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This Project Blue Book case file, digitized by the Internet Archive, covers Incident 144: two Eastern Airlines pilots reported that a wingless, cigar-shaped object with a flaming exhaust passed their DC-3 about 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, on 24 July 1948. The file includes an OSI interview with a Robins Air Force Base employee who saw a similar object, negative aircraft traffic reports from many bases, and later correspondence. A December 1948 intelligence report found fairly consistent descriptions across four related sightings.
“The Advance”3 pages
At about 0230 on July 24, 1948, pilot and Capt saw what they thought was an unusual meteor. It was brighter than any ever seen before and traveling in a horizontal direction, slightly above the horizon. It was observed for 3 seconds before it died out. At no time did it appear to travel in a downward direction. Discussed the matter that the meteor appeared to be traveling horizontally.
At the time they were traveling between Blackstone, Va., and Greensboro, S. C., the sky was clear and the visibility unlimited. They were on a magnetic heading of $ 2 4 0^{\circ} $ and estimated the object to be on a bearing of about $ 2 1 0^{\circ} $ from them - that is - about $ 3 0^{\circ} $ to the left of their heading. It appeared to be traveling in a southerly direction, above, but close to the horizon.
NOTE: There is a 15 minute variance in time f/this sighting (0230) to the rocket sighting at 0245 in Montgomery some 400 to 475 miles distant. The time (0230) also tallies with Inc. 1444a Pilot account of sighting a jet or rocket trail just after leaving Blackstone. Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 161 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.