◆ SpookStack

Up he zoomed, without oxygen, 5000 feet beyond what was safe, in pursuit of an Unknown. What was it that lured this experienced pilot to what proved to be his ultimate and still mystifying death? @ increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to level out. The aircraft then began a turn to the left due to torque and as the wing dropped so did the nose until the aircraft was in a tight diving spiral. The uncontrolled de- scent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to dis- integrate. It is believed that Captain Mantell never re- gained consciousness. This is borne out by the fact that the canopy lock was still in place after the crash, discount- ing any. attempt to abandon the aircraft. The UFO was in no way directly responsible for this accident. However, it is probable that the excitement caused by the object was re- sponsible for this experienced pilot conducting a high al- titude flight without the necessary oxygen equipment.” But what was the object that had generated the excite- ment? Air Force Intelligence officers first suggested Venus as the answer. One of the brightest objects in the heavens, Venus had, a few weeks before, been chased by F-51s in a sighting that had some similarities to the Mantell Incident. When it was pointed out that Venus was practically in- visible on January 7 there was a flurry of backing and fill- ing and contradiction. The controversy that swirled around the Mantell Inci- dent has been carefully -documented by the late Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue Book, in his book The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects. It was in 1952, when he was asked to assume direction of Project Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9 IA;RDP St R09 S80R00041 90 010 002 3% inent scien- tist, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, then head of the Ohio State Uni- versity Astronomy Department to ask why Venus had been promoted as the logical object that had been sighted. Hy- nek explained that at the time of the sighting, Venus and the object were in practically the same spot in the sky. This, he said, was what led to what he believed to be an erroneous conclusion: Ruppelt states: “Dr. Hynek said that he didn’t think that the UFO. was Venus.” It was Ruppelt’s job, however, to establish what, if not Venus, the object was. Other suggestions had been tossed into the hopper; sundogs (diffused light reflected from ice particles); experimental balloons (Skyhooks? At that time in a highly secret test stage but known to reach altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet and diameters of 100 feet); can- opy reflections? Ruppelt dismissed sundogs since descriptions of the ob- ject had mentioned rather well defined edges. Sundogs are fuzzy. He dismissed canopy reflection because Mantell cer- tainly would not have chased a reflection for over fifteen minutes. He seriously considered the Skyhook theory. De- scriptions of the UFO could fit these experimental balloons and it was subsequently determined that on January 7, 1948, the Navy had released such a balloon from Clinton County airport in Ohio that would have been in the area of Godman at the time of the sighting. Ruppelt submitted his report to the Pentagon. “It could have been a balloon.” Ruppelt did not deny that the Air Force and/or the Navy might have records attesting to the launching of such a balloon from Clinton County Air Force Base on the day of Mantell’s death. He, however, did not see those records and could find no one who would state flatly that such an operation did take place on the specific date. The incident, to him, remained another of the UFO ‘jigsaw puzzles.” Answers were based on assumption and some early explanations that had been provided by Air “Force Intelligence were later discarded. The theory has been advanced that the Air Force had come to suspect that interplanetary craft were reconnoiter- ing the Earth; that the mysterious aspects of the Mantell crash had strengthened these suspicions. This theory, with any specific incidents to lend it support, might generate fear and actual panic if it were to become publicly known. Could this account for the Air Force’s readiness to pro- mote first Venus as the widely seen UFO; then a Skyhook? Was there an effort to simplify and to cloud the issue until a fickle public had turned its interest elsewhere. There are serious proponents of this thesis. Most of them are familiar with the conclusions drawn by the Air Force and on record in Project Blue Book: “that Venus was probably the original cause of the sight- ing since the object remained in the area for a long period of time and was relatively stationary.” Most of them are equally aware of the knowledgeable determinations of ex- perts who have stated that Venus would have been a pin- point of light, difficult to see on a clear day, impossible to see on a hazy one (January 7, 1948 was hazy.) The de- scriptions provided by sighters were not of “pinpoints.” The Mantell Incident remains, after 20 years, one of the bafflers in the minds of serious students of aerial phenomena and is cited frequently as an example of puzzling behav- iour that might not now pose so many questions had it been treated with less secrecy at the time. 23