The Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter occurred at approximately 2:45
AM on July 24, 1948, in the skies near Montgomery, Alabama. That day, two
commercial pilots (Chiles and Whitted) claimed to have observed a "glowing
object" pass by their plane before it appeared to pull up into a cloud and
travel out of sight.
After landing in Atlanta, Georgia, the pilots reported their
sightings to the United States Air Force and were interviewed for Project Sign,
the first Air Force research group assigned to investigate UFO sightings. The
pilots were both combat-experienced and gave painstaking into what they had
seen so much so that the investigators agreed that “this was the first time two
reliable sources had been really close enough to a UFO to get a good
look."
However, the top brass rejected the investigation results because
"the report's evidence was insufficient to support its conclusions."
and concluded that the pilots had actually seen a very bright meteor.
The UFO’s of Wythe County
Wythe County Virginia is just southwest of Blacksburg. Named for
George Wythe, the first Virginian to sign the Declaration of Independence and
was partially settled by Moses Austin, father of Stephen F. Auston, one of the
founders of the Republic of Texas.
In October 1987, Wythe County Sheriff Wayne Pike reported that
he and his deputies witnessed strange lights in the sky. The police report made
the wire services and within a year there were 3,000 reports of UFO sightings
in the area. Some said the county was experiencing mass hysteria.
The most famous incident in the rash sighting actually happened
in nearby Smyth County when a UFO was seen flying across a mountainside and
blasting a tree with its heat-ray. Investigators checked out the tree stump, but
it appeared that someone had tried to smoke a squirrel out of the tree and set
a fire that built up inside the trunk until it literally blew up.
The people of Wythe said otherwise. Many blamed the US Air
Force, claiming that the sightings were part of a secret military operation.
Included in that group was Danny Gordon, the news director for the local radio
station WYVE. "It appears,” he said, “we are dealing with something of a
military nature "A lot of people are scared. Will the military please tell
us where they are?"
The Gorman/UFO dogfight
The Gorman dogfight took place on October 1, 1948, in the skies
over Fargo, North Dakota although in 1949 the USAF concluded…of course… that
the Gorman dogfight had been caused by a lighted weather balloon…you think they
would get tired of using that excuse.
Only 25 years old when the incident occurred, George F. Gorman
was a veteran fighter pilot of World War II and was serving as a second
lieutenant in the North Dakota National Guard.
On October 1, 1948, Gorman was participating in a cross-country
flight with other National Guard pilots, flying a P-51 Mustang. His flight
arrived over Fargo at approximately 8:30 PM.
Although the other pilots decided to land at Fargo's Hector
Airport, Gorman decided to take advantage of the clear, cloudless conditions
and get in some night-flying time, staying aloft.
Around 9:00 PM Gorman saw another object to his west that had a
blinking light. At 9:07 PM Gorman contacted the control tower at Hector Airport
and asked if it had any air traffic in the area other than his P-51 and the
Piper Cub. The tower answered no, he was alone up there as far as radar was
concerned. But the Piper Cub pilot, Dr. A.D. Cannon and his passenger answered
that they could also see a lighted object to the west.
Gorman told the tower that he was going to pursue the object to
determine its identity. He moved his Mustang to full power (350 to 400 MPH),
but the object was going too fast for him to catch it
Instead, he tried cutting the object off by turns and approached
the object head-on at 5,000 feet but the object flew over his plane at a
distance of about 500 feet. Gorman described the object as a simple "ball
of light" about six to eight inches in diameter. He also noted later that
when the object increased its speed, it stopped blinking and grew brighter.
After a near-collision, Gorman lost sight of the object; when he
saw it again it appeared to have made a 180-degree turn and was coming at him
again. The object then made a sudden vertical climb; Gorman followed the object
in his own steep climb. At 14,000 feet his P-51 stalled; the object was still
2,000 feet above him. The object made another head-on pass but broke off before
coming close to his fighter. It then moved over Hector Airport where it was
seen by the air traffic controller, L.D. Jensen.
Gorman followed the object until he was about twenty-five miles
southwest of Fargo. At 14,000 feet he observed the light at 11,000 feet; he
then dived on the object at full power. However, the object made a vertical
climb. He tried to pursue but watched as the object passed out of visual range.
At this point he broke off the chase; it was 9:27 PM. Gorman flew back to
Hector Airport.
Within a few hours, military officers from Project Sign – the
United States Air Force's (USAF) study of UFO phenomena – arrived to interview
Gorman, Dr. Cannon, his passenger, and the control tower personnel at Hector
Airport. The officers also checked Gorman's P-51 Mustang with a Geiger counter
for radiation. They found that the Mustang was measurably more radioactive than
other fighters which had not flown for several days; this was taken as evidence
that Gorman had flown close to an "atomic-powered" object.
However, the Air Weather Service revealed that on October 1 it
had released a lighted weather balloon from Fargo at 8:50 PM. By 9 PM the
balloon would have been in the area where Gorman and the Piper Cub passengers
first saw the lighted object. Project Sign's investigators also believed that
the incredible movements of the object were due to Gorman's own maneuvers as he
chased the light—the object's maneuvers were an illusion brought about by the
movements of Gorman's fighter.
Several branches of the military did come forward but only to deny
they had anything to do with sightings. However, the Tennessee Air National
Guard did come forward to suggest that the sightings began at about the same
time that they started making refueling flights in the area.
Since the most common sighting were of a group of lights that
appear to hover close together before splitting apart in the night skies while
others have reported a flying object that appears to be pulling another object
along, a mid-air refueling seemed to make sense.
A spokesman for the Tennessee Air National Guard said "We
started doing them more frequently in that area about a month or a month and a
half ago. I personally haven't seen anything up there. It'd certainly be a good
guess. That'd be the best answer I could offer."