{"it":{"id":"UFO-CW1948","name":"Chiles–Whitted encounter","kind":"ufo","sub":"Historical sighting","place":"Near Montgomery, Alabama, USA","lat":32.4,"lon":-86.3,"date":"1948-07-24","rep":"Clarence Chiles and John Whitted described windows and flame along a wingless body.","off":"Hynek, Menzel and Blue Book: a bright fireball or meteor.","src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"},{"t":"AARO, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Vol. 1 (Mar 2024)","u":"https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF"}],"tags":["Sightings"],"sum":"At about 2:45 in the morning on 24 July 1948, an Eastern Airlines DC-3 flying from Houston to Atlanta was 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, when the captain, Clarence S. Chiles, saw a light dead ahead and closing fast. He swung the plane into a tight left turn. His co-pilot, John B. Whitted, looked back as the object climbed steeply away.\n\nBoth men described a wingless body like a B-29 fuselage, with a 'deep blue glow' beneath, 'two rows of windows' lit from inside and a '50-foot trail of orange-red flame'. These details come from Edward Ruppelt, later head of Project Blue Book, in his 1956 book. He adds that a crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia saw a bright light pass overhead that night, and that another report came from a pilot near the Virginia-North Carolina state line.\n\nWhat is hard to explain is how two trained pilots could agree on windows and a hull in a few seconds of darkness. The only passenger looking out saw just a 'streak of light'.\n\nRuppelt writes that this report pushed Project Sign staff to draft an estimate that the objects were interplanetary. The Condon Report of 1968 records the same sighting and the two similar reports, but treats the interplanetary estimate as unproven: the evidence, it says, was 'then, as now, inadequate'. Neither source settles what the light was.\n\nThe open question is whether a few seconds of light at night can ever carry the detail witnesses give it.","nsrc":2,"new":1,"qs":["Two airline pilots described windows along a wingless body. Can a meteor look that structured, or did they see something built?","This case reportedly triggered a secret estimate that UFOs might be interplanetary, and no copy survives. Destroyed, buried, or never real?","Blue Book only formally named a meteor in 1959, eleven years later. Why does it take so long to explain the hard cases?"],"yt":"Check meteor-shower records for that date.","rel":["UFO-MAN1948"],"hook":"Two airline pilots said a lit, wingless shape shot past their DC-3 at 2:45 a.m. in July 1948.","why":"One of the founding sightings of the flying-saucer era, and the case that pushed the Air Force's first study toward its boldest conclusion."},"S":{},"rec":{"id":"UFO-CW1948","qs":["Two pilots described windows; the passenger saw only a streak of light. Whose account should carry more weight?","Ruppelt says the case shook Air Force investigators. Why would one sighting matter so much in 1948?","Could a bright meteor seen head-on produce the shape the pilots described?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1948-07-9670642-20Mi-SofMontgomery-Ala--144-.pdf/page1-1280px-Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1948-07-9670642-20Mi-SofMontgomery-Ala--144-.pdf.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1948-07-9670642-20Mi-SofMontgomery-Ala--144-.pdf","title":"Project Blue Book report - 1948-07-9670642-20Mi-SofMontgomery-Ala--144-.pdf","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Project Blue Book","cap":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Chiles–Whitted encounter","alt":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Chiles–Whitted encounter"}],"ms":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"},{"t":"AARO, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Vol. 1 (Mar 2024)","u":"https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF"},{"id":"VUFO-CW1948-3","t":"Ruppelt 1956, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (Project Gutenberg text)","u":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17346/pg17346.txt"},{"id":"VUFO-CW1948-4","t":"Condon Report (1968), Section V, Chapter 2: History of UFO investigation (NCAS copy)","u":"https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm"}],"pts":[{"p":"Eastern Air Lines DC-3 at about 5,000 ft near Montgomery; two pilots saw a torpedo-like object.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"},{"p":"Blue Book later called it a meteor (1959).","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"},{"p":"Project Sign's \"Estimate of the Situation\" reportedly drew on this case; Vandenberg rejected the Estimate in Oct 1948.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"},{"p":"In 1959 Project Blue Book formally named a meteor as the cause.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles-Whitted_UFO_encounter"}]},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/h/UFO-CW1948.webp","w":1280,"hh":1600,"alt":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Chiles–Whitted encounter","by":"Project Blue Book","lic":"Public domain","lu":"","p":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1948-07-9670642-20Mi-SofMontgomery-Ala--144-.pdf","g":false,"ct":false,"cap":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Chiles–Whitted encounter","sec":[]},"hh":null,"hs":{}}