Project Blue Book documents on the Killian case, compiled by Dan Wilson

One can only speculate as to why, after three weeks, ATIC experts were forced to come up with this second explanation. Perhaps it was because they realized too many people would notice a sameness in the reports filed by military and commercial pilots in flight that night along with reports coming from ground observers in Ohio and Pennsylvania. There is the possibility the "stars through broken clouds" explanation simply did not jell and in truth, backfired.

There are several obvious holes in the jet refueling story. All witnesses have agreed that three separate lights were seen. Does this mean that there were three jets? Jets carry no such powerful lights. And, if not jets, then is it to be assumed that there were three tankers in the sky, each employing a powerful light?

In a press release, Major Lawrence J. Tacker, executive officer of the Air Force Public Information at the Pentagon stated that the planes were "lit up like Coney Island". Are we to believe that three single lights can at any time resemble Coney Island? And is Coney Island limited to lights of one color? Air Force KC-97 Tankers, revealed an Air Force spokesman, use several types of signal lights during refueling operations. Doesn't it seem feasible then that while jets are refueling some of these other lights would also be seen? Yet at no time were the lights seen described as being either red or green, both required colors of lights on planes.

In a statement to the Long Island Daily Press on March 24 Captain Killian said, "I don't care what the Air Force says, the objects I saw could travel at 2,000 miles an hour and were definitely not conventional aircraft.

"If the Air Force wants to believe that," he added, "it can. But I know what a B-47 looks like and I know what a KC-97 Tanker looks like; Further, I know what they look like in operation at night. And that's not what I saw." Killian claimed this was the Air Force's third explanation of his sighting, "all contradictory and none satisfactory".

"I know that there are fourteen lights on the belly of a tanker," Killian continued, "and none are of the orange hued brilliance, nor the size of the ones I saw on the objects. And furthermore, the objects were at least triple the size of any tanker or bomber we have. And they looked like the apparent size of the moon."

Killian went on to say the objects were spotted by another airline pilot two minutes later seventy miles away. "That puts their speed at roughly 2,000 miles an hour." he said. "These explanations come from Washington, but not one of these fellows has bothered to contact me to hear my story firsthand."

Admittedly, Killian had considered the possibility of the lights being those of jets, but had ruled this out. He said the lights were too large, the wrong color, too varied in intensity of brightness, and that they changed position too erratically to be jets.

Both Killian and the pilot of United Flight 321 had checked with other pilots in the area to make sure they weren't just seeing things. The lights were seen from different angles and altitudes. The pilots and crew members of five planes, in addition to 35 passengers, watched them for approximately 40 minutes.

The fact that the pilots checked with Airway Traffic Control certainly lends credence to the incident.

ATC functions under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Agency, their responsibility being to regulate and police air traffic. There may exist a difference of opinion as to whether ATC knows, or is required to know, Strategic Air Command's flight plans. A letter was sent by UFORC to Strategic Air Command, Offut Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska. The inquiry was, "Were there any SAC planes in the designated area? Were any SAC flight plans filed that night with ATC?" The purpose of this inquiry was to ascertain