Script  

What flew past a DC-3 passenger plane on July 24, 1948, over Alabama, and why did the Air Force destroy the evidence?

An extraordinary event occurred in the air over Alabama at 2:45 a.m. on July 24, 1948. The UFO that flew by the DC-3 shocked some witnesses and stymied others. However, it jolted the U.S. government into completing a top-secret investigation, only to destroy the evidence later.

This is My Dark Path.

In the quiet hours before dawn, under a luminous moonlit sky, pilots Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitted flew their Eastern Air Lines DC-3 through calm air at 5,000 feet. They were flying a route from Houston to Atlanta. The cabin was entirely silent at the time, with 19 of the 20 passengers aboard sleeping. This flight was just one of numerous routine journeys traversing the skies at that early hour. 

The UFO would shatter the monotony as the flight passed about 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, as an astonishing UFO burst into view of the two pilots. What they witnessed would be cited by a highly classified Air Force document that proposed some UFOs might be extraterrestrial. Join me to learn more about the Chiles-Whitted Incident, a pivotal moment in UFO history.

Hi, I'm MF Thomas, and welcome to My Dark Path, where I explore the fringes of history, science, and the paranormal. So, if you geek out over these subjects, you’re among friends here at My Dark Path. I hope you’ll check us out on X, YouTube, and Instagram; sign up for our newsletter at mydarkpath.com. We also want to thank our growing group of Patreon supporters. Check out our Patreon, where subscribers will have access to exclusive full episodes starting with our special miniseries, a My Dark Path tour of history, science, and the paranormal in Cold War Moscow that we're calling "Secrets of the Soviets."  If you're interested, head to our website and become one of our Patreon supporters.

Finally, thank you for listening and choosing to walk the Dark Paths of the world with me. Let’s get started with episode 63, the Chiles Whitted UFO encounter.

Part 1

At 2:45 am on July 24, 1948, Chiles and Whitted were awake and flying their DC3, a twin-propeller plane that was the workhorse of the U.S. civil aviation fleet at the time. While the DC3 could be pressurized and flown at a service ceiling of just over 23,000 feet, this evening, they were flying at approximately 5,000 feet near Montgomery, Alabama. Both pilots were U.S. Army Air Force veterans with extensive flying experience. Chiles had over 8,500 flight hours, and Whitted had a similar number. 

Their DC-3 was a revolutionary aircraft. The model first flew in December 1935. It was developed at the request of American Airlines, which wanted a plane capable of offering sleeper seats that could replace the earlier DC-2. The aircraft's design incorporated advanced features for its time, such as retractable landing gear and a streamlined metal fuselage.

One of the DC-3's most revolutionary aspects was its efficiency. It could seat up to 32 passengers and cruise around 207 miles per hour, making it considerably faster and larger than the DC-2.

During World War II, the US   created a military version of the DC-3, the C-47. Over 10,000 were built and used to transport troops, medical supplies, and equipment.

While a rudimentary autopilot system was installed on some DC3s, if it existed on this aircraft, it would have only allowed for basic stabilization and control and was not a hands-off autopilot system used in today’s aircraft. So, even though it was early in the morning after a long day of flying, the two pilots needed to be awake.

Although the sky above them was relatively clear of clouds, they were trying to decide where to fly through a line of thunderstorms that formed along a cold front. Against this squall line, the pilots first saw the object that would change their lives and become a famous UFO case. 

The object broke into view, traveling at an extraordinary speed. At first, the object flew so fast that it made Chiles and Whitted think it was a jet. Their own DC3 had a cruising speed of 180 miles per hour. At this time, jets had not yet entered passenger service and were limited to military applications. The first passenger jet wouldn't fly for another year. 

A trail of glowing exhaust from the UFO also seized their attention. Within seconds, they realized it was flying toward them and at almost their flight level. But the speed of the sighting, lasting about 10 seconds, prevented them from reacting and flying the plane away from the object. Fortunately, the object passed off their starboard. They would later disagree on the exact distance between their aircraft and the object, but it was between 1,000 and several thousand feet. It was a near miss by any measure.

