UFO Skeptic Pilot Witnesses UFO Near Aircraft.

Listed here in the chronology section of NICAP's 'UFO Evidence' report there's a pretty fascinating UFO encounter from over Jackson, Alabama on November 14th, 1956 where a pilot and co-pilot both witnessed a 'brilliant bluish-white light' perform highly unusual flight characteristics near their aircraft.

The UFO's maneuvers were said to last for 30 seconds and described as 'rising and falling, darting back and forth, instant 90° turns, then hovering motionless again' - when the control tower radioed the aircraft the object began another series of 'crazy gyrations, lazy 8's, square chandelles with undulating motion' and then shot out over the Gulf of Mexico in a steep climb at 'fantastic speed'.

What makes this case all the more interesting (or 'splendidly ironic' as it mentions in this book) is the fact that the main witness pilot Captain W. J. Hull was a published anti-UFO skeptic who had already written a 'debunking' article in an Airline Pilot magazine three years before.

10:10-10:12 p.m. Capital Airlines Flight 77 pilot Capt. W. J. Hull with 3 million miles and 17 years' flight experience and author of anti-UFO skeptical article "The Obituary of the Flying Saucer" in The Airline Pilot magazine (Sept. 1953), with copilot FO Peter MacIntosh were flying from New York to Mobile, Ala., in a Viscount airliner at 300 mph descending at 10,000 ft, when they saw a brilliant bluish-white light (mag. -7) descend in a steep downward angle diagonally (about 45°?) from left to right from WSW at azimuth 315° to dead ahead SSW at 205° azimuth 30°-40° elevation where it stopped at the same or slightly higher altitude. Hull radioed Bates tower near Mobile to look for object, then at that moment the object began a series of maneuvers for 30 secs, rising and falling, darting back and forth, instant 90° turns, then hovered motionless again at same/slightly higher level. When Bates field radioed again the object began another series of "crazy gyrations, lazy 8's, square chandelles" with undulating motion, then shot out to the S over the Gulf of Mexico in a steep climb at "fantastic speed" until it disappeared.

(Condon Committee Unexplained case, CR pp. 127-9; Hynek-CUFOS­ Willy Smith files; NARCAP; UFOE,

Capital Airlines Pilots Sees Acrobatic UFO

Below is the full report of the encounter sent in a letter by Captain Hull to the president of the CSI-NY Civilian UFO Investigation group where he describes being 'flabbergasted' and 'confounded' by the object's aerial maneuverability -the pilot also reminds him that he was 'objectively skeptical and cynically critical of most of the purported saucer sightings' yet asks the question 'was this was a machine based on earth?' which I suppose is a pretty fair one, especially considering this incident occurred way back in 1956.

The sighting which follows is of particular interest because it was made by an expert observer - a veteran airline pilot - who was formerly extremely skeptical on the subject of flying saucers. In fact, in 1953 Captain Hull wrote an article for Airline Pilot magazine titled "The Obituary of the Flying Saucers. We reprint, with his permission, a slightly condensed excerpt from the letter to CSI President John Du Barry in which he described his experience.

On the night of November 14, 1956 I was flying a Viscount at high altitude from New York to Mobile, Alabama. We were above a layer of clouds which were occasionally broken, giving us a glimpse of the ground now and then. At 10:10 p.m. E.S.T., when only about 60 miles from Mobile, my co-pilot Peter Macintosh and I saw what we thought was a brilliant meteor. We were flying south-southwest and it fell across our path from left to right, first becoming visible at the top of the windshield. (The Viscount has wonderful visibility upward.) It decelerated rapidly, just as any meteor does when entering the denser layers of ths earth''s lower atmosphere, and we expected to see it burn out with the customary flash, which pilots often see, but which people on the ground are often denied.

Imagine our consternation when this brilliant light did not burn out, but abruptly halted directly in front of us. It was an intense blue-white light, approximately 7 or 6 times as bright as Venus when this planet is at its brightest magnitude. Pete shouted "What the hell is it, a jet?" His first thought, of course, was that the object was a diving jet fighter which had turned sharply away from us and in departing, was giving us a view right up its glowing tailpipe. Instantly I knew this could not possibly be an airplane. I have seen the glow of too many jet pipes at night not to recognize one when I see it. It was not the right color; it did not diminish in size, as a departing jet fighter's exhaust should have; and it remained motionless directly ahead of us, how far I cannot say, but it must have been quite a few miles.

I quickly grabbed my microphone and called the Mobile Control Tower. "Bates Tower, this is Capital 77. Look out toward the north and east and see if you can see a strange white light hovering in the sky."

"Capital 77, this is Mobile Bates Tower. We are unable to see much of the sky because of a thick cloud cover. Do you think the object is in our vicinity?"

