Article: The Strange Case of Capt. Thomas Mantell ================================== KYGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data is freely distributed to entities as long as this message remains on all reproduced material. Commercial use of this data requires permission from the submitting author before downloading. ================================== Thomas Hembrey, thembrey@aol.com Mary Yoder, mayoder@davesworld.net Webmasters, ATHS County Coordinators, KYGenWeb Project ====== The Strange Case of Capt. Thomas Mantell By Paul Urbahns PRESIDENT, ANCESTRAL TRAILS HISTORICAL SOCIETY In this issue we examine a unique piece of Fort Knox history, which deals with the death of Captain Thomas F. Mantell, Jr. and is based on official documents, but those files were based on human interpretation of the facts. Captain Mantell was considered a "hero" according to Courier Journal newspaper reports of the day. A graduate of Louisville Male High School entered the Air Force soon after his graduation. He took part in the invasion of Normandy and numerous other missions. Mantell was one of the first flyers to cross the Cherbourg Peninsula on D-Day. he won the distinguished Flying Cross for services over Holland. Enemy fire severed the rudder and elevator controls and set fire to the tail sections while the plane was 100 miles from the target. Mantell succeeded in completing his mission and getting plane and crew home safely. Mantell separated from the Air Force about a year before the incident we are studying here and since that time had been associated with the Kentucky Air National Guard. In the little town of Maysville, Kentucky, on January 7, 1948 at approximately 1400 hours, a number of people saw a strange-looking object in the sky. Similar to the opening credits of the old Superman television show, the people looked heavenly in amazement. But unlike the television series, the witnesses could not identify what they saw. These were post World War 2 years and many people were still concerned about attack by foreign countries. Anything unusual was noted and discussed. The Kentucky State Police were called and reports were made. Meanwhile, other reports of the same craft started pouring in from a variety of locations, describing the unknown craft in similar terms: It was round, between 250 and 300 feet in diameter, metallic in color and glowing brightly. Many informants contended it was moving westward at "a pretty good clip". Members of the Kentucky State Police confirmed the sighting of an unusual aircraft or object flying through the air. This in turn was reported to the Commanding Officer, Godman Field, Fort Knox, Kentucky. The Commander in turn called the Godman Tower and ask them to have Flight Service check with Flight Test at Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) to see if they had any experimental aircraft in that area. Captain Hooper, at Flight Test Operations stated, We have no experimental aircraft in that area, however, we do have a B-29 and an A-26 on photo missions in that area."By this tiime the personnel at Godman Tower had seen the object in question and reported ..."a disc or balloon, or some strange object was seen hovering in the vicinity of Godman Field" according to the report filed by Captain Arthur T. Jehli, Shift Supervisor. The object was seen by both the Commanding Officer, Col. Guy F. Hix, and Captain Gary W. Carter, Operations Officer of Godman Field, who advised they would attempt to send aircraft to ascertain the size and shape of the object. PFC Stanley Oliver, who was on duty that afternoon in the Control Tower, stated, " I saw the object but thought I was imagining I saw it." Oliver looked again and stated, "...to me it had the resemblance of an ice cream cone topped with red." This is where the story turns into a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We will quote fairly heavily from Captain Jehli's report because it is probably the most complete chronological account of the events of that day. Additional information from other sources will continue to be inserted were necessary to fill in the gaps and will be identified as such. Captain Jehli's report continues. "At this time there was a flight of 4 P-51's enroute from Marietta Georgia to Standiford Field, Louisville, Kentucky. The lead ship was NG3869, pilot Mantell. The Commanding Officer, Godman Field contacted this pilot and requested that he investigate the object overhead." The P-51 was a propeller driven airplane commonly referred to as a "Mustang". Actually, contact was made by Tech. Sergeant Quinton A. Blackwell, another eye witness and chief operator in the Control Tower, who reported about the P-51's, "As they passed over the tower I called them on "B" channel, VHF and asked the flight leader, NG 3869, if he had enough gas and if so, would he mind trying to identify an object in the sky to the South of Godman Field. He replied in the affirmative...." By this time reports of sightings were coming in from other communities such as Irvington, Kentucky. "One of the ships in the formation NG336 pilot Hendrichs, landed at Standiford Field, the other 3 aircraft started to climb toward the object." According to the report filed by Capt. James F. Duesler,Jr., another