Chasing Footnotes: The Chiles-Whitted Cigar... Again

As so often happens, I’m doing research on one thing and stumble onto something else that is interesting. Such is the case today. I was looking through Dick Hall’s The UFO Evidence when I noticed something that struck me as incorrect so I thought I would chase a footnote or two.

Hall wrote that the Chiles-Whitted UFO sighting on July 23, 1948, involved a physical manifestation which, in this case, was turbulence that rocked the aircraft. Both men reported they had seen a cigar-shaped craft that flashed by their airliner very early in the morning. Hall’s reference took us to Section V of his book, and noted that the Air Force contested the belief that there had been turbulence. The footnote said, “For additional details see Flying, July 1950; Saturday Evening Post, May 7, 1949.

Timothy Good in his Above Top Secret, wrote that Chiles said, “It [the UFO] veered to its left and passed us about 700 feet to our right and above us. Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame from the rear and zoomed into the clouds, its prop wash or jet wash rocking our DC-3.”

The trouble here is that in some of the first interviews conducted with Chiles and Whitted by military officials, they mentioned nothing about any sort of turbulence associated with the object. In a statement prepared by Chiles on August 3, 1948, and originally classified as “secret,” he wrote, “After it passed it pulled up into some light broken clouds and was lost from view. There was no prop wash or rough air felt as it passed.”

Whitted also provided a statement which is undated but is in his own words. He said, “We heard no noise nor did we fell any turbulence from the object.”

At some point after these statements were taken, the idea that there had been turbulence was introduced. I wasn’t sure when the idea there was turbulence was introduced but both Hall and Good mention it. Hall, in his The UFO Evidence, provided two sources and did mention that the Air Force rejected the idea. The important point here is that the case was classified so Hall did not have the benefit of those “official” interviews with the two pilots. He was working from the information in the NICAP files and from the two magazines he noted. The Saturday Evening Post article does not mention a thing about the turbulence. It gives a solid account of the sighting without that detail.

The Flying article that Hall referenced does contain the information. According to Curtis Fuller, who wrote the article, Chiles, quoted in a story written by Louis Blackburn of the Houston Press, said, “Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame from the rear and zoomed into the clouds, its prop wash or jet wash rocking our DC-3.”

Although I don’t have a copy of the Houston Press article, I do have another written by Albert Riley in the Atlanta Constitution. There is no date on the clipping, which was part of the Blue Book files, but the first paragraph mentioned the sighting “yesterday morning,” which does, of course provide a time frame. It contains the quote, “Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame from the rear and zoomed into the clouds, its prop wash or jet wash rocking our DC-3.”

And, I have another newspaper article that has no source (United Press in the dateline) but does include a date of July 24, 1948. In a quote that might be a little more invention than reality, it said that their DC-3 fluttered in the “prop-wash, jet-was or rocket-wash.”

Timothy Good quotes Chiles, but there is no footnote on the quote and the footnote on the next paragraph leads to The Coming of the Saucers by Ray Palmer and Kenneth Arnold. It doesn’t provide any solid information. I suspect his information will ultimately chase back to the Houston Press article that was quoted in Flying.

My original point here was going to be that this idea of a prop-wash had been added sometime later based on the documentation found in the Blue Book files. These were the statements allegedly signed by the witnesses but that isn’t exactly the case. Given that some of the information is redacted we are unable to see if there is a signature on Chiles statement rather than just a typed name and there is no place on Whitted’s statement for a signature which leaves us with a question or two. It does seem that within hours, they were talking about prop-wash, but all the quotes are basically the same suggesting a single source. And their statements to the Air Force, originally classified as “secret” suggest no turbulence.

It is clear that their statements are contradictory. They were all made within hours of the event. Chiles’ statement for the Air Force was completed and apparently signed days later but the newspaper quotes are from hours later. I had thought that we had a clear-cut case of embellishment based on the first statements found in the Blue Book files, but that isn’t true. We might suggest a bias by UFO researchers sometime later in adding the turbulence as an additional effect of the passing object but that isn’t correct. We might say the Air Force induced them to make the comments about no turbulence but there is no evidence of that. Given that both pilots mentioned no turbulence in their Air Force statements, I suspect both were asked the question about it during those interviews.

There really is no solution for this dilemma. I would say that the earlier statements, taken in the hours after the event are probably the most accurate, but it seems that they made both comments within hours of the sighting. In 1948, the Air Force was actually attempting to learn more about the flying saucers and the reporters who interviewed the pilots were trying to get a good but accurate story. In the final analysis, all I can say is that they mentioned turbulence and said that there had been none. Pick the quote that fits best into your own bias because I have no idea which is accurate.