After this incredible event, the two sat in stunned silence. Chiles recalled that almost 5 minutes passed before either spoke.

After regaining their composure, Whitted recalled asking Captain Chiles what they had just seen and that Chiles had responded that he didn't know. Whitted recalled what happened next: “Captain Chiles then contacted the company radio operation at Columbus Georgia and asked him to contact Lawson Field at Fort Benning Georgia and find out if the Army had any jet or experimental planes in the vicinity. The company operator called us back a few minutes later and stated that Lawson Field reported they had no planes in our area. Captain Chiles then reported back to the company radio operation saying that a strange aircraft had just passed us and it looked like some type of rocket ship.”

With the radio calls complete, they continued to discuss their experience.  Neither jumped to any conclusions but both had the strong impression that the object was under control, not a natural event or meteor.  Indeed, they were emphatic that they had seen something mechanical, but something extraordinary for they saw no wings or tail section.

One is quoted as saying, "It was a man-made thing, all right."  They were also sure it was not a meteor or a comet, as they had seen them before while flying.

After the radio call and discussion, one of the pilots left the cockpit to check on the passengers.  All were still asleep but one: Clarence L McKelvie from Columbus, Ohio was awake. When Project Sign staff debriefed him later, he recalled, "The pilots seemed quite excited, and they appeared nervous over the episode.”

McKelvie was occupying the seat on the right window 5 or 6 rows back. He couldn't sleep during the flight and periodically glanced out the window. A full moon illuminated the night, casting clear light on the skies and the landscape below. While looking through the window, he saw an abrupt, brilliant streak of light cutting across the sky in a southeastern direction above the plane. Initially mistaking it for lightning, he realized its motion was linear, starkly different from the erratic path of lightning flares. The light shone in a bright cherry red hue, with edges that seemed to burn into a yellow flame. Curious, he pressed against the window for a better view, seeing the UFO maintain its trajectory. He estimated that it was about 2,000 feet above the plane. He saw no physical shape as the object passed so quickly that he had no time for detailed observation. He stated that the plane's vibration was much more significant than usual and that it was impossible to listen to any sound from the outside.

With the airline and ground control alerted, they commenced their landing procedures and their Eastern airlines DC-3 arrived safely in Atlanta at 3:49 am.

Part 2

Exhausted, Chiles & Whitted left the airport and checked into Atlanta’s Henry Grady Hotel but still found sleeping difficult.  But the next day, they had little opportunity for reflection.  News of their sighting had already reached radio and newspapers.  That very morning, Atlanta's WCON radio station tracked them down and interviewed the pilots. And the following day, the Atlanta Constitution newspaper announced the event with the front-page headline "Atlanta Pilots Report Wingless Sky Monster ."  With that, the sensational story quickly spread, with other newspapers across the country echoing the startling headline.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the esteemed Gen. George C. Kenney, Chief of the Strategic Air Command, was prodded for his thoughts. With a twinkle in his eye, he cautiously assured that it was not one of his aircraft, adding wistfully, “I wish we did have something like that; I sure would have liked to see that thing.'”

William M. Allen, President of Boeing Aircraft Co. in Seattle, also chimed in, modestly distancing his company from the mysterious object: “I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of our planes.”

Despite the preening of government and industry figures, when the news reached Major General Cabell, Director of Intelligence at Wright Patterson airbase he immediately dispatched a team of investigators to Atlanta.  Major Llewellyn, a Project SIGN officer, was asked to lead the investigation.  Project Sign was the first USAF research group dedicated to investigating UFOs and the forerunner of Project Grudge in 1949 and Project Blue Book in 1952. Others sent to Atlanta to help with the investigation included Mr. Deyermond, Technical Assistant; Mr. Loedding, Assistant Deputy for the Technical Analysis Division; and Capt. Groseclose, Security Officer.  

