanted to refer to some notes he had on the Mantell Incident and they were in his office, so we discussed UFO's in general during lunch
Back in his office he started to review the Mantell Incident He had been responsible for the weasel-worded report that the Air Force released in late 1949, and he apologized for it Had he known that it was going to cause so much confusion, he said, he would have been ht the incident was a dead issue The reason that Venus had been such a strong suspect was that it was in almost the same spot in the sky as the UFO Dr Hynek referred to his notes and told me that at 3:00PM, Venus had been south southwest of Godrees above the southern horizon At 3:00PM the people in the tower estimated the UFO to be southwest of God for hules, this was close I agreed There was one big flaw in the theory, however Venus wasn't bright enough to be seen He had computed the brilliance of the planet, and on the day in question it was only six ti sky Then he explained what this meant Six ti for a pinpoint of light only six ti sky, it's almost impossible to find it, even on a clear day
Dr Hynek said that he didn't think that the UFO was Venus
I later found out that although it was a relatively clear day there was considerable haze