MJ-12: The Beginning

My friend, Alejandro Rojas, has posted to the Open Minds YouTube channel an analysis of the beginnings of MJ-12. It is based on some original research he conducted through interviews with some of those involved and on FOIA requests that he has made recently to the U.S. Air Force. The thirty minute program can be found here:

http://www.openminds.tv/majestic-12-ufo-disinformation-scandal-video/28049

There are two additional points that I think should be made that add some context to this story. First, Stan Friedman told me about twenty years ago when we were in California on a research trip that Bill Moore had said he had run into a wall on his Roswell research. Moore said that he was thinking of creating a “Roswell-type” document to shake things loose. Moore apparently thought that if he had an official looking document it might induce some of the reluctant witnesses to tell all that they knew.

Friedman has since denied that the conversation ever took place. Fortunately this isn’t one of those “he said, he said” situations. There are others who heard a similar tale. Brad Sparks said that Moore had told him much the same thing and he, Sparks, called Friedman, saying that it was a really bad idea. The information about Sparks and his memory of this can be found on the Internet. For more information see:

http://www.roswellfiles.com/FOIA/majestic12.htm

While I hesitate to mention this, simply because it comes from Philip Klass and will be rejected out of hand by many here is another source:

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/klass_files_volume_44/

Those who wish for more information or other corroboration can conduct their own searches. Just remember, that I’m reporting what Friedman said to me and I’m noting that he now denies he said it.

The second point is how the documents were released. Alejandro reported that Timothy Good received the Eisenhower Briefing Document [EBD]before it entered the public arena. But that copy came from Bill Moore and that can be proved as Barry Greenwood demonstrated. The copy of the EBD has a chevron-like artifact on several of the pages. Since it does not appear in the same place on other pages, it means that it is an artifact produced by a specific copier. It floats from page to page.

Okay, you say, but so what?

That chevron-like artifact also appears on the EBD released by Moore, but it is not in the same place as it is on the pages released by Good. In other words, the EBD copies were produced on the same copier and that means there was a single source for them. One person made several Xerox copies and sent one of them to Good.

Since it was Moore who had the original film negatives, it would seem that Moore made copies of them and sent them off. Moore, then, was the source of the copies that Good had. Good simply jumped the gun, revealing the existence of the EBD to the press before Moore had a chance to do so.

It is clear that Moore’s copies were made from the pictures printed from the 35 mm film on which the EBD fell into his hands. If he wanted copies of it, he could run all that he needed… but there is that chevron artifact that appears on his copies as well as those given to Good. Or, in other words, it was Moore (or one of his buddies) who made the Xerox copies from the originals, and that links Moore to the copier and to Good.

So, while it might be said that Good’s copy came from another source, it is clear that his copies came from the same copier that Moore used. There is a single source for all the copies and that is the film sent to Jaime Shandera, Moore’s pal in California.

I thought these two points should be made. But there is the new information revealed by Alejandro that should convince even more people that MJ-12 is a hoax and that not a single document linking the U.S. government to something called MJ-12 has ever been independently found. I can’t FOIA a government agency and receive a series of documents as we can in so many other UFO related matters.

I have said for years that MJ-12 should be relegated to a footnote in the history of UFO studies, but it keeps appearing. I know that Alejandro’s piece will not end the debate, but, at least, it comes from a different perspective.

The RB-47 Case, American Airlines and Original Sources

Over the last several weeks I have been looking into the RB-47 UFO sighting from July 17, 1957. It is an interesting case with the possibility of multiple chains of evidence but that is a discussion for another time. Right now I’m more interested in the problem of original sources.

Let me explain.

I thought that I would see what Richard Dolan had to say about the case and was a little surprised that he devoted only about a half page to it. What I found more interesting is a second case he described on that same page. He wrote, “On the same day as the RB-47 incident, an airliner one hundred miles east of El Paso nearly collided with a UFO ‘at least the size of a B-47.’ Two passengers were injured and hospitalized; no known aircraft was near.”

Well, I recognized the report because this aspect had been presented in some of the RB-47 case notes I had seen and was actually connected to it. The footnote didn’t provide much illumination. It took me to Timothy Good’s 1988 book, Above Top Secret and page 283.

Good reported, “On 17 July 1957, Flight 655 en route from Dallas to Los Angeles with Captain E. [identified as Ted in some sources] Bachner at the controls had a near miss with an object ‘at least the size of a B-47,’ 100 miles east of El Paso, Texas. Two passengers suffered slight injuries and had to be taken to hospital on landing. No known aircraft were in the vicinity at the time.”

His footnote cited Coral and Jim Lorenzen in UFOs: The Whole Story which was published in 1969. They mentioned it on page 79 in the Signet paperback. I didn’t have this book in my library and the reason seemed to be that I spent most of 1969 outside the United States. I didn’t have the opportunity to see it.

But, knowing Coral Lorenzen and the way she created her books, I thought that there might be a mention of this in The APRO Bulletin. I checked the September 1957 issue and on page three found another reference, which would be indirectly, I believe, the original source of the quotes by Dolan and Good.

