At 2:45 A.M., Captain C. S. Chiles and First Officer J. B. Whitted were piloting Eastern Airlines Flight #576 from Houston to Atlanta when, Whitted reports, "We sighted an object coming toward us... This strange object had a stream of red fire coming from its tail and I could see it was much larger than anything I had seen or read about."

It being a clear moonlit night, visibility was excellent. Chiles then noticed that the object had no wings supporting it. "It passed us on the right side. Its speed was about 700 miles per hour." And both men got a very good look at this unusual object: "It was about 100 feet long, shaped like a cigar," and as it passed they clearly saw "two rows of windows, an upper and lower, that were large and square." From inside the windows came "a very bright light glowing" and they could see that the underside of the ship had a "blue glow," like a fluorescent light. As it passed, it pulled up and into some broken clouds - and was lost from view.

"We heard no noise and felt no turbulence from the object," the men added.

The Air Force investigators checked out Chiles and Whitted: they found that Chiles, in the war, had been in command capacity with the Air Force, had vast experience in judging and identifying aircraft, and retired as a lieutenant colonel. Whitted's reliability was also found to be "excellent."

That night there was a third witness - the one passenger who was awake on that Eastern Airlines flight, Clarence McKelvie. In his signed letter, he describes it this way:

The male steward said to me, "I noticed you watching out the window ." I told him there was something flashing - it looked like a cigar with a cherry flame going out the back. there was a row of windows and going in that direction fast. It made no noise. I heard nothing, because of the sound of the plane. It disappeared very quickly... It was on the right side of the plane, going off the horizon. It disappeared...or we went past it.

The steward asked if I would talk to the pilot. Yes. The pilot came back and took down verbatim. He didn't say anything - he was shook. He said he had flown all during the war and "this is the strangest experience I ever had." He was shaking all the time.

Oh, I was interrogated by groups - Air Force Intelligence of Wright-Patterson and Hynek's group. I was asked: "Do you think it was a flying saucer?" I didn't know - I was looking at it on edge. If I had been looking above or below, but I was looking directly. Couldn't tell. Scared me to death...with the plane falling and seeing that thing go on by...it was hair raising.

This object was witnessed by pilots of three aircraft and a passenger, and ground observers added even more corroboration. The conclusion of an Air Intelligence report was that the object remained unidentified as to origin, construction, and power source, and it went into the record classified as "unknown." In the early 1960's, the Air Force abruptly decided that Chiles and Whitted had seen a meteor.

But behind the scenes during that time, the Air Force had done some serious homework in an attempt to consider any and all possible explanations for what Chiles, Whitted, and McKelvie had seen. Here is part of an Air intelligence report on the sighting.

Tech Intel Div.

Intelligence Department

Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio

Report 102-122-79

Apparently it is not of domestic origin since a thorough check of 225 flight schedules both commercial and governmental, revealed that in only one instance did the reported flight paths cross. (See chart enclosed as Exhibit "I"). This single exception was the flight in a northwesterly direction of a C-47 en route Robins AFB to Olmstead Field, PA. Its time of departure would have enabled it to have passed through the approximate areas on the 24th July 1948 where the sightings were reported. However, the factors of speed, direction of light, maneuvers, configurations, lights and other factors rule out this one possibility.

Objects similar in configuration have been reported as follows:

a. Rocket-like objects capable of immense speed were seen during the past summer in broad daylight in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

b. A wingless craft was observed moving at high speed at Obrechstreet, Arnheim, The Hague, Holland. The object was seen intermittently through clouds and was reported to have two decks.

Flying Fuselages (Torpedo of Cigar-Shaped Body)

a. While the cigar or torpedo shaped body represents a sufficient form for the fuselages of an airplane or the body of a guided missile, in neither case has it been used as a primary lift producing surface. However, an extension of the Prandtl theory of lift indicates that a fuselage of the dimensions reported by an Eastern Airlines pilots Whitted and Chiles in the Montgomery Alabama, incident could support a gross weight of approximately 12,000 pounds at an arbitrarily chosen stalling speed of 150 mile per hour, conservatively estimated. The Prandtl theory probably gives very conservative values of maximum lift for bodies of this shape. If a lift coefficient twice as great were used (such a value has been given by a German scientist from memory of his wind tunnel researches in Germany), a gross weight of 24,000 pounds could be supported at the assumed stalling speed.

b. Although the craft sighted by Whitted and Chiles was reported to be without wings or fins, it is possible it could have been equipped with extensible wings for take-off and landing, contained within the fuselage. In such a case a wing span of nearly 90 feet would be possible. If an aspect ratio of 5 were used (18 ft. mean aerodynamic chord), and if the wing design incorporated slots and flaps, the wing could support 115,000 pounds at a stalling speed of 150 mph. it is possible that the fuselage could also contribute lift with this arrangement, depending upon the incidence of the wing. This type of aircraft could also be partially supported in the take-off and landing condition by the vertical component of the jet thrust, if the landing and take-off took place in a vertical or near-vertical attitude. The further possibility that an extensible rotor, concealed within the fuselage, could have been used, would provide another method for landing and take-off that would allow wingless flight at very high speed. Such a design could result in a relatively large duration of flight and corresponding range.

c. While no stabilizing fins were apparent on the "flying fuselage" reported by Whitted and Chiles, it is possible that vanes within the jet, operated by a gyroservo system could have provided static stability, longitudinally, directionally and laterally. The same vanes could also have been used for accomplishing static balance or trim, as well as control for maneuvering. A square-tailed body of the type reported with the center of gravity sufficiently far forward can develop, approximately, a neutral stability and the possibility exists that definite static stability could be produced by a judicious use of flow-control slots located somewhere along the fuselage.

That obviously doesn't explain the UFO, but it shows us something other than a cavalier attitude toward the UFO problem. The Air Force was doing some serious thinking.

Continue with UFO Research History, Part 5.