Part 35 (1/2)

To pick up the history of the UFO the best place to start is Cincinnati, Ohio, in the late summer of 1955 For some unknown reason, one of those mysterious factors of the UFO, reports froan to pick up Mass hysteria, the old crutch, wasn't a factor because neither the press, the radio nor TV was evensaucer”

The reports weren'twhite light”; or ahis car aould see a ”star jump” These reports, usually passed on to the Air Force through the Air Defense Co board as a statistic

But before long, in a an to draw some official attention because the Ground Observer Corps spotters the the ust the telephone lines froreater Cincinnati) to the filter center in Columbus would be jaingly raising their eyebrows These GOC observers were about as close to ”experts” as you can get Many had spent hundreds of hours scanning the skies since the GOC went into the operation in 1952 to close the gaps in our radar net Many held awards for meritorious service They weren't crackpots

But still the cynics held out This was really nothing new The Project Blue Book files were full of similar incidents In 1947 there had been a rash of reports from the Pacific Northwest; in 1948 there had been a similar outbreak at Edwards Air Force Base, the supersecret test center in the Mojave Desert of California; in 1949 the sightings centered in the

Then caust 23rd, shortly before an to come in from the Mt Healthy GOC observation post northwest of Cincinnati Almost siet in that area A minute or two later the Forestville and Loveland GOC posts, also in Has Now, three UFO's, described as brilliant white spheres, swinging in a pendulu boards- confir the UFO's was dropped and at 11:58PM, F-84's of the Ohio Air National Guard were scrambled

They were over Cincinnati at 12:10AM andin at 20,000 feet, at 100 power, they closed but the UFO's left the still

The battle in the Cincinnati sector was on

Alht more UFO's were reported by the GOC Attempts were made to scramble interceptors but there were no uidance is worthless

At the height of this activity it was decided that more information was needed by the Air Defense Co, some kind of clue, could be sifted out The answer: establish a special UFO reporting post The man to operate this post was tailor-h McKenzie of the Colufield in Cincinnati Stringfield, besides being a very public minded citizen, was also known as a level-headed ”saucer expert” Sooner or later, usually sooner, he heard about every UFO sighting in Haiven a code, ”Foxtrot Kilo 3-0 Blue,” which provided him with an open telephone line to the ADC Filter Center in Columbus He was in business but he didn't have to build up a clientele--it was there

For the next few field did yeo out the wheat fro the wheat on to the Air Force As he told hts were spent in his backyard clad in shorts and binoculars Fortunately his neighbors were broad-hts to appear

Most of the reports Stringfield received were duds He lost track of the nules, squares and footballs which hovered, streaked, zigzagged and jerked, turned out to be Venus, Jupiter, Arcturus and an occasional jet A fiery orange satellite which hovered for hours turned out to be the North Star viewed through a cheap telescope, and the ”whole formation of space shi+ps” were the Pleiades

Then it happened again

On the evening of March 23rd Stringfield's telephone rang It was Charles Deininger at the Mt Healthy GOC post They had a UFO in sight off to the east Could Stringfield see it? He grabbed his extension phone and ran outdoors There, off to the east, were two, large, low flying lights One of the lights was a glowing green and the other yellow They were field's first reaction but during World War II he hadtrek up the Pacific with the famous Fifth Air Force and he immediately realized that if it was an airplane it would have to be very close because of the large distance between the lights And, as a clincher, no sound ca distance operator and said the ic words, ”This is Foxtrot Kilo Three Dash Zero Blue” Seconds later he was talking to the duty sergeant at the Colueant had his story

Another jet was scrafield, via a radiotelephone hookup to the airplane, gave the pilot a vector

Stringfield heard the jet closing in but since it was a one-way circuit he couldn't hear the pilot's coain the UFO took off

This was a fitting clian it quit and froot zero inforue the UFO's were still ahead

Although thethe last half of 1955 and early 1956 centered in the Cincinnati area there were other good reports

Near Banning, California, on Nove Municipal Airport and Dr Leslie Ward, a physician, were paced by a ”globe of white light which suddenly backed up in midair,” while in Miller's airplane It was the same old story: Miller was an experienced pilot, a forht pilot with several thousand hours flying time

Cohtings in 1956

On January 22, UFO investigators talked to the crew of a Pan Aht, at 8:30PM, the Houston to Miami DC- 7B had been ”abeam” of New Orleans, out over the Gulf of Mexico

There was a partial h cirrus clouds but generally it was a clear night The captain of the flight was back in the cabin chatting with the passengers; the co-pilot and engineer were alone on the flight deck The engineer hadbeside the co-pilot

At 8:30 it was time for a radio position report and the co-pilot, Tom Tompkins, leaned down to set up a new frequency on the radio controls Robert Mueller, the engineer, was on watch for other aircraft It was ten, maybe twenty seconds after Tompkins leaned down that Mueller just barely perceived a pinpoint of ht processes could tell hirow in size Within a short six seconds it streaked across the nose of the airliner, co inland over Mississippi or Alabama