When this Air Force team arrived in Atlanta, they proceeded to the Grady Hotel and arranged to question the two pilots. Llewellyn also tried interviewing passenger McKelvie but didn't catch up with him until July 31.  

Starting the interviews, the Project Sign officers first separated the two pilots.  I’ve been looking for the date when the Project Sign officers conducted the interviews but haven’t found it.  But either way, had Chiles and Whitted want ed to get their story straight, they would have had ample opportunity to do so. 

Here’s what the Llewellyn and his team uncovered.  Both pilots observed many of the same features of the UFO. The object had a distinctive nose. A blueish light glowed along the underside of the object from the nose to the tail. From its tail, the UFO emitted an orange-red exhaust. Both felt that the length of the visible exhaust was about the same length as the object itself.

Both agreed that the length was about that of a B-29 super fortress bomber, about 99 feet long, but that its diameter at the center point was about 2 to 3 times the thickness of the B-29, or about 27 feet in width. 

As part of their interviews, Lewellyn asked each pilot to sketch independently the object he had witnessed. Using hotel stationery, they each completed a sketch.

Captain Chiles thought he had the object in view for about 10 seconds, and it passed their plane and disappeared. In his official statement, he said: “It was clear there were no wings present, that it was powered by some jet or other type of power, shooting flame from the rear some 50 feet. There were two rows of windows, which indicated an upper and lower deck, [and] from inside these windows a very bright light was glowing. Underneath the ship there was a blue glow of light.”

Whitted’s official statement was similar. “The object was cigar shaped and seemed to be about a hundred feet in length. The fuselage appeared to be about three times the circumference of a B-29 fuselage. It had two rows of windows, an upper and a lower. The windows were very large and seemed square. They were white with light which seemed to be caused by some type of combustion.”

While they are remarkably similar, the sketches and interviews revealed a few inconsistencies in the pilots’ observations.  Additionally, Chiles described witnessing a distinct, lighted cockpit and a pronounced long boom on the nose, like a radar pole.

Whitted did not observe a cockpit or boom; he reported a row of rectangular windows. He also described an intense blue glow running the entire length of the object beneath the fuselage.

Neither pilot saw any occupants in UFO.

Regarding the exhaust, Chiles described it as a red-orange flame, with the lighter color (orange) being predominant on the outer edges. Chiles thought the flame flared out from a nozzle in the rear. The flame extended some 30 to 50  feet behind the object, became deeper in intensity (redder), and increased in length as the object pulled up into a cloud.

Whitted described the exhaust as a parallel-wide flame that appeared to come from the entire rear of the object rather than from a nozzle that never grew any wider than the object's width. However, he noticed the increased length of the flame as the object pulled up.

Notably, both pilots concurred that the UFO did not make any sound that was audible over their plane. Also, while some subsequent publications described that the UFO's wake turbulence rocked the plane, both pilots consistently affirmed that their aircraft remained completely unaffected by the encounter. Chiles stated, "There was no prop wash or rough air felt as it passed."

Both pilots were certain of another observation. When the UFO passed their plane, it did not continue to fly level or even decline toward the earth below. Instead, as it passed the plane, it pulled up and disappeared.  This behavior is one of the reasons that enhanced the pilot's confidence that the object was not a natural phenomenon.

Chiles further described the near-miss: "We veered to the left and it veered to its left, and passed us about 700 feet to our right and about 700 feet above us. Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds.”

There has been considerable confusion about this last part. Both pilots had used the words disappeared, but Whitted was in the right seat and the only one to see the object as it passed them. Some news reporting of their description had misinterpreted the word – believing that disappeared meant the UFO had flown up and into the broken clouds above them. Instead, Whitted clarified that the object disappeared after it started its climb.

