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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.
“Cooper”2 pages
out from a nozzle in the rear which he thought he perceived. The flame extended some 30 to 50 feet behind the object and became deeper in in- tensity (redder) and increased in length as the object pulled up into a cloud. No disturbance was felt from air waves, nor was there any wash or mechanical disturbance when the object passed. No sound was heard. Co-pilot attention was drawn to the object by remark. His description of the object and its maneuvers was very similar to that of except that he did not observe a cockpit in front nor did he see any radar "snout". His drawing and description also indicated windows or openings on the side. He estimated the object passed at greater distance than did Capt. He saw the "exhaust" as a parallel wide flame which appeared to come from the entire rear of the object rather than from a nozzle never growing any wider than the width of the object itself, although he noticed the increased length of the flame as the object "pulled up". The night was clear with a bright moon and broken cloud coverage of 4/10 at 6,000 ft. Both estimated the object to be in sight approximately 10 to 15 seconds, considered sufficient time for experienced pilots to determine whether the "ship" was a reflection, caused by some rare meteorological or astronomical phenomenon — or was a material object. After extensive investigations and studies; and after consideration of all possibilities, approaches and pertinent data to suggest at least one valid hypothesis or explanation to the sighting were exhausted - the incident was appropriately classified as a true "Unknown".
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.