Alien Base: The Evidence for Extraterrestrial Colonization of Earth: AERIAL ENCOUNTERS
The distinguished British astronomer, Dr H. Percy Wilkins, was on a lecture tour of the United States on 11 June 1954 when he caught sight of two strange aerial objects from the window at his seat on a Convair airliner flying from Charleston, West Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia. The incident occurred at 10.45. 11 June 1954.
. . . my attention was caught by two brilliant, oval, sharp-edged objects apparently suspended or hovering above the tops of two particularly lofty cumulus masses of cloud, the sides of which were shadowed and at an estimated distance of two miles. These two objects were of a yellow colour like polished brass or gold, and, quite apart from their colour, were very much brighter than the sunlit clouds on the other side of the aircraft. They looked like metal plates reflecting the sunlight, and were in slow motion northwards.
Suddenly a third and precisely similar oval object was seen against the shadowed side of the cloud, but this object was dull and greyish, presumably because it was not in the sunshine. While the two brilliant objects continued their slow motion, the third one began to move with accelerated velocity; it described a curve, and vanished behind another and nearer cloud mass. The whole display was visible for nearly two minutes, but the grey object completed its rapid motion in less than five seconds after it began to move.
On landing in Atlanta, Dr Wilkins told reporters that he had seen three flying saucers, whose diameter he estimated at about 50 feet.
‘One thing is certain,’ he wrote, ‘if they are solid objects, capable of moving in any desired direction and at any desired speed, then they must have been devised, and are operated and controlled, by intelligences superior to man.’
Less than three weeks later, at midday on 1 July 1954, Griffiss Air Force Base in New York State picked up a radar return from a craft approaching the base.
No aircraft should have been in the area. A Lockheed F-94 Starfire all-weather interceptor was scrambled and vectored to the unknown target by the ground control intercept (GCI) controller. The radar intercept operator in the rear seat kept his eyes on the ‘blip’ on his own radarscope.
Within minutes of take-off, the pilot observed the UFO visually: a shining, disc-shaped object hovering several thousand feet above the F-94. Opening the throttle, the pilot headed for the target as the radar officer radioed the unknown craft for its identification. Suddenly, the jet’s engine cut out. As journalist Frank Edwards dramatically described the scene:
. . . at that instant the cockpit of the plane became a veritable hell-hole. The pilot noted that the instruments showed no fire — but he told fellow airmen later that it was like a blast from a blowtorch right in his face. He started to report to Base but realized that he did not have time . . . instead, he yelled at the radarman to bail out. A few seconds later he felt the thump as the other man left the stricken jet. Half blinded and gasping, the pilot blew himself out of the jet and got a fleeting glimpse of the UFO as he went out on his back.
The thing was huge and circular . . .
Both pilot and radar operator parachuted safely, landing near Walesville, New York. Unfortunately, their jet crashed into an automobile and two houses, killing two adults and their two children, and injuring a few others.
At variance with these accounts is the Air Force version, which states that the incident actually took place on 2 July. There were reports which the Air Force received on 1 July of a UFO having the appearance of a balloon. On the following day an F-94C on a routine training mission was sent to investigate an unknown aircraft at 10,000 feet (which was identified)and another unknown aircraft apparently coming in to land at Griffiss AFB. At this point, ‘the cockpit temperature increased abruptly . . . the fire warning light was on [and] both crew members ejected successfully’. There is no mention of a UFO, as such, in this instance.
Major Donald Keyhoe claimed that the dazed pilot spoke briefly to a reporter who had arrived on the scene, but Air Force officials turned up before he could tell the whole story, and further interviews were prohibited. The incident was classified ‘Secret‘. Both Keyhoe and Edwards remained convinced that the incident occurred as it was described to them by their sources