With the pilots released back to their flying duties, the Project Sign team huddled together to evaluate their learnings.  Despite it being the early days of formal government UFO research, the group realized this UFO sighting was unique, and they tackled their investigation with unusual seriousness. The credibility of the witnesses strongly contributed to this approach as the pilots were highly qualified, and both had served as officers during World War II. The passenger, McKelvie, was also an Air Force veteran and seen as very credible. The pilots were also cl ose to the UFO, enabling an unusually detailed view.

An Air Force officer involved in the Pentagon's UFO investigations said, "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 close enough to anything resembling a UFO to get a good look and live to tell about it.”

The infamous Mantell Incident is, of course, when an Air Force pilot tragically lost his life chasing a UFO.

With interviews complete, the Project Sign team started meticulously mapping the object's trajectory based on the pilots' accounts, indicating it would have flown over Macon, Georgia. This flight path was suddenly and unexpectedly corroborated when an official at Robins Air Force Base near Macon contacted them. On the same night as the Chiles-Whitted sighting, a ground crew chief at the base reported witnessing 'an extremely bright light passing overhead at high speed'.  And with that, the Project Sign team started to investigate other reports of the same UFO.

Part 3

Soon, the team learned the identity of the witness.  He was a civilian employee at the nearby Robins Air Force Base. On the night of July 23, 1948, he was standing fireguard on a C-47 at the airbase. Fireguards were a security and safety practice where personnel were stationed near aircraft to monitor them for fire and other emergencies while the plane was parked on the ground. So, the man was outside and on duty at the time when, he observed an object fly overhead.

He immediately reported the observation to the control tower, which relayed the incident up the chain of command.  The following iGround s a transcript of an interview conducted on August 10 by Lieutenant Colonel Cropper, the Acting District Commander, for special investigations. I've looked for the witness's name, but it's been redacted in the transcripts I've found. Still, the air force report noted that the witness had been an aircraft engine mechanic during the World War 2 and had been a part of the allied resistance against the Nazi's last offensive campaign at the Battle of the Bulge. He was an experienced observer of both Allied and Axis aircraft. Before I share critical parts of the transcript, I wanted to highlight one last fact – the witness called in the sighting immediately after it occurred. In other words, he could not have heard any news coverage of the Chiles and Whitted encounter.

For purposes of length, I've narrowed the interview to just a handful of questions. But the entire interview is fascinating, and I’ve recorded the full transcript as a separate YouTube video; the link is in the description.

So, the following is a transcript of the interview conducted on August 10 between Lieutenant Colonel Cropper and the witness.

Q. Do you recall the date and the time you saw this object?

A. It appeared on Friday night, July 23, 1948, between 0140 and 0150 hours, Eastern Standard Time. I was standing fire guard on a C-47, directly across from Operations, and I had to take down the take-off time between 0140 and 0150.

Q. In what direction did you see this object?

A. It was coming out of the north. I was facing the north and actually didn't see it until it got overhead, but it came out of the north and was in my view for about twenty seconds. The last I saw of it, the object was taking a southwest course.

Q. Describe in your words what you actually saw from the time it appeared until it disappeared.

A. The first thing I saw was a stream of fire and I was undecided as to what it could be, but as it got overhead, it was a fairly clear outline and appeared to be a cylindrical-shaped object, with a long stream of fire coming out of life tail end. I am sure it would not be a jet since I have observed P-84s in flight at night on two occasions.

Q. Approximately what was the height and altitude of this object?

A. Three thousand feet--it could be lower or higher; at night, it is difficult to judge distance.

Q. What was the size and shape in comparison to the trail of fire?

A. The trail of fire was longer than the cylindrical shape of the object.

Q. Was the entire object illuminated? Describe its shape.

A. I noticed a faint glow on the belly of the wingless object a phosphorescent glow.

Q. Are you familiar with shooting stars?

A. Yes sir. I thought at first it was a shooting star or meteor, but a shooting star falls perpendicular. This object was on a straight and level plane. When it disappeared it disappeared from sight due to distance, than drop.

