The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

Visibility was unlimited. The pilots agreed, "It could not be any clearer than it was that night above 5,000 feet."

When the plane began letting down for landing, about 9:15 p.m., Captain Killian and F/O Dee lost sight of the objects. At 9:30 p.m. in Akron, Ohio, George Popowitch of the UFO Research Committee received a phone call from a contact at the Akron airport. A United Airlines plane (Flight 937) had just landed for a 15-minute stop, and reported sighting three UFOs which had followed their plane for 30 minutes. Popowitch had already received 9 reports from local citizens between 9:15 and 9:20 of three UFOs seen in the area, so he arranged to interview the crew of the airliner.

Capt. A. D. Yates and Eng. L. E. Baney said they had tracked the objects from the vicinity of Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, to Youngstown, Ohio, between 8:40 and 9:10 p.m. United Airlines flight 321, also, had discussed the objects by radio. Captain Yates had seen the UFOs pacing his plane to the south. But in the vicinity of Warren, Ohio the objects passed the aircraft, veered to the right, and finally disappeared to the northwest.

## UFO Landing Reported

Early in 1961, a private pilot in Texas witnessed an apparent landing of a UFO. NICAP Member Jack Varnell, Knox City, Texas, conducted an extensive investigation into the sighting and the resulting USAF interest. [44] An employee of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation office, he joined the search for the landed object shortly after noon of the day following the sighting, and observed proceedings firsthand from then on.

January 10, 1961: Pilot W.K. Rutledge and passenger George Thomas, both of Abilene, Texas, were enroute to Abilene from Tulsa, Oklahoma. At 6,500 feet over Wichita Falls, Texas, about 9:00 p.m. they spotted a red object about 1,500 feet above the plane, glowing brilliantly in the night sky. Rutledge changed course to follow it at about 180 mph, establishing radio contact with the control tower at Shepard AFB, Wichita Falls, during the chase. He followed it WSW to Munday, then north to Vera (where several persons on the ground saw it). Then the object moved WSW again, toward Benjamin, finally turning SW. When beyond Benjamin, the object began to reduce its speed and altitude, going into a glide and apparently landing 4 to 5 miles SW of the town in a heavily wooded area.

The pilot circled in his single-engine Beech "Debonair" while law officers, alerted by radio, sped to the scene. Included were Knox County Sheriff Homer T. Melton (now a Texas Ranger), one of his deputies, and the police chiefs of Knox City and Munday. Rutledge radioed his position to the Shepard AFB control tower when he began to circle, and the word was relayed to the converging patrol cars.

Poor communication between air and ground hampered Rutledge in his efforts to direct the search cars. At one point, a cruiser driven by Deputy Stone came within 100 yards of the landing spot, but the pilot was unable to direct him closer. During this period the glow from the UFO, which had been visible to Rutledge on the ground, was diminishing to a dull red. About the time Stone approached it (unknowingly) and blinked his lights, the glow from the UFO vanished completely.

After about 90 minutes of chasing and circling, Rutledge noticed he was running low on fuel and decided to go on to Abilene.

## AIR FORCE INVESTIGATION

Next morning the search was resumed by police, about 20 high school boys, and several other citizens of the area. Despite a cold drizzle, they hunted until 3:00 p.m., when Rutledge and Thomas flew back from Abilene. Since there was no convenient airport, Rutledge landed on a highway near Benjamin. When they got into town they were immediately met by USAF Lieutenant McClure and a Sergeant; the four retired to a restaurant nearby for the questioning. NICAP Member Jack Varnell listened from the next table.

The Air Force officer's opening implications that the object might have been a balloon or meteorite were quickly shortcut by Rutledge's firm statement: "What I saw last night was certainly not a meteorite or a weather balloon." He then made it clear that the object "came down slowly," and did not "fall." The lieutenant changed his tone at this point, Varnell reported, and became much more serious and interested.

As the interview progressed, the cafe began to fill, since the

sighting was by this time the chief topic of conversation in the small Texas town. Questions were posed and answers noted for more than a half hour, but the muffled voices were hard to hear in the crowded room.

The USAF men expressed an interest in locating the site of the landing, so the group returned to Rutledge's parked airplane. While Jack Varnell and the sheriff stopped traffic, Rutledge, Thomas, and Lieutenant McClure took off from the highway. The sergeant and the enlisted driver of the USAF car drove off.

The small plane made three or four passes over the 1,000 acre tract of mesquite where the object had reportedly landed, and then flew off. Contrary to expectations, the other USAF men did not join the ground search party, which broke up about the time the plane departed.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m., the three airmen, the pilot and his companion were seen at a drive-in restaurant near Knox City. Rutledge was observed by Jack Varnell to be filling out what appeared to be the standard USAF Technical Information Sheet with Lieutenant McClure.

July 4-5, 1961: On two consecutive nights while flying in the Cleveland-Akron area, Ernest Stadvec encountered strangely maneuvering lights which he could not identify. A World War II bomber pilot, he now owns a flying service in Akron, Ohio.

"I have been flying since 1942 both day and night," he stated, "and currently own a flying business that requires us to fly day or night in all types of weather. Over the years I have seen many falling stars and other phenomena associated with atmospheric conditions as well. What we saw was not an astronomical or meteorological phenomenon."

On the first night, over northwest Akron, Stadvec and two passengers spotted a brilliant green and white light apparently suspended to the right of the plane, about 10:15 p.m.

"The object we saw dived at us on a collison course to the extent that I actually called out to my passengers that the object was going to ram us," Stadvec said. "After the object came at us it reversed course and climbed rapidly into a clear night sky."

And he continued: "This happened again the next night [about the same time] when the object flashed up from in front of us and again climbed into a clear sky. In both instances, the object climbed at tremendous speeds, levelled off and disappeared to the northwest."

On the second night about the time of the sighting, radar at Cleveland Hopkins airport detected a meteor-like object, which flared up on the screen and faded out within a few minutes. [46]

February 7, 1963: Returning to Pennsylvania from Danville, Virginia at 11:45 p.m. (near Charlottesville, Virginia, about 95 miles SW of Washington, D.C.) Carl Chambers noticed a starlike light, and soon realized it was moving toward his plane. "After noting that its altitude and position changed rapidly, I radioed the Washington FAA and reported the incident," Chambers said in a signed report to NICAP.

A similar experience was reported more recently by a private pilot from Williamsport, Penna., and his passenger, John P. Campbell, reporter for the Williamsburg Sun-Gazette.

"For nearly an hour after, we stayed in contact with Washington. During that time, the object hovered off the right wing [easterly] and moved toward, under, and above the aircraft. Then it dropped off and a few minutes later appeared about 35 miles south of Washington, where it seemingly hovered over a missile defense base. From that position and less than a half-minute later it reappeared some 10 or 15 miles north of the capital."

FAA tower personnel confirmed to Chambers that they had received a similar report from another pilot in the area at the same time. The object had an intermittent yellow-white glow, and at its closest point appeared to be about three feet in diameter.

## Cigar-Shaped or Rocket-Like UFOs

The third general category of UFO types which pilots and others have reported is the rocket or cigar shape, sometimes leaving a flame-like exhaust. Reports of this type are comparatively rare, but they have been seen by enough competent witnesses to establish them as a distinct type. (Some objects reported as "cigar-shaped" have, on closer investigation, turned out to be elliptical in shape, i.e., tapered to a point--or nearly so--on the ends. The term "cigar-shaped" is used here to apply to spindle or cylindrical shaped objects with somewhat blunted ends).