Part 4

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.”

The pilot concluded: “Considering all the facts and an observation of known light on the night of the twenty-fifth, it is my opinion that the light on the night of the twenty-fourth was a balloon, with its accompanying light, which had been released from the Naval Air Station.”[III-2]

_The Wallops Island UFO_

Perhaps the most spectacular (and short-lived) UFO in history appeared at 6:55 P.M. E.S.T. on April 1, 1960, along the east coast. A bright-yellow streak of fire shot up from the horizon into the eastern sky and slowly changed into a huge zigzag pattern. With the streak of fire appeared a large reddish sphere, reported by some observers to be as large as the full moon and many times brighter than a planet. Visible along the entire eastern seaboard, the brilliant object slowly moved eastward, followed by a trail of greenish sparks. While still at high altitude out over the Atlantic Ocean, it suddenly vanished--as though it had simply taken off into outer space. Switchboards in eastern cities were jammed as witnesses called newspapers, universities, and nearby observatories to report a comet, a fireball, or a flying saucer.

Newspapers immediately printed a full explanation of this April Fool’s Day apparition: a scheduled but unannounced rocket launching from Wallops Island, Virginia. The yellow fire was debris from the rocket, reflecting the rays of the setting sun; contrary winds in the upper atmosphere produced the zigzag form. The luminous globe was a full-scale model of the Echo satellite--an inflated balloon 100 feet in diameter, carried aloft by the rocket. Dry powder escaping through holes in the balloon produced the greenish tail. The object had “vanished” when the balloon fell back into the earth’s shadow and was thus no longer visible.