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

Nets might have been. Capt. Killian had first thought they were the three stars in the belt of Orion, but disproved this by noticing that he should see both the UFO and the star of Orion at the same time.

Capt Killian also thought that he might have witnessed a high altitude jet refueling operation, but the varying intensity of the lights and the changing positions of the objects and him to believe that it was not a refueling operation.

Immediately this case became a red hot UFO sighting. Most newspapers carried accounts of it. This case is still the subject of conversation of many a believer in the UFO. But was this a real, genuine UFO sighting or is there some valid, natural explanation for the whole thing?

All the UFO people have hopped on the UFO bandwagon, which is only natural, claiming that this is another good UFO case. The only other explanations suggested were the stars in the belt of Orion and the aerial refueling operation. The belt of Orion explanation is obviously wrong so let us look at the aerial refueling operation explanation in more detail.

To my knowledge the following are all the reasons that have been suggested to disprove the aerial refueling explanation. Capt. Killian said that the varying intensity of the lights and their changing position "made me toss out that theory." Capt. Killian also said that he was going too slow for jets to stay off his left wing for that long a time. Also his copilot, John Dee, made a check to find if there had been a jet refueling operation and had come up with nothing. It also has been brought up that the alleged jets did not show up on Killian's radar screen.

The question was also asked.

"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 best of Orion, and that drunks, deluded people or wars were responsible for many sightings?"

At this point it seems that civilian UFO research stuck its head in the sand. They were so sure that this was a genuine UFO sighting that nobody bothered to do any checking.

## 19 March. 1959

However, I did do some checking and received the following letter from the Air Force:

Dear Mr. Kirsch:

This is to acknowledge your letter of 6 March 1959 concerning the American Airlines pilot's sighting of 24 February near Bradford, Pennsylvania. In addition, two United Airlines pilots saw unidentified flying objects in the same general geographical area.

The geographical area concerned is bordered on the north along the New York-Pennsylvania border (near Bradford, Pennsylvania and Olean, New York) on the route of American Airlines Flight No. 129 departing Newark, New Jersey, at 7:10 p. m. and arriving Detroit, Michigan, at 10:52 p. m. On the south, this geographical area is bordered by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Akron Youngstown, Ohio, locale over-flown by the United Airlines flights reporting this sighting.

The American Airline pilot said "sometimes the interval of the three lights were identical to the Belt in the constellation Orion." This was initially mentioned as a possible solution by the Air Force with the qualifying statement that the report as submitted had not yet been analyzed and that the findings of ATIC would be based upon a complete