eyewitness of the object over Godman Field, Captain Mantell "reported his position at 7,500 feet and climbing. Immediately following the Flight Leader's transmission, another member of the Flight asked "Where in the hell are we going?" In a few minutes the Flight Leader called out an object "twelve o'clock high." Asked to describe this object, he said that it was bright and that it was climbing away from him. When asked about its speed, the Flight leader stated it was going about half his speed, approximately 180 MPH." Tech Sgt. Blackwell's statement quotes the flight member's (identified as a wing man) question as," What the Hell are we looking for?" the reports agree on Mantell's reply. "At 22,000 feet pilot Hammond, NG 737, advised Clements, NG 800, that he had no oxygen equipment. Both pilots then returned to Standiford Field; pilot Mantell, NG 3869, continued climbing. Tech Sgt Blackwell's statement quoted Mantell as saying, "I'm still climbing, the object is above and ahead of me moving at about my speed or faster. I'm trying to close in for a better look." "Pilot Clements, NG800, refueled and went back up to 32,000 feet but did not see either the strange object or the aircraft NG3869 again, and so returned to Standiford Field." Starting to sound like an alien abduction, doesn't it? Well that was not to be Captain Mantell's fate that day. "At 1750 Eastern Time, Standiford Field advised that NG3869, pilot Mantell, crashed 5 miles SW of Franklin, Kentucky at approximately 1645 Central Time." Godman then notified Maxwell Flight Service Center that Mantell's plane had crashed. Maxwell Flight Service Center in turn made a long distance telephone call to Franklin, Kentucky and spoke to police officer Joe Walker. It was officer Walker that took charge at the scene of the accident. According to Captain Jehli's report, "Officer Walker stated that when he arrived the pilot's body had been removed from the aircraft. Upon questioning eye witnesses, Officer Walker learned that the aircraft had exploded in the air before it hit the ground, but, that the aircraft did not burn upon contact with the ground. The wreckage was scattered over an area of about one mile, and at that time the tail section, one wing, and the propeller had not been located." There you have the basic facts and circumstances surrounding the death of Captain Thomas Mantell, the first recorded casualty due to a UFO. Most of the information in this article comes from declassified Air Force Operation Blue Book reports. Operation Blue Book was established in 1947 (under the name Project Sign) by the government to investigate reports of unexplained phenomenon during those years of post-war nerves. Blue Book officers were stationed at every Air Force base in the nation. They were responsible for investigating all reported sightings of UFOs; to determine whether UFOs pose any security threat to the United States; and to determine if UFOs exhibit any advanced technology which the U.S. could utilize. Blue Book headquarters was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, but the bulk of the investigations was interpreted by field officers. The results of this investigation led officials to determine that most people see not extraterrestrial spacecraft, but bright stars, balloons, satellites, comets, fireballs, conventional aircraft, moving clouds, vapor trails, missiles, reflections, mirages, searchlights, birds, kites, spurious radar indications, fireworks, or flares. What was this large glowing object seen by hundreds of people "hovering over Godman Field"? Was Captain Mantell "shot down" by an alien spaceship? Were the citizens of Maysville, Irvington, Madisonville, and Owensboro, Kentucky crazy for seeing the object. What about the sanity of the Godman Field eyewitnesses? Captain Arthur T. Jehli, Shift Supervisor at Godman; Col. Guy F. Hix, Commanding Officer; Captain Gary W. Carter, Operations Officer at Godman; Captain James F. Duesler, Jr.; Tech Sergeant Quinton A. Blackwell, chief operator in the Control Tower; and PFC Stanley Oliver all gave statements as to the object they eye witnessed that day. Were these airfield professionals duped? The Courier Journal reported on January 9, 1948, "Chase for Flying Disk Blamed In Crash Death". The newspaper reported Mantell was following something described as a "star" by fellow flyers. To add more questions to the puzzle, in addition to the sighting involving Captain Mantell, the statement signed by Captain Jehli included the following: "So much for the accident - now hold on to your hat!" "Godman Tower again contacted us to report that there was a large light in the sky in the approximate position of the object seen earlier. Then Lockborne Tower and Clinton County Tower advised a great ball of light was traveling southwest across the sky....." "Later we received a call from St. Louis Tower advising that a great ball of light was passing directly over the field - Scott Tower also verified this. We then received a call from Air Defense Command through Olmstead Flight Service Center advising us to alert Coffeville, Kansas, Ft Smith, Arkansas and Kansas City, Missouri, and they plotted the object as moving WSW at 250 miles per hour." You can see the description of the second object