The year is 1955 and aside from some individual UFO sightings that though shocking seem to be isolated and not in a continuous pattern of behavior. Of course by now Project Blue Book has been reduced to no more than a PR agency of the government with major sightings being sent up the ladder to Wright Patterson Field for further serious investigation. The major players such as Captain Edward Ruppelt, Major Dewey Fournet, and Spokesman Albert Chop have all been reassigned out of sheer frustration with the US Air Force and its scientific advisors. Astrophysicist, J. Allen Hynek has remained on as the official answer man for debunking UFO sightings.

The fate of those who served

Major Fournet will go on to lecturing audiences about USAF encounters for decades to come while Albert Chop who was in the main radar room at Bolling Air Base on a crucial night of the Washington National sightings, will go on to be a spokesman for NASA, always advising the public that UFO’s were real and there was a definite cover-up. Unfortunately, for Captain Edward Ruppelt who authored the incredible book entitled “The Report on UFO’s” will be persecuted by his former employer and forced to write a second book that contradicts many of his statements. Under pressure to lose his job with the defense contractor, Ruppelt is deeply hurt and in 1960 dies suddenly of a heart attack. According to former USMC Major and author Donald Keyhoe, Ruppelt died as a result of his treatment by the US Air Force after his faithful years of service and being a former gunner on a B-17 in WWII.

The unknown comes knocking

On what seemed to be a normal evening in 1955 a strange chain of events will take place leading to the deaths and disappearances of US Air Force pilots and their aircraft. A reported meteor shower is made public when a string of bright nocturnal lights flash across the sky startling many ground observers and pilots. A number of near miss collisions are reported by commercial pilots as police switchboards fill up with calls from people reporting the weird aerial objects in the night sky. Astronomers usually anticipate these meteor showers as they occur regularly over a period of years but this so called meteor event was not anticipated and did not have a previous observable record. So who or what was it?

What aircraft were available at the time?

At the time, most ready on the line interceptors for the National Guard, domestic US Air Force and US Navy air bases were the F-86 Sabre, the F-94C Starfire, and the venerable P-51 Mustang, all subsonic. Strategic Air Command had been rolling out the F-100 Super Sabre, but most of these are relegated to international bases and patrol long distances from domestic air space. The F-8 Crusader is under testing. The F-105 Thunder Chief is under deployment, but is having teething problems while the F-101 Voodoo the fastest jet fighter in the US inventory only having been deployed since 1954 so not many are available to scramble for domestic intercepts. However, all the above mentioned models will see action on this particularly bizarre occasion.

Serious response

Reportedly the alleged train of meteors come in at high speed from over the Atlantic Ocean and over the continental US. Radar stations make contact on the east coast and begin tracking the high speed unidentified flying objects. By this time only the Pentagon and trained astronomers realize that this formation of meteors is not behaving like natural celestial bodies. A series of air bases respond by scrambling available jet fighters in a defensive posture! The Air Defense Command orders a response from several USAF bases. In the confusion of so much military air traffic ascending to high altitude in attempts to intercept the unknowns, flight designations and squadron identities become difficult to coordinate, but ADC is convinced that this is a threat situation, not a wild UFO goose chase!

Who or what

Meanwhile radars from several air bases are tracking the formation of high flying fast moving objects making a loop over the central United States over the Midwest and moving back out towards the Atlantic again, something meteors would never do! Now a number of commanders are concerned that an all-out effort to test US air defenses by the Soviet Union has been underway and pilots are instructed to,” Shoot to kill!” Now there is a very confusing swarm of US fighter jets and unknown fiery colored objects barely outdistancing their fighter jet counterparts!

Those who never returned

By now, some jets are forced to land low on fuel while others are not reporting in at all. It’s too soon to report MIA “Missing in Action” but a number of fighter jets are now unaccounted for! From Michigan south to northern Oklahoma and then trailing back toward the US Eastern Seaboard, observers on the ground report fast moving lights in the sky apparently trailing what some describe as meteoric objects. Once out over the Atlantic the unknown invaders from space increase altitude leaving US Fighter interceptors far behind. In the aftermath a number of pilots and their jet aircraft are missing. The exact number goes unknown to this day, but it was significant. UFO reports coming into police stations, newspaper switchboards, and even US military bases are noted and logged. Crashed military aircraft are either expunged from official reports or simply unreported on that fateful night though missing pilots and their machines are confirmed.

Undisclosed

When one considers that in 1952 Lieutenant William Patterson who reported being surrounded by UFO’s over the nation’s Capital and asked the radar control room what should he do, then was debriefed shortly after landing, to this day his interview by his superiors has never been published or been revealed. So, is it not surprising that details of this mystery pursuit in 1955 are sketchy at best? In the book, “Shoot Them Down” by Frank C. Feschino Jr. writes about this mysterious encounter that at the time of the “Cold War” paranoia, the US military being on unusual alert for it being during peace time. Still, indications of loss of life, missing personnel, and vanishing aircraft all result from the pursuits as evidenced.

What corroborating evidence do we have prior to this unholy night in 1955?

• Captain Mantell dies in the pursuit of a UFO over Godman Airfield in 1948.
• Lieutenant Felix Moncla and WIZZO Robert Wilson disappear over Soo Locks in 1954 in an attempted UFO intercept in stormy night weather.
• July 1, 1954 Griffiss Air Base apparently scrambles an F-94 fighter jet to investigate a UFO upon sighting the unknown there is controversy over what happened next. Some accounts say the aircrew barely escaped a mid-air collision with the UFO but their cockpit was filled with a wave of terrible heat forcing them to eject, and when they did both pilots looked on in horror as their aircraft went down into the City of Walesville, in a fiery crash that killed 5 people as it smashed into a house.