Exploring the Mantell UFO incident: A close Encounter with the unknown

January 7, 1948, was a tragic day for Captain Thomas F. Smith of the Kentucky Air National Guard. Mantell and his family, friends, and fellow soldiers. The Mantell case will forever remain an important part of the history of UFO reports of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He had the misfortune to be the first person to give up his life in the never-ending pursuit of the elusive truth behind reports of flying ships from other worlds.

He'd given everything he had to get to this mysterious, intelligently controlled metal ship, but whatever it was, and whoever was driving it, he'd gotten away with it the day Thomas Mantell died.

On that fateful day, Mantell was piloting an F-51 en route to Standiford Air Force Base in Kentucky.

He was accompanied by three more planes. At approximately 1:30 p.m., the 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 view expanded to cover Irvington and Owensboro.

This was a large metal flying machine and it 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 was slowly moving south.

A little more than an hour after the first reports, Mantell's team was asked to investigate the anomalous object.

- Godman Tower calls for four planes heading north over Godman Field.

- Copy that, Godman's Tower." This is the 869 National Guard, flight commander.

- The 869 National Guard from Godman Tower.  We have an object south of Godman that we can't identify, and we'd like to know if you have enough fuel; and if so, could you look for it if you want.

- Roger, I've got some gas, and I'll look for the target if you'll point me in the right direction.

Conversation

One of his three satellites in flight was given permission to continue with a pre-assigned flight plan, while Mantell and the remaining two aircraft headed to the coordinates of the visual observations of the UFO. Mantell was the first to reach an altitude of 4.5 km, and when he reached this position, he radioed the following message to the control tower.

The object is now directly in front of me and above my head, moving at about half my speed... It appears to be a metal object, the sun is reflected off the metal object, and it is of enormous size... I'm still climbing... I try to get a closer look at him.

Mantell

5400, 6000, 6700 meters of altitude! too high for the fighters of the Second world war without oxygen! The other two planes turned back, leaving Mantell alone to pursue the giant object. Apparently, Mantell lost consciousness from lack of oxygen at an altitude of about 9,000 meters, at least, his plane leveled off at this altitude, and then seemed to stop in the air and fell flat to the ground. It crashed on the farm of William J. Phillips near Franklin, Kentucky.

Mantell's watch stopped at 3:16 p.m. and his body was still strapped into the plane that became his coffin. He spent 45 minutes in a mad flight into the realm of the unknown. By 15:50, 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: "Pilot dies chasing flying saucer," and another story was headlined: "Plane explodes over Kentucky as strange object reported."

Widespread speculation that Mantell was chasing UFOs was refuted by the Air Force, which initially tried to hide the truth and claimed that Mantell and his flight were chasing the Venus planet. They also announced that his death was directly related to oxygen starvation.

This almost comical conclusion was quickly refuted by an eyewitness, Glen Mace, who lived near Franklin. Mace flatly stated that Mantell's plane had exploded in midair.

The plane circled three times as if the pilot didn't know where it was going

Mace reported, and then began to fall.

About halfway down, there was a terrible explosion.

There is also the testimony of the commander of the Goodman base Guy F. Hicks, who told reporters that he had been watching the UFO for almost an hour with binoculars. He wouldn't have confused what he saw with the Venus.

Miller, who was stationed at the Scott Air Force Base Operations Center in Belleville, Illinois, also made several statements regarding the crash. He had been following the radio communications between Mantell and Godman Tower, and had heard this statement very clearly.

"My God, I can see people in this thing!"

Miller added that in a briefing the morning after the crash, investigators said Mantell died "while pursuing a reasonably controlled unidentified flying object."

In conclusion, Miller made this statement...  That evening, officers from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Technical Intelligence Center from AFB arrived and ordered all personnel to hand over any material relevant to the crash. Then, after we handed them over, they said they had already completed the investigation.

I was no longer a skeptic. Until then, I was. I saw it. I saw how it was. I saw a UFO. Now I wondered why the government had to hide it so carefully from the press and the public.

Miller

The plane circled three times as if the pilot didn't know where it was going

More information has emerged in recent years. Captain James F. Duesler, who was one of several military officers at Godman, was retired and lived in England. In 1997, he claimed that he and several other officers had actually seen a giant UFO hovering over Godman Field that day.

Deusler, who was the pilot and researcher of the crash, said: "The UFO was a strange, grey-looking object that looked like a rotating inverted ice cream cone."

Shortly after the disaster, Duesler visited the site and made the following observations:

The wings and tail section broke off when they hit the ground and were at a short distance from the plane.

The surrounding trees were not damaged, and it was obvious that there was no forward or sideways movement during the crash. He just seemed to" belly-flop " into the clearing. There was very little damage to the fuselage, which was intact, and no traces of blood in the cockpit.

There were no scratches on the fuselage body indicating any forward movement, and the propeller blade had no characteristic scratches to show that it was rotating at the time of impact, and one blade was sunk into the ground.

The nature of the damage did not correspond to the aircraft of this type, which crashed at high speed into the ground.

Due to the large engine in the nose of the aircraft, it had to drop nose first and hit the ground at an angle.

Even if he managed to slip inside, he would still cut a path through the trees and a channel in the ground. None of these signs were visible. Everything pointed to the fact that he had just plopped down on his stomach in the clearing. I must admit, I found it very strange

he recalled.

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, confused 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 through the sky at an incredible speed, and on February 1, a large metal UFO was seen emitting an orange light near the Ground in Circleville, Ohio.

Whatever happened on the day Thomas Mantell crashed his plane, it's pretty clear that it wasn't a weather balloon, or Venus, or any other planet.

It was an alien from another planet or another dimension...

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About author:

Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me

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Mantell  UFO incident  1948  Kentucky  Mansville  UFO  UFOs  UFO attack