The Flying Saucers are RealKeyhoe, Donald E. (Donald Edward)
History
The Flying Saucers are Real
Keyhoe, Donald E. (Donald Edward)
Unidentified flying objects
The Chiles-Whitted “space ship” was not the first of this type to be
reported. Another wingless aircraft was sighted in August 1947, by two
pilots for an Alabama flying service. It was at Bethel, Alabama, just
after sunset, when a huge black wingless craft swept across their
course. Silhouetted against the evening sky, it loomed larger than a
C-54. The pilots saw no wings, motors, or jet exhausts.
Swinging in behind the mystery ship, they attempted to follow. But at
their speed of 170 m.p.h. they were quickly outdistanced. Careful
checking showed there were no other planes nearby that could have been
mistaken for this strange craft.
On New Year’s Day, 1948, a similar rocket-shaped object was sighted at
Jackson, Mississippi. It was first seen by a former Air Force pilot and
his passenger, and later by witnesses on the ground. Before the pilot
could begin to close in, the odd wingless ship pulled away. Speeding up
from 200 to 500 m.p.h., it swiftly disappeared.
Besides these two cases, already on record, I had the tips Purdy had
given me. One wingless ship was supposed to have been seen three or
four days before the Chiles-Whitted sighting; like the thing they
reported, the unidentified craft was a double-decked “space ship” but
moving at even higher speed. At first I ran into a stone wall trying to
check this story. Then I found a lead conforming that this was a
foreign report. It finally proved to be from The Hague.
The tip had been right. This double-decked, wingless ship had been
sighted on July 20, 1948—four days before the Eastern case. Witnesses
had reported it at a high altitude, moving at fantastic speed.
While working on this report, I verified another tip. We had heard a
rumor of a space-ship sighting at Clark Field, in the Philippine
Islands. Although I didn’t learn the date, I found that there was such
a record.
(In the final Project “Saucer” report, the attempt to explain away this
sighting was painfully evident. Analyzing this case, Number 206, the
Air Force said: “If the facts are correct, there is no astronomical
explanation. A few points favor the daytime meteor
hypothesis—snow-white color, speed faster than a jet, the roar,
similarity to sky-writing and the time of day. But the tactics, if
really performed, oppose it strenuously: the maneuvers in and out of
cloud banks, turns of 180 degrees or more, Possibly these were
illusions, caused by seeing the object intermittently through clouds.
The impression of a fuselage with windows could even more easily have
been a sign of imagination.”
(With this conjecture, Project “Saucer” listed the sighting as
officially answered. The Hague space-ship case was unexplained.)
In following up the Jackson and Bethel reports, I talked with two
officials in the Civil Aeronautics Administration. One of these was
Charley Planck, who handled public relations. I found that the pilots
concerned had good records; C.A.A. men who knew them discounted the
hoax theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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