Friday, December 21, 2018

History Channel, Project Blue Book and Chiles and Whitted


Our pals over at History (which used to be the History Channel) have decided to take on Project Blue Book in a series that is based on those files. This is, of course, the second series to do that. Back in the 1970s, Jack Webb created Project UFO which was based, loosely, on the Project Blue Book files. I have said in the past
The two stars of Project UFO.
that we owed Webb a bit of recognition because he paid to have the Blue Book files converted to microfilm, which allowed us to see what had been hidden there for so long, but I digress.

In a story that I stumbled across dated August 16, 2018, written by Greg Dauherty, is the tale of Clarence Chiles and John Whitted, who saw a “cigar-shaped” object flash by their aircraft. There really isn’t much with which to disagree here. Dauherty lays out the facts without a lot of hyperbole. I might disagree with some of his adjectives, but I can’t really fault the reporting. He does touch all the bases. You can read his story here:


What inspired this was his last line. He wrote, “No wonder the Chiles-Whitted case continues to baffle and intrigue, even 70 years later.”

This is where we disagree. I don’t believe the case continues to baffle and intrigue. I believe it was solved and that J. Allen Hynek was correct in his analysis. Rather that repeat myself here, I’ll just suggest that you take a look at some of the earlier postings about the case on this blog. You can find them here:


and here


and here


For those who are dispassionate, it seems that the bolide explanation is the correct one. The reentry of the Zond IV in March 1968 is strong evidence of that. While the case was interesting and unidentified for years, we have a solid explanation for it now.

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