Q. How did it differ from a shooting star or meteor in size and shape?

A. I have only seen one or two meteors and they appear to be round or more or less ball-shaped and this object was long and cylindrical in shape.

Q. What type of construction, color, size, and material did this object appear to resemble?

A. I would say that it looked like it was about the size of a B-29. It might have been a little larger, in circumference. It was too large for a jet. It seemed to be a dark color and constructed of an unknown metallic type material.

Q. What would you say its speed was in comparison with other types of aircraft?

A. About seven hundred miles per hour.

The interview provides a few interesting facts.

1.    The UFO's characteristics match those described by Chiles and Whitted. The object was cylindrically shaped and slightly larger than a B-29. It didn't have wings, but it had a faint glow on its belly and trailed fire behind it.  Of course, by the time of this interview, the man likely had heard the news coverage of the event.

2.    The object changed course.

3.    Finally, he differentiated the object from natural phenomena, describing it as different from ball-shaped meteors.

I’ll return to other parts of his interview later in this episode.

While the description of the object seems to align with Chiles and Whitted's sighting, one problem remains. In this witness's report, he saw the object between 1:40 and 1:50 am Eastern time.   Chiles & Whitted reported their sighting at 2:40 – 2:50 am – 1 hour difference. There is much debate about this – for good reason.  Were these two different objects?  Or was the object circling the area for over an hour? Or was this simply a documentation error? I think it's the latter as I found a summary of the event written by James A. Brady, Lieutenant Colonel USAF and chief of the intelligence division. He notes in the letter that the witness observed it at 2:50 am E.T.

As the Project Sign investigation continued, they found one additional group of witnesses to the events that evening.  Two hunters were out about 3 a.m. near Snaping Shoals, Georgia, when they saw a usually bright light  that appeared to be speeding westward.  It was one more potential validation of the craft that Chiles & Whitted had reported.

Part 4

Even while the investigation unfolded slowly in the first weeks after the sighting, that didn't stop the press and public from speculating about the object.  Radio and newspapers were anxiously reporting on the event mere hours after the sighting.  Famous author R. DeWitt Miller was also hyping the story. Miller was an American researcher, lecturer, and author who focused on topics like the paranormal and other unexplained phenomena. In the year before the Chiles Whitted encounter, Miller and popular radio commentator Walter Winchell had propelled the topic of UFOs into the mainstream, discussing many of the major sightings from 1946 and 1947, including the Swedish Ghost Rockets, Roswell, and the Kenneth Arnold sighting. Miller described his reasoning for investigating UFOs in his 1955 book: You Do Take It with You.

“During my 25 years as a psychical researcher, I have been involved in many fields of investigation. Starting as an agnostic, I had no preconceived case to prove. I have tried to follow the trail of facts wherever it led. Sometimes it led to unexpected places-such as the realm of the flying saucers. I have discussed the saucers at considerable length because I believe that the strange things in the sky can be intelligently evaluated only in relationship to the vaster reality."

In the late 1940s, Miller was likely the foremost expert on UFOs. True to form, within days of the Chiles-Whitted sighting, Miller had already penned an article that was then syndicated nationally,

Strange things in the sky again-this time something that looks like a gigantic Buck Rogers space rocket traveling between 500 and 700 miles an hour over Alabama. Only a year ago there was the famous "Flying Disc" uproar. Since then, numerous reliable reports of stranger things have been in the sky. Now a detailed report by an airline pilot and co-pilot of this fantastic machine over Alabama.

Miller continued to describe the event and other recent UFO sightings before suggesting a few hypotheses about the source of the Chiles-Whitter sighting. 

What are these strange things in the skies? Here are a few possibilities:

1.    army experimentation. Possibly, but it doesn't seem reasonable that the army would allow top drawer secret weapons to wander over the country following up commercial airline routes.

