January 7, 1948 was a tragic day for the US Air Force National Guard Captain in Kentucky, Thomas F. Mantell and his family, friends and comrades in arms. The Mantell case will forever remain an important part of the history of UFO reports in the late 1940s and early 1950s, having the misfortune of becoming the first person to give his life in the relentless pursuit of the elusive truth behind reports of flying ships from other worlds.
He gave everything he had to get to this mysterious, intelligently controlled metal ship, but whoever it was and whoever controlled it, he escaped the pursuit the day Thomas Mantell died.
On that fateful day, Mantell piloted an F-51 bound for Stanford Air Force Base in Kentucky. Three more planes accompanied him.
At about 1:30 pm, Kentucky State Police began receiving reports from concerned citizens that they had noticed a large circular object flying over the city of Mansville. Within minutes, the UFO's field of vision expanded to include Irvington and Owensboro.
This was a large metal aircraft and was then clearly visible from the tower of Godman Air Force Base. The object was described as extremely large, round, whitish in color, with a red light at the bottom, and the UFO moved slowly south.
A little over an hour after the first reports, Mantell's group was asked to investigate the anomalous object.
- Godman Tower calls for four aircraft heading north over Godman Field.
Promotional video:
- Understood, Godman Tower. This is the 869 National Guard, flight commander.
- 869 National Guard from Godman Tower. We have a facility south of Godman that we cannot identify and we would like to know if you have enough fuel; and if so, could you please look for it if you like.
“Roger, I have gas, and I’ll look for an object if you give me the right course.”
One of his three satellites in flight was cleared to continue on a pre-assigned flight plan, while Mantell and the remaining two aircraft headed for the UFO sighting coordinates.
Mantell was the first to ascend to an altitude of 4.5 km and, having reached this position, transmitted the following message by radio to the control tower:
“The object is now directly in front of me and over my head, moving at about half my speed … It appears to be a metal object, the sun is reflecting off a metal object, and it is enormous … I'm still climbing … I'm trying to get closer to get a better look.
5400, 6000, 6700 meters of height! too high for WWII fighters without oxygen! The other two planes turned back, leaving Mantell alone to pursue the giant object. Apparently, Mantell passed out from lack of oxygen at an altitude of about 9000 meters, at least his plane leveled off at this altitude, and then, as it were, stopped in the air and fell flat to the ground.
It crashed on the farm of William J. Phillips near Franklin, Kentucky. Mantell's clock stopped at 3:16 p.m. and his body was still strapped in the plane that became his coffin.
He spent 45 minutes on a mad flight into the realm of obscurity. By 3:50 pm, the giant ship was not visible from Godman, but reports continued as the UFO continued to move south into Tennessee.
Reports of the incident spread like wildfire. Theories and speculation reached radio shows, television, and newspapers. The New York Times story began with this headline: "A pilot dies in pursuit of a flying saucer," and another story was entitled, "A plane exploded over Kentucky when a strange object was reported."
The widespread speculation that Mantell was chasing UFOs was denied by the Air Force, which initially tried to hide the truth, and claimed that Mantell and his flight were chasing the planet Venus. They also announced that his death was directly related to oxygen deprivation.
This almost comic conclusion was quickly refuted by an eyewitness, Glen Mace, who lived near Franklin. Mace categorically stated that Mantell's plane exploded in mid-air.
“The plane circled three times as if the pilot didn't know where he was going,” Mace reported, and then began to fall. About halfway down there was a terrible explosion.
There is also testimony from the commander of the Godman base, Guy F. Hicks, who told reporters that he watched the UFO for almost an hour through binoculars. He would not confuse what he saw with the planet Venus.
Miller, who was at the operations center at Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, also made several statements regarding the disaster. He followed the radio communication between Mantell and Godman Tower and heard this statement very clearly.
- My God, I see people in this thing!
Miller added that in the morning after the crash, in a briefing, investigators said Mantell had died "in pursuit of an intelligently controlled unidentified flying object."
In conclusion, Miller made this statement … - That same evening, officers from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Technical Intelligence Center arrived from AFB and ordered all personnel to hand over any materials related to the disaster. Then, after we handed them over to them, they said they had already completed the investigation.
“I was no longer a skeptic. Until that time, I was. I saw this. I saw how it was. I saw a UFO. Now I wondered why the government needed to hide it so carefully from the press and the public.
Additional information has emerged in recent years. Captain James F. Dusler, who was one of several military officers at Godman, was retired and lived in England. In 1997, he stated that he and several other officers did indeed see a giant UFO hovering over Godman Field that day.
Dewsler, who was the pilot and investigator of the crash, stated: "The UFO was a strange, gray-looking object that looked like a spinning, inverted ice cream cone."
Soon after the disaster, Dusler visited the site and made the following observations: “The wings and tail section broke off on impact on the ground and were at a short distance from the aircraft,” he recalled. The surrounding trees were unharmed and it was evident that there was no forward or sideways movement during the crash. He just seemed to "flop belly" into the clearing.
“There was very little damage on the fuselage, which was unharmed, and no traces of blood in the cockpit. “There were no scratches on the fuselage body to indicate any forward movement, and the propeller blade did not have any characteristic scratches to indicate that it was rotating at the moment of impact, and one blade was submerged in the ground.
The nature of the damage did not correspond to an aircraft of this type, which crashed into the ground at high speed. Due to the large engine in the nose of the aircraft, it had to sink nose forward and hit the ground at an angle. Even if he managed to slip inside, he would still cut a clearing between the trees and a channel in the ground. None of these signs were visible.
- Everything indicated that he had just plopped down on his stomach into the clearing. I must admit, it seemed very strange to me.
To further refute the "Venus" theory, astronomical records showed that the planet was only 33 degrees above the horizon at the time of the incident, thus completely excluding it from the case.
The Air Force, embarrassed by the fall of the Venus theory, was now looking for another "mundane" explanation for the object observed that day. After discovering that naval research was launching huge balloons, the Air Force found an alternative solution.
This theory was also soon disproved after reports that no balloon was launched or could have been in the sky that day.
The UFO theory gained even more credibility after Mantell's death. On January 8, residents of Clinton, North Carolina reported a cone-shaped object moving across the sky at incredible speed, and on February 1, a large metal UFO was seen emitting orange light near Earth in Circleville, Ohio.
Whatever happened on the day Thomas Mantell crashed his plane, it is clear that it was not a weather balloon, or Venus, or any other planet.
It was an alien from another planet or from another dimension …