1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,800 Welcome to Sightings. I'm Tim White. January 7th, 1948, five months after the mysterious 2 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:17,600 crash near Roswell, New Mexico, a National Guard pilot on a routine training mission 3 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:23,400 radioed in with a strange message. The pilot had decorated World War II ace with over 4 00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:27,960 2,800 hours of flight time, told the tower that he was in pursuit of a glowing object 5 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:32,320 he could not identify. Moments later, the pilot, Thomas Mantell, was dead. 6 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:42,320 In 1948, three separate UFO sightings that have come to be known as the classics sparked 7 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:47,640 the modern UFO investigation movement. In response to public demand for answers, the 8 00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:53,720 U.S. government established Project SIGN. Its stated purpose was to scientifically investigate 9 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:59,520 UFO sightings and among its first commissions was one of the three classic cases, the mysterious 10 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:10,520 death of pilot Thomas Mantell. Was the World War II flying ace the world's first UFO fatality? 11 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:16,800 Tommy was my big brother. He was three years older than I am. And sort of awesome to me, 12 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:23,440 of course. I remember Tommy mostly interested in airplanes. He made bottle airplanes and 13 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:30,160 he had them hanging all over his bed. He wanted to be a fighter pilot so bad, but he was too 14 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:37,160 tall. But then he was very happy when they sent him over to England and his job was to 15 00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:46,640 take the gliders and paratroopers behind the lines. And on D-Day, that's what he did. 16 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:54,440 On June 6, 1944, Thomas Mantell proved just what kind of a pilot he was. Mantell's top 17 00:01:55,720 --> 00:02:01,320 secret mission was to deliver a glider deep behind enemy lines. Toeing the glider behind 18 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:07,820 his unarmed C-24, Mantell came under attack from enemy anti-aircraft fire 100 miles from 19 00:02:07,820 --> 00:02:13,280 the drop-off point. The plane was hit, but Mantell kept going and completed his mission 20 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:19,680 dropping the glider on target. This is what his plane looked like when it landed safely 21 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:26,040 in England. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism and extraordinary 22 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:33,040 achievement in aerial flight. When he got out of the Army, I was hoping he'd get a regular 23 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:40,120 9-5 job, but he still wanted airplanes, so he started his own flying school. Then he 24 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:47,880 joined the Air National Guard and he liked that because he got to fly fighter planes 25 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:55,040 in the Air National Guard. On January 7, 1948, six months after receiving the Distinguished 26 00:02:55,040 --> 00:03:00,200 Flying Cross, Captain Mantell died during what should have been a routine training mission. 27 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:04,240 He and his flight were retrieving some aircraft that had been undergoing overhaul and maintenance 28 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:09,640 down in Marriott and Georgia. Larry Tabor is an historian and aeronautics expert who's 29 00:03:09,640 --> 00:03:13,960 been researching the Mantell case for more than 10 years. When I got into college, I 30 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:19,480 found out that our squadron at the University of Louisville was named after Thomas Mantell, 31 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:25,080 the Arnold Air Society portion of it, and so I began to do more and more research. Tabor 32 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:29,920 has amassed hundreds of civilian and military documents related to the curious death of 33 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:35,280 Thomas Mantell. He was returning from Marriott to Georgia that day with three other men and 34 00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:42,000 a flight of P-51 fighters and they were returning to the Stantiford Field when they received 35 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:46,720 a call from Godman Tire Fort Knox to pursue an unidentified flying object that had been 36 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:52,560 in the area. One of the airplanes did not participate in flight because it was short 37 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:57,080 fuel. The other three aircraft continued on even though two of the aircraft, including 38 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:03,120 Mantell's, were not equipped to go at high altitudes. They did see some type of flying 39 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:09,120 object. They chased it for a certain amount of time there in the early afternoon and they 40 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:16,120 got to about 25,000 feet and at that point Mantell's wingman turned back to