2.    the product of some strange group of super scientists working in a secluded Shangri La. An outside possibility, but it would be almost impossible to conceal the manufacturing facilities necessary.

3.    Spaceships from Mars or somewhere else beyond this Earth. This is a distinct possibility. Our scientists inform us that we may soon build space rockets, so why shouldn't beings on some other world beat us to it?

4.    objects out of other dimensions of time and space. This seems fantastic, but science has recently discovered startling facts about the possibility of unknown dimensions of time and space.

Air Force representatives and other scientists would provide much more mundane explanations in the face of this hype.

In what would become a standard explanation of UFOs, the Pentagon and the Weather Bureau trotted out the balloon theory to explain the sighting. They were quoted as saying, "The Atlanta pilots had flown past an air radar weather observation balloon. They explained, are 10 feet in diameter and have square, tinfoil boxes fastened to them. The boxes reflect light and 'give strange illusions' as they twist and turn.

Still, a meteor became the most likely natural explanation as nothing convincingly rules out a fragmenting fireball. Interestingly, the airship effect has been a widely known feature of such meteor sightings and was well documented in the Condon Report, officially titled the Scientist Study of Unidentified Flying Objects and published in 1968. The meteor causes the eye to see a line of glowing fragments as lighted windows in an elongated machine.

The meteor theory is reinforced by observers in neighboring states who saw on their far western horizon an "unusually bright meteor" that could have been the same fireball on a near-horizontal trajectory heading Southwest over the Alabama-Georgia border area.  Also, there were two meteor showers in the northeast sky at the time: the Beta Taurids and especially the Perseids. Yet, exceptional fireballs are not necessarily associated with these meteor showers.

The Project Sign investigators also found other witnesses of an object witnessed in the sky two days after the Chiles Whitted encounter, on July 26, 1948. These six observers were near Augusta, Georgia when they reported seeing an object in the sky.  They did not believe it to be a meteor because it appeared to maneuver. The object also glowed in different colors, but the dominant color was brilliant blue-white. The course was described as generally 'southern'.

The meteor theory is reasonable up to a point.  Yet how might a meteor explain the UFO's behavior where it appeared to climb and disappear as it passed their DC3? Today, there remains confusion about the severity of the UFO's climb as it passed the plane. Some sources state that it was a relatively gentle climb of apparently only a few hundred feet.  Others claim the pilots saw a dramatic "fast vertical" evasion.  In theory, a meteor’s speed could be interpreted by an observer as appearing to climb but the evidence remains inconclusive.

Despite the strong possibility of a meteor explaining their sighting, the event was compelling enough – on top of other sightings in 1947 and 1948 – to drive Project Sign's personnel to write an 'Estimate of the Situation.’  This bureaucratic speak for a detailed synthesis of all of Project Sign's findings. It was marked TOP SECRET and sent to Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg. This was an aggressive move from the Project Sign team. Their Estimate of the Situation asserted that UFOs might indeed be extraterrestrial.

It would take years to learn of the Air Force's response to the Estimate of the Situation.  Captain Edward Ruppelt, the head of Project Blue Book in 1952 and 1953, wrote that top Air Force officials didn't like the suggestion that some of the sightings were extraterrestrial craft. Ruppelt said: “The general wouldn’t buy interplanetary vehicles. A group from ATIC went to the Pentagon to bolster their position but had no luck, the Chief of Staff couldn’t be convinced…[so]…the estimate died a quick death. Some months later it was completely declassified and relegated to the incinerator.”

So, if sightings like the Chiles-Whitted encounter couldn’t be explained, why did the Air Force dismiss the alien UFO idea so quickly?

Vandenberg's skepticism was reportedly fueled by the hypothesis that UFOs but creations of the Soviet Union. A classified report fro m December 1948 proposed that the Soviets could be flying unique aircraft to conduct photographic reconnaissance, evaluate U.S. air defense capabilities, and create fear in the U.S. population.  If you watched my episode about Senator Russell’s UFO incident in the Soviet Union in 1955, you’ll know that the Penagon’s fear of novel Soviet aircraft continued for at least another 7 years.

