The UFO Over Kentucky - For Real?

The UFO Over Kentucky - For Real? - Colonel Guy Frost Hix, during his years serving in the U. S. military, experienced many different and unusual events. None can compare to the afternoon events of Wednesday, January 7, 1948 as the Commanding Officer of Godman Army Air Field at Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

The first sightings of something strange in the sky came from citizens in the area who contacted the Kentucky State Police, who the contacted at 1:45 p.m. the nearby military police at the Army Air Field in Ft. Knox. At 1:45 p.m. a call from the police reaches Col. Hix's office, that information relayed to the flight tower, where two soldiers (Army Sgt. Quinton Blackwell and PFC Stanley Oliver) confirmed an unknown object on the radar. It was Sgt. Blackwell using binoculars scanned the sky for this object. Looking towards the south, he saw a silvery saucer with a small dome on top flying slowly past the airfield. The sighting was confirmed by PFC Oliver.

Commanding Officer Colonel Guy F. Hix was requested to come to the tower immediately. It was now 2:20 p.m. The men knew they were seeing a slow rotating object in the sky. It appeared whitish in color, round with a red glowing light on the underside. The Colonel phoned flight testing at Wright-Patterson Field to see if there were any experimental aircraft in the area. There were none.

With the excitement in the tower, Capt. Thomas F. Mantell was just flying over the military base, all part of his routine squadron flight of four F-51 Mustang fighter planes from Georgia to Kentucky. Mantell as flight commander was requesting permission to land at Godman Field. On hearing Mantell and his squadron were already up in the air, Col. Hix ordered Mantell to remain in the air and to look for an unidentified flying object in the southern skies.

Mantell climbed in attitude and radios the rest of the squadron fliers, "New mission, gentlemen. Observation and report. This won't take too long."

Five minutes later while climbing into the skies, Capt. Mantell reported back to Col. Hix that he did have a visual sighting of an unidentified flying object. Messages were being relied between Mantell and the tower. In a few minutes, the pilot states, "It's ahead and above me ... still climbing." One of the squadron's plane reported they were low on fuel and headed back to base. The rest of the F-51 Mustang planes were in pursuit as ordered.

Col. Guy Hix learned later, his wife, had been driving in the vicinity of the Fort Knox at the same moment and had also seen this unidentified flying object.

By 3 p.m. the squadron reached 15,000 feet in altitude and with no oxygen equipment on the planes, another pilot was forced to break away and return to a lower altitude for safety measures. In Capt. Mantell's next message he started describing the UFO, "It appears metallic and of tremendous size." He was a very experienced pilot and knew what he was doing and familiar with what might be flying in the sky.

Fifteen minutes later, Mantell tells the tower, "It's still climbing ... object is above and ahead about my speed (345 mph) or faster ... I'm trying to close in for a better look." There was no ammunition on any of the planes, so nothing could be fired at the UFO. Mantell had positioned himself just behind and slightly below this object he was chasing.

At 20,000 feet, the only other plane besides Mantell's had to drop out due to oxygen problems. Mantell remained tailing the UFO as he approached the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. The next message from Mantell to the tower said, "It appears like the reflection of sunlight on a canopy."

Now it was 3:30 p.m. and the tower lost all radio contact with Mantell, there was only silence. Col. Hix and the others were continuing their messages out to Mantell with nothing visible on the radar screen.

Approximately at 3:45 p.m. in Franklin, Kentucky, at a small family farm, the lady of the house heard a tremendous crash outside. Just 200 yards from her home was the smashed U. S. plane piloted by Capt. Thomas Mantell. This location was some 130 miles from Godman Field. Some witnesses on the ground saw an explosion in the sky before the plane finally crashed.

The official Army Air Force verdict on what caused the death of Capt. Thomas F. Mantell was listed as pilot error. He was flying too high in altitude without proper oxygen equipment.

Since 1948, there has remained speculation of what really happened that day. The question, first, did the seven men in the tower at Godman Field really see a UFO, second, did Commanding Officer Hix see this same UFO enough to authorized a full squadron to chase it?

Col. Guy Hix had served in the U. S. Army Air Corp from 1935 to 1954. That day in the Godman Field tower, he personally had viewed the UFO with the naked eye and using very powerful binoculars for over a half hour. He was familiar with what weather balloons, aircraft, missiles and even other planets looked like in the sky. He nor Capt. Mantell were not confusing those known objects with something alien.

No adequate and accepted explanation for what was seen by the military men in the tower, Mrs. Hix, the Kentucky State Police, citizens on the ground or Capt. Thomas Mantell has ever been offered. Over 61 years later, we are no closer to the actual facts ... however could all those experienced military men be so wrong?

Sources:

http://www.ufocasebook.com/Mantell.html

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread325282/pg1

http://www.ufoer.net/thread-2722-1-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident