Memorial Day tribute missing in action for those lost in UFO quest.

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Memorial Day tribute missing in action for those lost in UFO quest.
May 25, 2009
Larry Lowe
Examiner.com

While we pause as a nation to recognize members of our armed forces who gave the ultimate sacrifice in order that we may enjoy the freedom and lifestyle that is our legacy, a few unknown heroes will not be remembered.

Our national tradition, like the mainsrteam media that glorifies it, tends to be confined to that which is within the 'box of context' of the allowable paradigm. This is a disservice to the servicemen and women who gave their lives for their country in a manner deemed politically unspeakable.

Because the official position of the United States Air Force has been since the conclusion of the Condon Report that the unidentified flying object do not present a security threat to the United States, it is awkward to the point of un-doability to honor those killed in the pursuit of UFOs. Their sacrifice will be shrouded in silence this Memorial Day.

We may never know the full story of U.S. Military loss of life related to UFO/ET activities until the truth embargo is lifted, if then. A few incidents—largely unknown to the American public—have been discussed in the UFO literature.

Here are but three.

• • •

The United States Air Force was officially less than one day old when a B-25 Mitchell—a type famous for its use in the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo—crashed shortly after takeoff from McCord Field near Kelso Washington, killing the pilot, Capt. William L. Davidson and co-pilot, 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown. On August 3, 1947, an AP news report said the men died investigating flying saucers. The direct cause of the crash was a fire in the left engine and the failure of the fire suppression system to operate.

The more indirect—and perhaps more accurate—cause of the crash may have been the fact that it was carrying a box filled with material that was claimed to have been ejected from a UFO hovering over a boat near Maury Island. This report is shrouded in mystery and involves one of the key figures of the early UFO era, no less than Kenneth Arnold, whose sighting less than a month earlier of 9 silvery objects provoked the term 'flying saucer' to enter the American lexicon.

The B-25 was returning to Hamilton Field California with a load of disk fragments intended for later analysis, when it caught fire 20 minutes out of McCord Field. Rumors of sabotage surrounded the incident and Tacoma Times reporter Ted Morello was repeatedly called by an anonymous informant who indicated that the B-25 had in fact been shot down by 20mm cannon fire. That was not the least of the mysterious events connected with the death of two Air Force pilots carrying UFO material in the service of their country. Shortly after the publication of his article on the story, a writer for the Tacoma Times was dead and a 36 hour long autopsy could not determine why.

• • •

Six months later, an Air Force pilot was lost in an incident more directly connected to a UFO. On January 7, 1948 a F-51 Mustang fighter piloted by WWII veteran Captain Thomas F. Mantell crashed after pursuing what Mantell described over the radio as an object "[which] looks metallic and of tremendous size". Mantell and the three other members of his Kentucky Air Guard flight were returning to Godman Field, which serviced Fort Knox when the tower requested that they investigate an object that was reported south of the field.

One member of Mantell's flight was low on fuel and proceeded to land at Godman, while Mantell and two wingmen gave chase to the object. The wingmen elected to let the object go somewhere around 20,000 feet, but despite not having oxygen on board, Mantell risked his life to continue to close with the object. It was a gamble he would lose. Mantell's F-51 crashed at 3:18 PM, according to his wrist watch.

Richard T. Miller, who was in the Operations Room of Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois also made several profound statements regarding the crash. He was monitoring the radio talk between Mantell and Godman tower, and heard this statement very clearly. "My God, I see people in this thing!" — Above Top Secret Forum

The ensuing investigation by the Air Technical Intelligence Center officers from Wright-Patterson AFB was cursory. They demanded all evidence be turned over and then declared the investigation complete.

The planet Venus was initially reported as the cause of the object Mantell lost his life trying to identify, but it strains credulity that a veteran fighter pilot would confuse a star with a metallic object of tremendous size. A later theory would emerge that the UFO was in fact a secret NAVY Skyhook Balloon, but that does not explain the reports of the UFO near the ground both before and after the incident that cost Capt. Mantell his life.

• • •

Five years later, as the Air Force was just getting used to being in the Jet Age, another UFO incident cost the lives of two USAF airmen, pilot 1st Lt. Felix E. "Gene" Moncla and radar operator Lt. Robert Wilson. Moncla and Wilson had scrambled their F-94C out of Kinross Air Force Base, Michigan to intercept, under ground control, an unidentified target that appeared on radar over Lake Superior. After vectoring the pilots to the UFO, ground controllers watched the two blips merge into one and then wink off of the radar scope.

That was the last solid fact about the incident, the remainder of the reports and investigations are inconclusive and contradictory. The Air Force maintains that Moncla and Wilson were chasing an RCAF C-47, but the RCAF denied they had any aircraft in the vicinity that night. Two separate USAF reports were made to Moncla’s widow regarding the accident. One officer told her that Moncla had flown too low and had crashed in the lake. A second AF officer later indicated the jet had exploded at a high altitude, destroying the plane and pilots.

UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe, an ex-Marine and director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) documented the incident in his 1973 book 'Aliens from Space' and made the connection between the blip on the GCI radar and UFO's, speculating that Moncla and Wilson had been 'taken' by the UFO.

No oil slick or debris of the F-94 was ever found, although in 2006 a report from the Great Lakes Dive Company claimed to have sonar imaging of a mostly intact F-94 on the lake floor. The twin USAF accounts that the interceptor exploded at altitude or impacted the lake surface in a high speed dive are both inconsistent with an intact airframe and the GLDC has disappeared.

Whatever the case, two more United States military personnel were lost in pursuit of an Unidentified Flying Object.

How many others since these brave Americans were lost have gone unreported?

What will it take for the government and our society to honor them in the same manner we honor all the servicemen and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country?

When will their story be told?

Did not our servicemen and women lay down their lives in defense of an ideal of truth and freedom, of the ability of a properly informed citizenry to chart its own destiny?

We memorialize those who died in the civil war, in WWI and WWII, in Korea and Vietnam, in Iraq and Afghanistan, around the world, across the decades in defense of the ideals upon which this nation was founded.

But what about the men and women who died in quest of the truth of the UFO?

Who plays taps for them?