escort the 41 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:21,120 less experienced pilot down. I, of course, find that strange since it's the job of a 42 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:26,400 wingman to stay with his flight leader at all time. Mantell chose to continue to chase 43 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:31,200 the object to something that he felt was a threat to the security of America. At some 44 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:35,280 point Mantell said, I see the object, I'm going to pursue it a little bit further. That was 45 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:42,280 the last contact that anybody had with Mantell. He went up to above 33,000 and at that point 46 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:48,680 appears to have died from anoxia or lack of oxygen. The aircraft was continuing its high 47 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:53,520 power climb. Of course with Mantell dead, eventually the aircraft healed over from 48 00:04:53,520 --> 00:05:00,020 torque and came down in a spin where it crashed in a field down in Franklin, Kentucky. 49 00:05:00,020 --> 00:05:05,900 We were not told or informed by the Air Force. They wanted to sweep it under the rug with 50 00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:11,260 as little attention to themselves as possible, whether it be because they felt they were 51 00:05:11,260 --> 00:05:17,860 at fault for sending him or if it was something they didn't want to talk about, what he was 52 00:05:17,860 --> 00:05:24,860 chasing. A neighbor that lived free houses down came to our house and told my mother 53 00:05:25,020 --> 00:05:32,020 what had happened. Two neighbors from down the street came in and they said, Peggy, we 54 00:05:34,820 --> 00:05:41,820 got something we got to tell you. And of course I had no idea what it was and they told me 55 00:05:43,380 --> 00:05:50,380 they said, Tommy had a crash and I said, oh, is he all right? And they said no, he was 56 00:05:51,100 --> 00:05:58,100 killed. The main thing I recall was standing in my brother's home with his wife and we 57 00:05:59,100 --> 00:06:05,460 were all standing in a circle holding hands and my mother said the circle is broken. And 58 00:06:05,460 --> 00:06:12,460 I might say she was broken also. For nearly 50 years, the family of Thomas Mantell has 59 00:06:12,460 --> 00:06:18,220 searched for an explanation. The military's silence has contributed to a flood of contradictory 60 00:06:18,220 --> 00:06:23,660 rumors. Mantell's body was found riddled with bullets. The body was missing. The plane 61 00:06:23,660 --> 00:06:29,660 had disintegrated. The wreckage was radioactive and most disturbing of all, the Thomas Mantell's 62 00:06:29,660 --> 00:06:36,420 P-51 was knocked down by an extraterrestrial spacecraft. When we come back, our sightings 63 00:06:36,420 --> 00:06:42,220 investigative team returns to the crash site remarkably after nearly 50 years and a thorough 64 00:06:42,220 --> 00:06:47,780 military investigation. Sightings was still able to find additional pieces of wreckage 65 00:06:47,820 --> 00:06:53,820 from Thomas Mantell's P-51. National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell on a routine training 66 00:06:53,820 --> 00:06:58,860 mission spotted what he believed was a UFO bearing down on him. Moments later his plane 67 00:06:58,860 --> 00:07:05,860 crashed and from that day to this, his family has never known why. They've always had a 68 00:07:07,500 --> 00:07:14,500 theory. I still hear the Venus theory and most recently the balloon theory, the top 69 00:07:14,580 --> 00:07:20,780 secret balloon that was out at that time. The Air Force will neither confirm nor deny 70 00:07:20,780 --> 00:07:26,060 the existence of a balloon near Godman Field that day. But there is compelling evidence 71 00:07:26,060 --> 00:07:31,700 that such a balloon did exist. In the hours before Mantell's UFO sightings and subsequent 72 00:07:31,700 --> 00:07:38,420 death, several bases reported seeing a UFO overhead traveling at 250 miles per hour. 73 00:07:38,420 --> 00:07:44,460 One air controller described it as round and white resembling a parachute. The Navy skyhook 74 00:07:44,660 --> 00:07:50,620 balloon program was aimed at carrying cosmic ray experiments into the stratosphere and 75 00:07:50,620 --> 00:07:56,580 the January 6, 1948 flight carried instruments I believe for the University of Minnesota 76 00:07:56,580 --> 00:08:03,180 Physics Department. Chief Engineer Charles Moore believes that the skyhook balloon launched 77 00:08:03,180 --> 00:08:10,180 on January 6 was directly responsible for Thomas Mantell's death on January 7. We heard 78 00:08:10,180 --> 00:08:17,180 reports of a large white object being seen in the sky over Illinois and later we heard 79 00:08:17,180 --> 00:08:23,300 reports of a similar object being seen over Kentucky and this was the first time that 80 00:08:23,300 --> 00:08:30,060 anyone in the Central United States had ever seen such a high flying balloon. But there 81 00:08:30,060 --> 00:08:35,540 are serious discrepancies between the actual flight pattern of a skyhook balloon and what 82 00:08:35,620 --> 00:08:41,700 Thomas Mantell reported seeing. He described an object traveling up and forward as fast 83 00:08:41,700 --> 00:08:48,700 as he was and that the UFO was metallic and of tremendous size. I do believe and I always 84 00:08:48,700 --> 00:08:53,660 will that there was a cover up because they never came to talk to anybody in my family 85 00:08:53,660 --> 00:09:00,660 about what had happened. They more or less just let us assume what had happened on our 86 00:09:00,780 --> 00:09:07,780 own. I'm very angry sometimes as the Air Force I feel like they know more than they're telling 87 00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:15,500 us. It's affected