The Flying Saucers are RealKeyhoe, Donald E. (Donald Edward)
History
The Flying Saucers are Real
Keyhoe, Donald E. (Donald Edward)
Unidentified flying objects
The Gorman “saucer dogfight” had been described in newspapers; the
pilot had reported chasing a swiftly maneuvering white light, which had
finally escaped him. Judging from the Project “Saucer” preliminary
report, this case had baffled all the Air Force investigators. When I
met George Gorman, I found him to be intelligent, coolheaded, and very
firmly convinced of every detail in his story. I had learned something
about his background. He had had college training. During the war, he
had been an Air Force instructor, training French student pilots. In
Fargo, his home, he had a good reputation, not only for veracity but as
a businessman. Only twenty-six, he was part owner of a construction
company, and also the Fargo representative for a hardware-store chain.
Even knowing all this, I found it hard at first to believe some of the
dogfight details. But the ground observers confirmed them.
It was about nine o’clock in the evening, October 1, 1948. Gorman, now
an Air National Guard lieutenant, had been on a practice flight in an
F-51 fighter. The other pilots on this practice patrol had already
landed. Gorman had just been cleared by the C.A.A. operator in the
Fargo Airport tower when he saw a fast-moving light below his circling
fighter.
From his altitude, 4,500 feet, it appeared to be the tail light of a
swiftly flying plane. As nearly as he could tell, it was 1,000 feet
high, moving at about 250 m.p.h. Gorman called the tower to recheck his
clearance. He was told the only other plane in the area was a Piper
Cub. Gorman Could see the Cub plainly outlined below him. There was a
night football game going on, and the field was brightly lighted. But
the Cub was nowhere near the strange light.
As the mystery light raced above the football field. Gorman noticed an
odd phenomenon. Instead of seeing the silhouette of a plane, he saw no
shape at all around the light. By contrast, he could see the Cub’s
outline clearly.
Meantime, the airport traffic controller, L. D. Jensen, had also
spotted the queer light. Concerned with the danger of collision—he said
later that he, too, thought it a plane’s tail light—he trained his
binoculars on it. Like Gorman, he was unable to distinguish a shape
near the light. Neither could another C.A.A. man who was with him in
the tower, a Fargo resident named Manuel E. Johnson.
Up in the F-51, Gorman dived on the light, which was steadily blinking
on and off.
“As I closed in,” he told Project “Saucer” men later, “it suddenly
became steady and pulled up into a sharp left turn. It was a clear
white and completely roundabout six to eight inches in diameter.
“I thought it was making a pass at the tower. I dived after it and
brought my manifold pressure up to sixty, but I couldn’t catch the
thing.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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