On 30 December 1947, a letter from Major General L C Craigie (Chief of Staff) to the Commanding General of the Air Materiel Command directed the setting up a project to collect, collate, evaluate and distribute information concerning UFOs. The letter gave this project the code name, Project Sign, and assigned a priority 2-A.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 7 January 1948, Captain Thomas F Mantell Jr (Air National Guard F-51 Mustang fighter pilot) dies during attempted intercept near Godman Air Force Base (near Fort Knox), Kentucky.

 

Claims to fame

This incident is Case 6 in Isaac Koi's "Top 100" article, since it was referred to in 179 of the books covered by that article.

 

 

Isaac Koi’s “ICES” Rating for this sighting = 5,824 (out of a potential score of 14*14*14*14 i.e. 38,416)

(1) “Impact” Rating of 14 (out of a potential score of 14), because it is Case 6 in Isaac Koi's "Top 100" article.

(2) “Credibility” Rating of 13 (out of a potential score of 14) because an object was reported by several people and Mantell died while attempting to chase it. The debate has centered on what he was actually attempting to chase.

 

(2) “Expert” Rating of 8 (out of a potential score of 14). It is given this slightly above neutral rating because while (at the time of writing) it has not been included in any of the short lists of the best cases produced by various UFO researchers that have been compiled by Isaac Koi (see the “Best UFO Cases" article at PART 3: Existing lists by various individuals) this incident did come fifth in a survey in 1965 by Jacques Vallee of the opinion of various UFO groups as to the most significant UFO sightings..

 

(4)“Strangeness” Rating of 4 (out of a potential score of 14). The sighting has a relatively low strangeness rating since there is relatively limited evidence to be explained as to the nature of the object in the sky. That evidence is largely consistent with a large balloon.

 

 

Sections below:

1. Web Resources

2. Book References

3. Other material

 

 

 

 

During 1948, “Fate” magazine was started by Raymond Palmer and Curtis Fuller.

 

 

 

 

 

On 22 January 1948, Project Sign (publicly known as “Project Saucer”) officially began operations.