Here we learn that “Ted” Bachner of American Airlines was flying a DC-6 and was about an hour out of Dallas. He said that he spotted an object about ten miles away, climbing fast. It was coming at him and he said that when he saw it wasn’t going to miss, he “dumped my ship [dived] 200 feet in a right turn. It whipped only 50 feet over our heads. It sure looked big up there.”

Lorenzen concluded her report writing, “It has been definitely established that no planes were in the area at the time.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. In the original reports found in the Project Blue Book file, it was suggested that the other aircraft was a B-36 but there were none of those in the area at the time which doesn’t, of course, eliminate all aircraft.

The El Paso newspapers, not to mention the Blue Book files, establish that American Airlines Flight No. 655, did serve to avoid another object. Two passengers were injured, and this, because it was a near miss, required documentation, reports and investigation. The mysterious object in the near miss was American Airlines Flight No. 966.

Brad Sparks interviewed American Airlines Director of Operations Larry L. Strain on February 3, 1976, who said that both Bachner and the captain of 966, T. A. Hinson, agreed in their written statements on file that they had been involved in the near miss on July 17. In other words, the pilots of both aircraft had been found and both had submitted the required documentation for a near miss, which allowed investigators to identify the specific flights.

There is additional documentation. In a November 8, 1957 letter by Roy Keeley of the Department of Commerce to Brigadier General Harold Watson and eventually forwarded to Major George Gregory at Blue Book, Keeley wrote, “….incident mentioned occurred on July 17, 1957, near El Paso, Texas, and involved American Airlines’ Flight No. 655. Investigation of this incident definitely established the fact that the unidentified flying object was American Airlines’ Flight No. 966, which had previously departed El Paso, Texas, enroute to Dallas, Texas.”

It is certain that this “UFO” case has been identified. Coral Lorenzen can be forgiven because, when she prepared The APRO Bulletin, the information was that Flight 655 had nearly missed an unidentified object. The solution wasn’t provided until some months later. That solution was part of the Blue Book file which was not only classified in 1957 and in 1969 when her book was published, but misfiled so that even the Condon Committee investigators couldn’t find it in the late 1960s.

But decades later, when Good and Dolan were writing, that solution was available. The August/September 1957 issue of NICAP’s U.F.O. Investigator contained information about the incident with the note that “a scheduled flight of an eastbound four-engine airliner was undoubtedly the ‘unknown’ though no negligence was indicated.” (Which was published after Coral Lorenzen’s note in the APRO Bulletin, but before her book was published… she should have known about it at that time.)

Klass referenced it in his 1974 book UFO’s Explained as part of his flawed analysis of the RB-47 case (which is a discussion for another time… but he puts Flight 966 in the traffic pattern at Love Field, Dallas when it was actually nearer El Paso).

 I found the problems with the sources by following the trail. I shouldn’t have had to do that. Other writers should have done it first when they cited the case. I found it all because I was attempting to verify, from original sources, what was claimed. I had an advantage, having read the various other accounts of the RB-47 incident that predated either Dolan’s or Good’s books but they should have found some of them as well.

The footnote I could have created for this aspect of the case would be (remembering that Good’s book was published in 1988 and Dolan’s in 2000):

Clark, Jerome. UFO Encyclopedia, Second Edition. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1998: 781 – 783; Dolan, Richard. UFOs and the National Security State. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 2000: 199; Gillmor, Daniel S.  ed. The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Bantam Books, 1969: 260 – 266; Klass, Philip J. The RB-47 Case – A New Explanation. Washington, D.C.: The Author, December 30, 1971 (see also, Klass, Philip J. UFOs Explained. New York: Random House, 1974; 186 – 215); McDonald, James E. “Science in Default: Twenty-two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations.” In Carl Sagan and Thornton Page, eds. UFOs – A Scientific Debate, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972: 56 – 70; Printy, Tim. “The RB-47 Case: UFOlogy’s Best Evidence?” SUNlite 4,1 (January/February 2012): 1, 5 – 38; Project Blue Book Files, Microfilm Roll 28, Case 4810; “Scientists Say Near Collisions May Involve Space Vehicles,” The U.F.O. Investigator, August/September 1957: 9,; Thayer, Gordon David. “RB-47 Radar/Visual Sighting.” In Ronald Story, ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1980: 297 – 298; “Two Planes In Near Collisions With UAO,” The A.P.R.O. Bulletin, September 1957: 3

These entries refer, for the most part to the American Airlines flights and how they crept into this case. In the last few years I have tried to make the footnotes and citations as complete as possible. Quoting a single source that is not the original source doesn’t have the credibility that a footnote that refers to the original source or that provides information on a variety of sources has.

And for those who had not been keeping score, it is clear that the Air Force explanation for the RB-47 case, that it was the American Airlines airplane does not work because the aircraft were nowhere near one another. At the time the crew of the RB-47 was reporting a visual UFO sighting, that airliner was more than four or five hundred miles away in El Paso, sitting on the ground.