But even as the Estimate of the Situation was dismissed, the action made the Air Force appear to be suppressing the investigation of this event.  But Ruppelt maintained this was just bureaucratic bungling rather than deliberate deception. “But had the Air Force tried to throw up a screen of confusion, they couldn’t have done a better job.”

The Air Force’s behavior has contributed to the reputation of the Chiles-Whitted incident. It is still of the most controversial UFO sightings in U.S. history.

Beyond all the hypotheses we’ve discussed here, I want to share one final one. It's a unique theory that has received some limited discussion and its intricately connected to the location of the sighting – the state of Alabama. And, it just might explain the Chiles-Whitted UFO and provide a reason why the U.S. government brushed aside any further investigation.

Part 5

To explore this theory, let’s return to the interview that Lieutenant Colonel Cropper conducted with the civilian airman who was working on the tarmac of the Robins airbase that night of the Chiles Whitted sighting. You'll recall the airman had served in World War II in the European theater. And when I first read the full transcript of the interview, several of his answers seemed to offer a reasonable but extraordinary explanation of the Chiles Whitted sighting...

Remember the ground crew member who had seen the UFO flying overhead?  When asked, he had estimated the object’s speed to be 700 miles per hour, causing Cropper asked the airman why he believed that the UFO was flying that fast.

The airman answered: “I have seen P-80 type aircraft flying but this was one of the fastest objects I have ever seen. I saw German V-1's in the summer of 1944 and they were fast, but this one was even faster. This object was much larger. A V-1 is very small and only made about three hundred miles per hour speed.”

If you recall, the V-1, nicknamed the doodlebug or buzzbomb for the odd pulsing sound it’s engine generated, was a missile the German’s first unleased against London on June 13, 1944. Fortunately, the V1 was relatively inaccurate and slow, so slow in fact that the British Hawker Tempest fighter planes could catch up to a V1, then knock it off course by nudging it gently with a wingtip.

Then, later in the interview Cropper asked him if there were any other aircraft that the UFO reminded him of…

The airman answered: “During the Battle of the Bulge, a Sergeant and myself were on guard duty and saw something that resembled this object in question. We later found that we had witnessed the launching of a German V-2 rocket. It carried a stream of fire that more or less resembled this object. This object looked like rocket propulsion rather than jet propulsion, but the speed and size was much greater.”

Before discussing the implications of this, please indulge me while I share a brief aside episode. We owe a debt that is impossible to repay to the men who sacrificed everything to free the world from tyranny in World War II. I think about this man, who had participated in the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States during World War II and helped stop the last Nazi push to flip the war back in their favor. And, during that time, he observed two of the major rocketry advances of the war.  Advances that would shape the space race for decades to come. We don’t know his name – and perhaps that it ok – as he might well represent every man who willingly sacrificed everything during World War II. No matter our thoughts about the Chiles-Whitted Encounter, we may have absolute certainty about the power of sacrifice and humility – characteristics we all would do well to emulate.

Back to 1948 – when we look at a map, we see the pilot's UFO sighting occurred just 170 miles south of Huntsville, Alabama—the same city that is now home to the Marshall Space Flight Center—where the German rocket scientists ultimately ended up working after being brought to the USA via operation Paperclip.

Operation Paperclip was a secret program initiated by the United States government in 1945 at the end of World War II. Its objective was to recruit scientists from Nazi Germany and bring them to the United States, helping them avoid capture by the Soviet Union, to harness their expertise in rocket technology and other scientific fields. Many of these scientists had been located at Peenemunde and then later, near Nordhausen. You may want to consider watching one of my early YouTube episodes about this period in an episode called “The Birth of the Rocket”. 