my children because they never knew their daddy growing up they were 88 00:09:16,140 --> 00:09:22,180 just children. I feel that he was intelligent and experienced enough not to have made the 89 00:09:22,180 --> 00:09:27,220 mistake of chasing a balloon. On several occasions he said he couldn't gain on the object and 90 00:09:27,260 --> 00:09:32,940 he even appeared to be going faster than he was. I think it's possible that Captain Mantell 91 00:09:32,940 --> 00:09:38,900 did see the balloon and attempted to chase it. I would suspect it would have been high 92 00:09:38,900 --> 00:09:45,500 above him so that he had no possibility whatsoever of climbing to the altitude where the balloon 93 00:09:45,500 --> 00:09:50,140 was floating still in the stratosphere. When I first started doing research many years 94 00:09:50,140 --> 00:09:55,260 ago one of the things that I heard was the fact that the aircraft had small holes in 95 00:09:55,260 --> 00:10:00,580 it. It was ionized and it came about because Captain Mantell had gotten close enough to 96 00:10:00,580 --> 00:10:06,780 the exhaust system whatever type of flying object that it was and when this UFO kicked 97 00:10:06,780 --> 00:10:12,780 into high gear to leave our orbit he was caught in the exhaust blast. If Captain Mantell had 98 00:10:12,780 --> 00:10:17,980 been caught in a radioactive backwash the wreckage of his plane would tell the story 99 00:10:17,980 --> 00:10:23,340 best. Sighting sent an investigative team to the crash site in Franklin Kentucky with 100 00:10:23,380 --> 00:10:28,100 the hope that clues to the Mantell mystery might still litter this field. It was the 101 00:10:28,100 --> 00:10:34,100 first time the family had been to the crash site. At the time of the accident we were 102 00:10:34,100 --> 00:10:40,260 not able to come here. They threw security all in the whole area. Glenn and Anna Margaret 103 00:10:40,260 --> 00:10:45,940 Mays were two of the first people on the scene. I mean it was like pandemonium you know how 104 00:10:45,940 --> 00:10:51,860 people just congregate in and it was you know the road was full of cars and people were coming. 105 00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:58,300 How long did they keep the area blocked off? Good while didn't they Glenn? Good while. I don't know 106 00:10:58,300 --> 00:11:02,780 exactly how long. One or two three days they brought a truck and a dozer down here from Fort Knox 107 00:11:02,780 --> 00:11:09,580 and loaded what was left of the plane on a truck and took a dozer and buried you know. That's what 108 00:11:09,580 --> 00:11:17,940 we heard. We just heard that information today. After 46 years Glenn Mays thought he remembered 109 00:11:18,020 --> 00:11:23,500 the location where the military had buried wreckage from Mantell's plane. After so many years 110 00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:29,780 our team had few expectations but the family had high hopes. He's right up in there bunch of weeds 111 00:11:29,780 --> 00:11:38,940 right in there pretty close right up in there where the weeds are. I'm getting some radiation spots. 112 00:11:38,940 --> 00:11:46,100 There were pockets of high radiation in the field but when our team began to dig there were no 113 00:11:46,140 --> 00:11:52,100 signs of metal debris. We sent him back to fetch a picture he has shown where the aircraft crashed. 114 00:11:52,100 --> 00:11:57,300 If that can give us a perhaps a better determination how far it is from the barn and if the military's 115 00:11:57,300 --> 00:12:02,700 records are accurate or not. Our sightings camera crew matched the angle and the depth of field 116 00:12:02,700 --> 00:12:07,860 shown in this old newspaper clipping. It may not have been the most technically sophisticated 117 00:12:07,860 --> 00:12:21,380 method the team tried but it worked. Yep aircraft. It's green. Yeah it's chromate green. That's the 118 00:12:21,380 --> 00:12:29,180 interior of the aircraft. It's one of the spars. There you go. It's not necessarily all over it's just 119 00:12:29,180 --> 00:12:35,220 like on sections. That's interesting. See here it'll spike but up here it goes back to normal. 120 00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:45,260 In just the few remaining hours of daylight Larry Tabor and the sightings team found over two dozen pieces of wreckage. 121 00:12:46,260 --> 00:12:54,140 Fortunately there are serial numbers on several pieces of the aircraft that were recovered and these can be traced 122 00:12:54,140 --> 00:13:00,100 to ensure that it did come from the airplane that Captain Mantell was flying that day. I hope what you are doing 123 00:13:00,700 --> 00:13:11,420 brings to light some of because I was hoping before I passed on that I find out what it is. If this is wreckage for 124 00:13:11,420 --> 00:13:17,980 Mantell's plane why was it buried in an unmarked trench by the same military that had promised to do a thorough 125 00:13:17,980 --> 00:13:26,140 investigation and why does it refuse to answer the Mantell family's simple plea. What happened to Tommy. As far as the 126 00:13:26,180 --> 00:13:35,420 military cover up I believe there was at that time very much a cover up of the whole incident. To me that's why 127 00:13:35,420 --> 00:13:44,740 there's always been a question. Maybe it was a UFO. How do we know. He was too good of a pilot to take a risk of his 128 00:13:44,740 --> 00:13:55,140 life and to hurt his family to go chasing after something that wasn't there. Sightings has notified Air Force officials 129 00:13:55,140 --> 00:14:02,740 at the Pentagon that we have found what appears to be wreckage from Thomas Mantell's P-51. Sightings has also requested all 130 00:14:02,740 --> 00:14:08,540 information pertaining to this incident under the Freedom of Information Act. We hope to bring you the response to these 131 00:14:08,540 --> 00:14:10,220 inquiries on a future broadcast.