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This 92-page Project Blue Book file, released through The Black Vault, covers the 7 January 1948 sighting at Godman Field, Fort Knox, Kentucky. It holds control tower witness reports, a record of the P-51 pursuit led by Captain Thomas Mantell, AMC requests for theodolite readings and weather data, and astronomical tables for Venus and the Moon. One analysis concludes the object was not Venus and calls the sighting unexplained. The file also includes a 1964 letter to the Simpson County coroner about Mantell's death.
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## NESTM R7C At approximately 1320 Sgt Cook from the C0's office notified the observer (T/Sgt Quinton A Blackwell) that according to Ft Knox Military Police & "B" Town State Police, a large circular object about 250 to 300 ft in diameter was over Mansville, Ky. Advised him to check with Army Flight Svc. They advised negative but shortly thereafter reported object over Irvington, Ky, then Owensboro, Ky. Object first sighted by Blackwell about 1345 to 1350 over south Godman Fld. ## Verification: 1st Lt Crner (Detachment Commander) Capt Carter (Operations Officer) Col Hix (CO) sighted it about 1420 At approximately 11430 to 11440, four P-51's approached Godman f/south enroute f/Marietta, Ga. to Standiford Fld, Ky. Blackwell asked Flight Leader NG 869 to attempt to identify object. Accompanied by two other planes he proceeded south f/Godman. Fourth plane proceeded to Standiford Fld alone. About 1445, flight leader (NG 869) reported sighting object "ahead and above - still climbing" At 15,000 ft he reported "Object directly ahead and above and moving about half my speed." Again "it appears metallic of tremendous size." Still later "I'm still climbing - object is above and ahead moving about my speed or faster - I'm trying to close in for better look". This was about 1515. Five minutes later the other two ships turned back. NG 800 reported "it appeared like the reflection of sunlight on an airplane canopy" Shortly afterward this same pilot (NG 800) resumed search going to 33,000 ft, 100 miles south but did not sight anything.
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. 93 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.