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This NICAP compilation by Dan Wilson gathers Project Blue Book records on the sighting of 24 February 1959, when American Airlines Flight 139, flying from Newark to Detroit, and two United Airlines crews saw three lights over Pennsylvania and Ohio. It includes the record card, pilot statements, Air Force letters and correspondence with an Akron UFO committee. The Air Force concluded that the lights came from three B-47s refueling from KC-97 tankers. Book excerpts disputing Captain Killian's later claims are also included.
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"1. To offset the airline crew's reports. "2. As a warning to all airline pilots that they too would be officially ridiculed if they publicly reported UFO sightings. "3. To reduce the growing support on Capitol Hill for open UFO bearings." On March 20 in Washington, nearly a month later, the Air Force came up with still a third explanation of the Killian sighting. It announced that the lights had come from three B-47 bombers being refuled by a KC-97 tanker. The Air Force report said that the use of several lights during the refueling operation explained some of the airline reports of being followed by lights. COMMENT. No one who has followed this story, along with the Air Force's twisting and turnings in seeking to explain the sighting, can help but have some doubts about this overly simple explanation. Why did the Air Force wait nearly a full month before offering a third explanation after having already said that the sightings were due to the pilots seeing the Belt of Orion, and that drunks, deluded people or liars were responsible for many sightings? Killian himself had considered the possibility that the lights came from jet refueling operations and suggested as much when he was interviewed nearly a month before. He had discarded the idea, however, for several reasons. At his then cruising speed of 280 to 300 m.p.h., he said he was going "too slow for jets to stay off my left wing for a long time." Other factors were the changing position of the lights and their varying intensity. In addition, First Officer Dee declared that after landing he too had considered the possibility of a jetrefueling operation but had made a check and there had been no such flights. But there is still a further reason for discarding the Air Force explanation. The alleged jets did not show up on Captain Killian's radar screen although he tried repeatedly to get such a showing. At this point it is definitely anticlimactic (which is the reason we are reporting this at all) to add that Dr. William Liller, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan offered his explanation of the sighting. He said it was "temperature inversion." A complicating factor in the whole affair was a flaming bluegreen object, probably a "bright meteor" that streaked across the Great Lakes skies early on Tuesday morning, the same day of the Killian sighting. However, the meteor sightings took place from 5:30 a.m. to 5:45 a.m., which was
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