Alien Base: The Evidence for Extraterrestrial Colonization of Earth: From the Benign to the Bristly
We have stacks of reports of flying saucers. We have to take them seriously when you consider we have lost many men and planes trying to intercept them.
Thus stated General Benjamin Chidlaw, Commanding General of Air Defense Command, in conversation with researcher Robert Gardner in 1953.
In previous books I have alluded to some disturbing cases involving missing aircraft and pilots, including one which took place in the vicinity of Soo Locks, Michigan, on 23 November 1953, when an F-89C Scorpion jet was scrambled to intercept an unknown target, confirmed on radar by an Air Defense Command ground-control intercept (GCI) controller. As the interceptor approached the target, the two blips, of the F-89 and the UFO on the GCI radarscope merged into one, as if they had collided. For a moment a single blip remained on the scope but then disappeared. No trace of wreckage or the missing crew was ever found.
In the previous chapter, I cited the claim by George Adamski that he had been consulted in 1956 by the Air Force regarding a jet which had landed by itself— minus pilots. While researching material for this book, I came across an equally outlandish story, from a reputable source, which in some respects compares well with both of the cases cited above.
On an unspecified date in June 1953, Sergeant Clarence O. Dargie was working in the operations centre at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, when radar detected a UFO, and a jet was scrambled to intercept. As the plane levelled off at 1,500 feet, all systems on the aircraft suddenly failed. ‘That was nearly impossible,’ said Dargie, ‘because each system [with the exception of the engine(s)] had a separate power source. If one source stopped working, the rest would continue to operate. But for some strange reason, all the systems were out.’
As the plane started to nose-dive, the pilot ordered his navigator to eject.
Normal procedure in such a situation was for the navigator to pull the first lever which ejected the canopy and then a second lever for his seat ejection. On hearing the second ejection explosion, the pilot would then pull his own lever to eject himself from the cockpit. Because a crash was imminent, the pilot ejected after he heard the first explosion, taking a risk of colliding with the navigator. In this case, when the pilot ejected and landed in the back yard of a Cape Cod resident some moments later, no trace of either the aircraft or the navigator was found. The resident, said Dargie, did not report hearing any crash or even seeing a jet. ‘After three months of intensive search the government never did find any trace of the plane or the navigator,’ Dargie claimed. ‘If the plane had crashed there would have been an explosion. There was none, not a trace of it at all. Both the UFO and plane disappeared from the radar scope.