Project Sign - Chiles-Whitted

Chiles-Whitted

A turning point for Sign came with the Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter over Montgomery, Alabama on 24 July 1948. In this case, two experienced airline pilots, both veterans of combat flying during WWII, reported that a rocket-shaped UFO, 100 feet long and emitting reddish exhaust, approached them on a near-collision course. Chiles and Whitted also reported the object appeared to show a double row of ports or windows emitting an intense bluish-white light. The reports of "windows" also suggested the object was possibly occupied. Additional corroboration came from four sources: a passenger on the plane who saw the object's exhaust trail as it sped from view; from an experienced military ground witness in Alabama; from a military pilot who reported an unusual light in the vicinity of Montgomery at roughly the time of the encounter; and from a sighting of a very similar object near The Hague, Netherlands on July 20. Moreover, the Chiles-Whitted object also faintly echoed the mysterious Scandinavian "ghost rockets" of 1946, reports of which had intrigued American military officials.

Loedding and others interviewed Chiles and Whitted two days after the incident, and were deeply impressed by their testimony. Ruppelt would later write,"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 get a good look and live to tell about it."

The Chiles-Whitted case became the centerpiece of Project Sign's investigation for the next several months. According to Swords, "The flying fuselage encounter intrigued them." Such a torpedo-like design was in fact flightworthy according to the theories of German engineer Ludwig Prandtl, but would require power far in excess of conventional fuels in 1947, possibly nuclear power. Given that no American technology could account for the flying saucer sightings, and that there was no definitive evidence of the German/Russian hypothesis, Sign's personnel began to take the interplanetary hypothesis more seriously. Swords argues that this consideration of non-earthly origin was "not as incredible in intelligence circles as one might think." Because many in the military were "pilots, engineers and technical people" they had a "'can do' attitude" and tended to regard unavailable technologies not as impossibilities, but as challenges to be overcome. Rather than dismissing UFO reports out of hand, they considered how such objects might plausibly function. This perspective, argues Swords, "contrasted markedly with many scientists' characterizations of such concepts as impossible, unthinkable or absurd."