I also have a podcast episode about the Soviet recruitment effort, called Operation Osoaviakhim.  But in the case of the Soviets, their recruitment efforts were actually kidnappings as 2,200 German scientists and engineers were forced to relocate to the Soviet Union. On the U.S. side, Operation Paperclip brought over 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians plus their families to the U.S., where they contributed significantly to military and civilian projects. Among the most notable achievements stemming from this initiative was the significant advancement in rocket technology, which played a crucial role in the establishment of NASA and the success of the U.S. space program, including the Apollo moon-landing missions.

Could these German scientists, including the genus Wernher von Braun, be responsible for the sighting? Were they testing a version of the V2 rocket or some other secret invention?

Despite my past research about Peenemunde and Operation Paperclip, I didn’t know the specifics of von Braun and his team’s movement around the country after they were brought to the USA in 1945 until I started to research this theory.

This would certainly be a satisfactory, if not an extraterrestrial, answer to the Chiles-Whitted UFO encounter. Here's what we know.

Von Braun and his group of rocket scientists, once out of Germany, were first brought to Fort Bliss Texas in 1945. There, the German team trained American personnel in rocket technology and oversaw the launch of V-2 rockets that had been brought over from Germany. During this time, over 100 V-2 rockets were launched from the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico, which was near Fort Bliss and served as the main launch site for these tests.

As the Americans learned from the V2, they started to design the Redstone rocket. The Redstone was derived from the V-2 rocket, incorporating significant enhancements in technology and design. However, the overall diameter of the Redstone was similar to that of the V-2, but the Redstone was a third longer – about 69 feet tall and could carry a 3,500 pound payload vs. the V2's 2,200 pound payload. The size of the Redstone certainly might match the airman's description…similar to a V2 but larger.

You might imagine my excitement about this…but, unfortunately, the facts and dates don’t line up. The American and German team stayed in Fort Bliss until transferring to Huntsville, Alabama in 1950…about 2 years after the Chiles-Whitted sighting. And the Redstone had its first successful flight on August 20, 1953. And, as far as I can find, a V2 was never launched from Huntsville. Not that I take the government's statements to this effect at face value – but I have found no evidence that the American and German teams ever worked from Huntsville until 1950.

And so, we’re still left wondering – what was the UFO that Chiles and Whitted saw that night? 

I’ll close with some observations by Dr. Michael D. Swords, a notable figure in the field of ufology. He is a retired professor of Natural Science from Western Michigan University, where he taught for many years. He was involved with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and his work often focuses on applying rigorous scientific principles to the investigation of UFOs, advocating for the treatment of the subject with the same academic seriousness as other scientific disciplines.

I found a collection of research about this case in the archives of the library of the University of Wyoming, of all places. I've posted a link to the collection in the description. Dr. Swords summarized the perplexing nature of the Chiles Whitted encounter like this.

“Chiles-Whitted will always be debatable because the unknown's pass was so quick. What we can say is this: two experienced pilots reported it. Project SIGN sent their two most senior engineers down to Atlanta to interview them. The military in D.C. took the event seriously and applied some pressure on Chiles and Whitted to shut up about it, or, as Chiles later said, they'd recall me to duty.

Due to all that, I never put Chiles-Whitted upfront when I want to "go to war" for UFOs. It is too easy to pick on. Whether Chiles-Whitted is a "poor", "good", or "great" case can be hashed to death, but it does not really affect the field of UFOlogy in the larger view. We have many monster cases, and even SIGN had a strong selection of cases which contain power as a group. With any perspective, one could make a strong case for extraterritoriality based on things like Mt. Rainier, Emmett [I.D.], before you get to Chiles-Whitted and overwhelmingly afterwards.

And with that, my friends, we've explored another exceptional historical UFO case. It has tantalized us with its evidence while frustrating us with the continued uncertainty. Still, we'll press on, looking for proof that we are not alone in the universe.

Thank you for joining me in this episode of My Dark Path. This is MF Thomas.  Until next time, good night.