is radically different than the object Captain Mantell was chasing. The Blue Book investigators in their final report on the Godman Field activities took information from four incidents reported on January 7, 1948 numbered 30, 33 (Godman Field); 32; 48; and considered them as one investigation. Based on their investigation, the Blue Book report states, "...all these times and bearing agree closely with the time and place of the setting of Venus. " The stellar magnitude of Venus on January 7, was - 3.4 which makes it 30 times brighter than the bright star Arcturus." Justification for this conclusion continued with three reasons: First, Venus shining through clouds could very easily give the effect of a flaming object with a tail. Second, the motion of clouds past the object (Venus) could give the illusion of rapid movement. Finally, a third though admittedly remote possibility, according to the report, is based on a rarely-observed phenomenon, is that owing to thermo-inversions in the atmosphere, stars near the horizon have been known to jump about erratically through arcs of two or three times the moon's apparent diameter. Venus, when very close to the horizon, has been known to twinkle brilliantly with rapidly oranging colors." Needless to say, the "official" government explanation that Captain Mantell lost his life chasing Venus did not set well with locals or the national interest this case caused. It was widely reported in many early UFO books as an example of a government coverup. The report of Captain Jehli stated "The Military Police at the scene of the accident called back and advised Godman Field that someone in Madisonville, Kentucky had observed, through a Finch telescope, an object described as a cone shaped , 100 feet from top to bottom, 43 feet across, and 4 miles high proceeding SW at 10 miles per hour." You may remember PFC Stanley Oliver's description from the first article in this series, that the object appeared to resemble "an ice cream cone topped with red". "St. Louis ATC advised of an article printed in the "Edward-sville Intelligencer," Edwardsville, Illinois, describing an object, over the town at 07200, of aluminum appearance without apparent wings or control surfaces which was moving southwest." Another report, apparently ignored by investigators was from Dr. Seyfert, an astronomer at Vanderbilt University that had spotted an object SSE of Nashville, Tennessee that he identified as " a pear shaped balloon with cables and a basket attached, moving first South Southeast, then West, at a speed of 10 miles per hour at 25,000 feet." Does this sound like the planet Venus to you? What the government did not acknowledge in their conclusions was that there was such an object over Godman Field on January 7th that fit that and the descriptions of other airfield professionals that witnessed that days events. Declassified at this time, we now know , almost fifty years later, about a large balloon used for high altitude experimental flights and known as "sky hooks." Sky Hook balloons fly at altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet and reach diameters of approximately 100 feet. During the period of this sighting at Godman Field, the Navy was conducting a program utilizing "sky hook" balloons. The Navy program was classified at that time. It was subsequently determined that on the date of the Godman sighting a balloon was released by the Navy from Clinton County airport in Ohio. The release time of the balloon was related to a wind plot for 7 January 1948, and it revealed that the balloon would have been in the area of Godman at the time of the sightings. It is the (Air Technical Information Command) opinion that Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to oxygen starvation, the aircraft being trimmed continued to climb until increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to level out. The aircraft then began a turn to the left due to torque and as the wing drooped so did the nose until the aircraft was in a tight diving spiral. The uncontrolled descent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to disintegrate. It is believed that Captain Mantell never regained consciousness. This is born out by the fact that the canopy lock was still in place after the crash, discounting any attempt to abandon the aircraft. The object pursued by Captain Mantell is believed to have been the "sky hook" balloon and this was probably the object seen by other eye witnesses and described as pear shaped and metallic. Numerous books are available at local public libraries on the UFO Phenomenon and contain references to the Mantell Case. Modern books as a rule do not mention it as much as older books because a satisfactory explanation has been presented for the incident. The Mantell Case was also presented on the syndicated television series, "Sightings", which is currently aired on the SCI-FI Channel. Though explained, the events almost fifty years ago at Godman Field on Fort Knox still present an interesting and unique slant on the history of our area. Captain Mantell's place in history is assured whenever the subject of UFO's is discussed. The cover drawing was by Paul Harmon, and was commissioned by Paul Urbahns for use in illustrating this history.