lpetrich
Contributor
In 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold had seen some objects near some mountains skipping like saucers. This provoked a rash of "flying saucer" sightings, and these aerial disks seemed very goofy at first.
But on 7 January 1948, several people near Fort Knox, Kentucky, saw a huge whitish circular object high in the sky moving slowly southward. Four Kentucky Air National Guard pilots flying P-51 Mustangs were already in the air, including Captain Thomas F. Mantell. They were told to pursue this strange object.
One of the pilots broke off because his plane was short on fuel, and two of the remaining ones called off their pursuit at 22,500 feet (6,900 m) altitude. Captain Mantell continued onward, but his plane then went into a dive, circling on its way down. It crashed into a farm south of Franklin, KY, and Captain Mantell's body was found in the plane's wreckage.
This made flying saucers seem dangerous. Was Captain Mantell shot down by an extraterrestrial spaceship?
There is a more prosaic possibility. As Captain Mantell was climbing in pursuit of that Unidentified Flying Object, the air became too thin for him to breathe, and he passed out -- he did not have an oxygen tank with him. He lost control of his plane and it went into a dive.
Captain Mantell was an experienced pilot with 2,167 hours in the air; he had served with distinction in World War II. However, he was not very experienced with the P-51. Even the best of us sometimes make disastrous mistakes.
What was that UFO? Astronomer J. Allen Hynek proposed that it was Venus, and the US Air Force accepted that, likely also from an incident some weeks earlier when a P-51 pilot had been chasing that planet. In 1952, the USAF re-investigated that incident, and JAH decided that it was not likely that planet -- this object was resolved, while that planet isn't.
Astronomer Donald Menzel proposed that it was a sundog, a reflection off of oriented ice crystals. That didn't fit either. Some UFO believers have criticized DM for being too fond of weird optical effects.
The most likely possibility is that it was a Skyhook high-altitude balloon. Back in 1948, they were a top-secret project by the US Navy as part of an effort to develop spy balloons. They would drift over the Soviet Union and other targets, taking pictures as they went. Analysts would then look through all the pictures for pictures of military bases and the like. I first saw the spy-balloon hypothesis in Philip Klass's book "UFO's Explained". When the balloons' existence was officially announced, they were described as being for cosmic-ray research, something that they have indeed been used for.
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Now for Star Trek: The Original Series: "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
The USS Enterprise gets sent back in time by a gravitational slingshot effect, and it ends up in the Earth's atmosphere as an Unidentified Flying Object. A fighter pilot is sent to intercept it, and the Enterprise grabs hold of it with a tractor beam. The pilot's plane disintegrates and the Enterprise's crew beams the pilot aboard.
This very obviously resembles the Mantell incident, and some other Star Trek fans have noted the resemblance. But I've read some books on the production of that series, and I've yet to find any official acknowledgment of that resemblance.
I close with George Adamski's take on it in "Inside the Spaceships":
Mantell UFO incident
The Thomas Mantell UFO Incident - HowStuffWorks
Strange and Unusual Aviation Accidents lists that one along with some other odd ones
Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Tomorrow is Yesterday (episode) - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
"Star Trek" Tomorrow Is Yesterday (TV Episode 1967) - IMDb
But on 7 January 1948, several people near Fort Knox, Kentucky, saw a huge whitish circular object high in the sky moving slowly southward. Four Kentucky Air National Guard pilots flying P-51 Mustangs were already in the air, including Captain Thomas F. Mantell. They were told to pursue this strange object.
One of the pilots broke off because his plane was short on fuel, and two of the remaining ones called off their pursuit at 22,500 feet (6,900 m) altitude. Captain Mantell continued onward, but his plane then went into a dive, circling on its way down. It crashed into a farm south of Franklin, KY, and Captain Mantell's body was found in the plane's wreckage.
This made flying saucers seem dangerous. Was Captain Mantell shot down by an extraterrestrial spaceship?
There is a more prosaic possibility. As Captain Mantell was climbing in pursuit of that Unidentified Flying Object, the air became too thin for him to breathe, and he passed out -- he did not have an oxygen tank with him. He lost control of his plane and it went into a dive.
Captain Mantell was an experienced pilot with 2,167 hours in the air; he had served with distinction in World War II. However, he was not very experienced with the P-51. Even the best of us sometimes make disastrous mistakes.
What was that UFO? Astronomer J. Allen Hynek proposed that it was Venus, and the US Air Force accepted that, likely also from an incident some weeks earlier when a P-51 pilot had been chasing that planet. In 1952, the USAF re-investigated that incident, and JAH decided that it was not likely that planet -- this object was resolved, while that planet isn't.
Astronomer Donald Menzel proposed that it was a sundog, a reflection off of oriented ice crystals. That didn't fit either. Some UFO believers have criticized DM for being too fond of weird optical effects.
The most likely possibility is that it was a Skyhook high-altitude balloon. Back in 1948, they were a top-secret project by the US Navy as part of an effort to develop spy balloons. They would drift over the Soviet Union and other targets, taking pictures as they went. Analysts would then look through all the pictures for pictures of military bases and the like. I first saw the spy-balloon hypothesis in Philip Klass's book "UFO's Explained". When the balloons' existence was officially announced, they were described as being for cosmic-ray research, something that they have indeed been used for.
-
Now for Star Trek: The Original Series: "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
The USS Enterprise gets sent back in time by a gravitational slingshot effect, and it ends up in the Earth's atmosphere as an Unidentified Flying Object. A fighter pilot is sent to intercept it, and the Enterprise grabs hold of it with a tractor beam. The pilot's plane disintegrates and the Enterprise's crew beams the pilot aboard.
This very obviously resembles the Mantell incident, and some other Star Trek fans have noted the resemblance. But I've read some books on the production of that series, and I've yet to find any official acknowledgment of that resemblance.
I close with George Adamski's take on it in "Inside the Spaceships":
Much like "Tomorrow is Yesterday", but with failing instead of succeeding. George Adamski had imagined a rather Star-Trek-like world, complete with humanlike inhabitants of many other planets.
Mantell UFO incidentThe Thomas Mantell UFO Incident - HowStuffWorks
Strange and Unusual Aviation Accidents lists that one along with some other odd ones
Tomorrow Is YesterdayTomorrow is Yesterday (episode) - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
"Star Trek" Tomorrow Is Yesterday (TV Episode 1967) - IMDb
