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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.
“R.G.”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Shortly after checking Blackstone, at approx 0230, a trail was picked up that appeared to be a jet or rocket trail. The object leaving the trail was traveling at terrific speed in a southwesterly direction and as nearly as they could estimate they calculated the degree of travel as $ 2 3 0^{\circ} $
They were on a heading at the time of 215 $ ^{\circ} $ . The jet or rocket trail at no time crossed their flight path. It was on the distant western horizon at approx 20 $ ^{\circ} $ above the horizon. The trail covered an 80 $ ^{\circ} $ to 90 $ ^{\circ} $ arc laterally.
NOTE: There is a 15 minute difference in time f/this sighting (0230) to the rocket sighting at 0245 in Montgomery some 400 to 475 miles distant.
NOTE: The above time (0230) tallies with another sighting by another pilot in the vicinity of Blackstone, Va., who saw a very unusual meteor that appeared to be on a bearing of about $ 2 1 0^{\circ} $ from them traveling in a southerly direction above but close to the horizon. Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 161 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.