investigation team, was that it was a jet, but in an instant he
realized that even a jet couldn't close as fast as this light was
closing. Chiles said he reached over, gave Whitted, the other pilot,
a quick tap on the arm, and pointed. The UFO was now almost on top of
them. Chiles racked the DC-3 into a tight left turn. Just as the UFO
flashed by about 700 feet to the right, the DC-3 hit turbulent air.
Whitted looked back just as the UFO pulled up in a steep climb.

Both the pilots had gotten a good look at the UFO and were able to
give a good description to the Air Force intelligence people. It was
a B-29 fuselage. The underside had a "deep blue glow." There were
"two rows of windows from which bright lights glowed," and a "50-foot
trail of orange-red flame" shot out the back.

Only one passenger was looking out of the window at the time. The
ATIC investigators talked to him. He said he saw a "strange, eerie
streak of light, very intense," but that was all, no details. He said
that it all happened before he could adjust his eyes to the darkness.

Minutes later a crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Macon,
Georgia, reported seeing an extremely bright light pass overhead,
traveling at a high speed. A few days later another report from the
night of July 24 came in. A pilot, flying near the Virginia-North
Carolina state line, reported that he had seen a "bright shooting
star" in the direction of Montgomery, Alabama, at about the exact
time the Eastern Airlines DC-3 was "buzzed."

According to the old timers at ATIC, this report shook them worse
than the Mantell Incident. This was the first time two reliable
sources had been really close enough to anything resembling a UFO to