On January 7, 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a pilot in the Kentucky Air National Guard, died in a plane crash. He was flying his P-51 Mustang around Franklin after being sent out to look for an unidentified aircraft. This event became one of the first incidents of the most publicized UFO-related events in the United States.
One of the most famous UFO cases in the United States was the accident that happened to Captain Mantell while chasing a UFO.
Captain Mantell’s accident in 1948 is believed to have occurred and is recorded in an old film.
Captain Mantell’s accident
On January 7, 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a pilot in the Kentucky Air National Guard, died in a plane crash. He was flying his P-51 Mustang around Franklin after being sent out to look for an unidentified aircraft.
This event became one of the first incidents of the most publicized UFO-related events in the United States.
Additional investigations by the US Air Force’s Project Blue Book indicated that Mantell may have been killed while pursuing Globo Skyhook, which in 1948 was a secret project of which he did not know.
The captain chased the UFO up a steep slope and ignored warning signals to level out. His altitude reached the point where he passed out due to lack of oxygen. His plane went into a downward spiral and crashed.
In 1956, Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the original leader of Project Blue Book, described the Mantell accident as one of 3 “classic” UFO incidents in 1948.
UFO cases
This helped establish the phenomenon in the public mind and also convinced some intelligence experts that these events were a true aerial phenomenon.
Somewhere in the archives of the Air Force or the Navy there are records confirming that on January 7, 1948, regardless of whether it was launched from Clinton County Air Force Base, Ohio.
However, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt was never able to find these records.
The people who worked on the first air hook designs “remember” working at the Clinton County Air Force Base in 1947. However, they refuse to be limited to one flight on January 7th.
This case continues to cause controversy in the US Air Force, as some experts claim that there is footage of the incident. However, Captain Ruppelt’s words about the absence of records completely contradict this reality. What actually happened to Thomas F. Mantell in 1948?
VIDEO: The Captain THOMAS MANTELL UFO Incident