Subject: The Mantell Incident.
Date: 7 Mar 94 22:20:18 GMT


~Subject: The Mantell Incident.

  I would now like to discuss the Mantell Case from the prospective of a 
person from Earth watching it and then from the prospective of the space 
people who were involved in the incident.  Now on with the story as told 
by the person who witnessed it, Richard Miller.................................
........................................................................

  On January 7, 1948, I happened to be in the Operation's Room at Scott
Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois.  Now in the military we had what 
was called an Air Defense Sector and Scott Air Force Base was part  of such
an Air Defence Sector: the same one that involves Fort Knox in Kentucky --
and on this particular day a UFO had appeared in the Fort Knox area.  I 
should mention that the air space over Fort Knox is restricted.  In other
words, private aircraft and military aircraft do not fly over Fort Knox.

  Therefore, an unidentified flying object over Fort Knox created quite a 
stir.  All of the air bases in that Air Defense Sector were alerted.  I 
happened to be in the Operation's Room when the alert came through.  All of 
the various air bases in the sector were tied together on a common 
communications link so that all such bases could hear what was going on, and 
the action was taking place at Godman (JW That may be Goodman for all I 
know)  Air Force Base in Kentucky on that day. The tower operators at Godman 
AFB suddenly viewed a UFO flying in the near vicinity of Fort Knox.  It was
observed first with binoculars by the tower control personnel.  They 
immediatly alerted the base commander at Godman and got him to come to 
base headquarters.  Then, the alert went out to all the air bases in the 
sector, because at that time we did not have very many jet interceptors
around, but we did have the fastest thing in the Air Force at that time
that was commonly availabe, the F-51 Fighter, a propeller dirven aircraft.

 About the time of this UFO sighting a squadron of four F-51's was flying
near Godman AFB.  The tower operator called them on his radio and asked
them to pursue this object and attempt to identify it.  The pilot in charge
of the flight was Captain Thomas Mantell.  At Scott AfB we were listening to 
the radio traffic between Godman tower, Captain Mantell amd three other 
aircraft that were with him. the first alert occurred at 1:50 in the 
afternoon, and at 2:30 P.M., Captain Mantell's flight was alerted to start 
the pursuit. 

  My notes of this incident say that Captain Mantell's flight was running
low on fuel; so his three wingmen asked permission at various stages of 
the pursuit, to land at Godman AFB for refueling and to take on oxygen
equipment.  None of these planes were equipped with oxygen as this was a 
routine low level flight. 

  Captain Mantell was the only one who did not report back to the base for 
refueling or for oxygen.  After spotting the object, Mantell called Godman 
tower and said, "I see it. It's above and ahead of me and I'm still 
climbing."

  One of his wingmen who was still with him at that time asked, "What the 
h--- are we looking for?"  He hadn't seen the object.  Mantell answered him
and said,  "The object is directly ahead and above me," thus directing the 
other pilot's attention to its location.  That was at 2:45 P.M.

  At 3:05 P.M., Mantell again called in on his radio and said, "I've sighted 
the thing. It's metalic and tremendous in size; it's starting to climb 
higher."  Now at this time both the object and Mantell and one fighter plane 
still with him were being observed, through binoculars, by the tower 
personnel.  

  At 3:10 P.M., five minutes later, Mantell again called in and said, "It's 
climbing still higher.  It's twelve o'clock high, making half my speed.  I'll
try and close in."  At that time, the remaining pilot with him, a Lt. 
Hammond, called him and sid, "Level Off, Captain, until I regain visual
contact."  Mantell's F-51 was clibling so rapidly that even his wingman was 
having a hard time keeping up witm, and had lost sight of him.  His wingman
then reported that he had lost sight of Mantell.

Source Of Information: Star Wards, Welcome Home Earthman, by Richard Miller.

John Winston.

  Now we go into the second part of our story of Richard Miller seeing a 
UFO being pursued by Captain Mantell....................................
........................................................................

  At 3:15 P.M., just a few minutes later, Mantell called in again and said,
"It's still above me making my spped or better. I am going up to 20,000
feet. If I'm no closer then, I'll abandon chase."

  This is where the official Air Force account ends.  However, there was one 
further radio transmission from Mantell at 3:18 that afernoon.  His last 
statement has been stricken from all of the official records.  He said: "My
God.  I see people in this thing." That was his last actual comment.

  After that, the tower lost sight of Mantell and the object. They called 
Mantell repeatedly on the radio but he didn't answer.

  At 5:50 that evening, some two hours later, Godman Tower received a 
telephone call from Staniford Air Force Base. They had received a phone
report from a farmer in Franklin, Kentucky that a plane with a certain 
serial number (NG-3869) had crashed on this man's farm. The crash has 
occurred at 4:45 in the afternoon.  

  About 6:00 P.M. the alert was cancelled.  The object had disappeared, 
Mantell had crashed; Captain Mantell was dead. 

  The next morning there was a briefing on what was now the "Mantell
Case."  I won't go into all of the details of that briefing other than to 
say that Mantell's plane had flown for one hour and twenty minutes 
beyond his avialable fuel supply.  No one could account for that.  Captain
Mantell met his death as a result of exceeding 12,000 feet without oxygen.
He blacked out, lost control of the aircraft and crashed.  However, this
presented the investigators with a major problem.  If he was balcked out and 
unconscious, which would have occurred at appproximately 3:25 P.M., how did 
the aircraft continue to fly for an hour and twenty-five minutes with an 
unconcious pilot at the controls?  And with no fuel in the tanks.

  There was another mysterious happening in the Mantell Case which raised
tremendous questions.  An aircraft falling from that height, about 20,000
feet, out of control, would normally go into a spin condition.  This
was a stick controlled aircraft.  All of you have seen pictures of such 
old planes where the pilot has this control stick between his knees.  Had
he been unconcious he would have let loose of the stick, his feet would have
relaxed and the rudder pedals, and the plane would have gone into a spin,
particularly an F-51.

  That being the case, when the aricraft hit the ground in a spinning 
condition, it should have bored a hole in the ground some fifteen to 
twenty feet deep.  Mantell's plane hit the ground perfectly flat and the 
earth beneath the aircraft was only compressed two inches.

Part 2.

Source Of Information: Star Wards by Richard Miller.

John Winston.      

