1948: Project Saucer

The power of this particular evidence weighed heavily in the Pentagon. Project Saucer was the nickname given by the American public to an official study launched on January 22nd 1948, but its real name was kept secret.

The first case to fall under the auspices of Project Saucer involved a fatality. Captain Thomas Mantel was leading a team of F-51s on a routine flight over Godman Field in Kentucky when a 'silver teardrop' was wit­nessed by many people on the ground. Mantell was informed, and agreed to try to intercept the UFO. 

One by one, his wingmen gave up the chase as they failed to reach the shiny object. Mantell carried on, claiming the thing was 'large and metallic', but then lost all contact with the ground. A couple of hours later his body was found amidst the tangled wreckage of his F-51. He had flown too high without oxygen, blacked out and was unable to prevent his plane from crashing to the ground. 

Project Saucer had no idea what this UFO was, but could not announce the solution feared by its staff - that a US pilot had died whilst in pursuit of an alien machine. Dr J Alien Hynek , a young civilian astronomer, was then employed as a scientific consultant to the USAF. Hynek was sure that all UFO sightings were mis-identifications, but had no solution for the Mantell case. The USAF therefore seized upon one vague possibility - that the pilot had seen the planet Venus and had been forlornly chasing this impossible target. 

Such a ridiculous explanation backfired, and led to simmering public discontent, leading to the birth of the belief that there is a govern­ment cover-up to hide the truth from the gen­eral public. 

We now know from declassified files that the UFO Mantell had chased was a secret Javal project using a 'Skyhook' balloon. Sadly, the launch was so secret not even Project Saucer were told of its existence. On July 24th, another worrying case followed when an Eastern Airlines passenger DC-3 was in near collision with a rocket-like object. The rocket was spouting flames as it shot across the skies above Montgomery, Alabama.  By August 8th, concerned Sign officials sent an 'estimate of situation' report to General Hoyt S Vandenberg, head of the Air Force. This argued that UFOs were real and extraterrestri­al. The existence of this report was, of course, top secret. Vandenberg sent it back saying that he required physical proof.