Documents / Document
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.
“Long John Nebel”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Galley 25-THE WORLD OF FLYING SAUCERS utes, all the way to Detroit, and the pilot lost sight of them only when he began to let down through the haze for a landing. Reporters and photographers were waiting to interview him, and next day's Detroit Times carried a banner headline, "Mystery Discs Trail Plane Here," over a picture of Captain Killian flanked by the plane's two pretty hostesses, all three smiling as they held up to the camera three ordinary kitchen saucers [9]. After checking with the Detroit ATC, who did not know of any scheduled refueling operation, the pilot reported his experience to officials of American Airlines, and next day returned to New York where again he was besieged by reporters and photographers. Meanwhile, following standard CIRVIS procedure (Communication Instruction for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sighting from Aircraft), the Manager of Operations of American Airlines reported the incident to ATC at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In New York the day after the sighting Captain Killian gave a telephone interview to Radio Station WCHC, Charleston, West Virginia, describing his experience. Following the customary procedure, intelligence officer from Mitchell Air Force Base questioned him and filled out the usual report form [2]. In the radio interview and in the talk with intelligence officers Captain Killian made the same statements he had made to American Airlines officials: he didn't know what the lights were, and he couldn't tell how far away they were because he didn't know their size or their altitude [10]. Not for months had such a good flying-saucer story appeared, and the newspapers made the most of it. Among the first to assert that the unknown lights had been flying saucers was the UFO Research Committee of Akron, Ohio (see Chapter xxii). Members of the committee had received the news by telephone, even before Captain Killian's plane landed at Detroit, from the pilot of a United Airlines plane who had watched the lights on his flight to Akron. During the days following, Captain Killian's copilot gave an interview on Long John Nebel's after-midnight radio program in New York. Captain Killian himself described the UFOs to members of a New York UFO organization, Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI), and appeared on several radio and TV programs. Both saucer addicts and newsmen besieged Air Force representatives, demanding an immediate explanation of the sighting. Finally, on February 23, only two days after receiving the report from American Airlines, ATIC yielded to public pressure and produced a tentative theory: it was possible that the pilots might have sighted the stars of Orion, as Captain Killian had first suggested. However, the release added no definite conclusion could be reached until all the facts had been studied. Promptly rejecting the possibility that he might have been looking at Orion. Captain Killian stated in an interview with the New York Herald Tribune. "I am sure there are people on other planets and that they have solved the problem of space travel. . . I sincerely believe that their vehicles are coming close to earth."
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 83 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.