"Affirmative. It looks like a brilliant white light bulb, about one tenth the size of the moon. It is directly ahead of us and at about our altitude, or slightly higher. We are right over Jackson, Alabama and have descended to 10,000 feet. Please initiate a call to Brookley Field Tower (Air Force Field 20 miles southeast of Bates Field) and ask the controller if he can see it on their big radar scope." (We did not have the military frequency crystals in our transmitter to work Brookley Tower.)

Cont..

Just after this exchange, the object began to maneuver. It darted hither and yon, rising and falling in undulating flight, making sharper turns than any known aircraft, sometimes changing direction 90 degrees in an instant. All the while the color remained constant, a brilliant blue-white, and the object did not grow or lessen in size. Macintosh and I sat there completely flabbergasted at this unnerving exhibition. I thought of calling the passengers over the public address system, but the object was dead ahead of us and putting on its performance in an area whose arc was not large enough to enable anybody in the cabin to get a view of it out the side windows. After a half minute or so of this dancing, unorthodox flight the object suddenly became motionless and hovered dead still. We were simply confounded by this.

Bates Tower called back, "Capital 77, we are trying to raise ths Brookley Tower"

Right at this moment the strange light began another series of crazy gyrations, lazy 8's, square chandellea, all the while weaving through the air with a sort of rythmic, undulating cadence, the likes of which neither Pete nor I had ever seen. Then, apparently content at the consternation which it had wrought, the object shot out ever the Gulf of Mexico, rising at the most breathtaking angle and at such a fantastic speed that it diminished rapidly to a pinpoint and was swallowed up in the night. This unearthly exhibition probably went on for at least two minutes, according to our best judgment. I glanced at the clock and noted it read 10:12. The most puzzling thing about the whole occurrence, aside from the dancing flight, was that the object, whatever it was, had remained at the same distance from us throughout the performance. How do we know this? It never increased in size, and yet we were bearing down on it at more than 5 miles a minute in the Viscount. If it was in view two minutes and performing in one area we should have been at least ten miles closer to it. How, any object that flies certainly looks different when viewed at such a great variance in distance. So this UFO must have managed to remain at the same distance from us throughout the entire display.

If you know southern Alabama you know that it is pretty desolate country, with few inhabitants and only a few small hamlets between Mobile and Montgomery up in the middle of the state. We were above the clouds, precluding any reflections of searchlights from below. I have seen hundreds of advertising searchlights playing on clouds, and this was nothing remotely related. Likewise I am summarily ruling out aircraft (at least the ones we know), balloons, missiles, or any other earthlaunched device within my ken. The one thing which I can't get over is the fact that when it came, it came steeply downwards when it departed after its amazing exhibitio. It went steeply upward. Now I ask you, John, is this machine based on the earth?"

I followed up on this spectacular sighting after landing at Mobile The control tower operators had reached Brookley after a slight delay, but the controller had seen nothing, and since no night flights were in progress, the surveillance radar had not been energized at the time.

In case any of your members would like to know my background, you may give it to them. You will remember me as objectively skeptical and cynically critical of most of the purported saucer sightings. But I think you have to believe a veteran airline pilot with 17 years of service, 15,000 hours and 3 million miles in his log-book. I am seeking no publicity. I didn't report this sighting to the press and not a word has ever been printed about it until this moment.

W. J. Hull

Bluebook documents (pdf file)

Even the highly questionable Condon Report couldn't shoehorn a debunk onto this one and Dr James Mcdonald brings up the case in his 'Science In Default' article where he lists UFO incidents conceded by Condon to be 'unexplainable' and 'containing features of particularly strong scientific interest' (he also lists cases deemed 'explained' by the Condon report to which he takes 'strong exception to the argumentation presented').

Some examples of UFO cases conceded to be unexplainable in the Condon Report and containing features of particularly strong scientific interest:

Utica, N.Y., 6/23/55
Lakenheath, England, 8/13/56
Jackson, Ala., 11/14/56
Norfolk, Va., 8/30/57
RB-47 case, 9/19/57
Beverly Mass., 4/22/66
Donnybrook, N.D., 8/19/66
Haynesville, La., 12/30/66
Joplin, Mo., 1/13/67
Colorado Springs, Colo., 5/13/67

Some examples of UFO cases considered explained in the Condon Report for which I would take strong exception to the argumentation presented and would regard as both unexplained and of strong scientific interest:

Flagstaff, Ariz., 5/20/50
Washington, D. C., 7/19/52
Bellefontaine, O., 8/1/52
Haneda AFB, Japan, 8/5/5
Gulf of Mexico, 12/6/52
Odessa, Wash., 12/10/52
Continental Divide, N.M., 1/26/53
Seven Isles, Quebec, 6/29/5
Niagara Falls, N.Y., 7/25/57
Kirtland AFB, N.M., 11/4/57
Gulf of Mexico, 11/5/57
Peru, 12/30/66
Holloman AFB, 3/2/67
Kincheloe AFB, 9/11/67
Vandenberg AFB, 10/6/67
Milledgeville, Ga., 10/20/67

Science in Default - Twenty-Two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations

Whatever the case this is a pretty compelling unexplained UFO incident involving a flabbergasted UFO skeptic and some incredibly strange UFO flight characteristics (including undulating motion) and so it's a great shame that it was completely ignored by USAF UFO investigators - the article below also mentions there was a major UFO flap on in the U.S. at the time so maybe there could be other reports that corroborate this one.

A UFO flap covering the area of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota began on November 8th. The sightings, made during nearly every hour of the day and night, continued until December 2nd. More than 85 separate visual sighting reports from some 60 different localities were received from the three state area. Due to the unusually large number of reports, it was possible, in some instances, to determine that the same phenomenon was seen at widely separated areas. In other cases, the sighting reports indicate a great number of different objects were aloft at one time over different areas.

link

Thanks for the very interesting read.

It's nice when pilots take the time to file an actual report for their sightings.

I have spoken to several people who's testimony matches that - from air, and from ground perspective. Sometimes multiple circular objects capable of moving in ways highly unlike any modern aircraft of today.

But they are always orange-red.
This is blue-white.

That's pretty interesting, as I always felt like the colors were a byproduct of whatever energy is used to propel the crafts.

Surely someone will stroll in here shouting "Ball lightning" next...


Star and Flag for You!

reply to post by karl 12


I captured this twice about thirty seconds apart. Don't believe me? download the file from 4shared called "white object blue sky" and watch it on a large screen tv. file sharing there are a few youtube videos that show the dancing behavior

this is a good one

reply to post by bottleslingguy


Yeah, us in Northern California seem to be a *huge* hotspot for these things.

On almost a monthly basis new sightings pop up all over.

ufostalker.com is a great website to help track these appearances.

reply to post by ThinkingCap


Thanks for the reply ThinkingCap and it certainly is a freaky one with some darn nifty UFO maneuvers (90° turns, lazy eights, square chandelles etc..) - I don't think we've got anything in the public domain that can do that nowadays so god knows what was flying about over Alabama back in 1957.

I also liked the fact that one of the pilots was a hardened UFO skeptic - he must have been quite mindboggled to witness all these maneuvers and I really do wonder if he retracted his anti-UFO article published in 1953.

Originally posted by ThinkingCap

It's nice when pilots take the time to file an actual report for their sightings.

It sure is mate although, as NARCAP's Ted Roe once mentioned, "most U.S. pilots now know that they will face ridicule and may even put their career in jeopardy if they report seeing almost anything that is not 'naturally explained'" - so I can well understand them not wanting to bother.

Originally posted by ThinkingCap


But they are always orange-red.
This is blue-white.

That's pretty interesting, as I always felt like the colors were a byproduct of whatever energy is used to propel the crafts.

You may well be onto something there and there's been quite a few reports I've seen which involve UFOs changing colour - NASA's Paul Hill's done some research on this subject and the case below is a good example involving a UFO being pursued by military jets and changing colours from yellow to orange to red as it accelerated.


Military Aircraft pursue UFO over Palmar Dam.


Cheers.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy

I captured this twice about thirty seconds apart. Don't believe me? download the file from 4shared called "white object blue sky" and watch it on a large screen tv.

Will do bottleslingguy and thanks for the post (will get back to you on that one) -as I'm sure you already know there's been plenty of UFO reports describing extremely strange flight characteristics over the years and British copper Gary Heseltine sums it up quite nicely below.

"There are some definite flight type characteristics that are seen now that I would say represent genuine UFOs...ie: instant acceleration; instant stop; vertical acceleration -up into the air and down to the ground; reverses in direction; right angle turns -all in silence -multiple objects sometimes separating and then going back into each other.
They are classic,what I would call,genuine UFO characteristics -things that we can not do in a conventional sense".
British Detective Constable Gary Heseltine - Police UFO reporting organisation,

PRUFOS

Originally posted by ThinkingCap
reply to post by bottleslingguy

 

Yeah, us in Northern California seem to be a *huge* hotspot for these things.

On almost a monthly basis new sightings pop up all over.

ufostalker.com is a great website to help track these appearances.

Had a cheeky title change there and thanks for the link to 'ufostalker.com' - have never heard of that one before and it's truly amazing just how many UFO websites are out there.

Don't know if you've ever looked into this case from California but it also involves a UFO performing 'aerial gymnastics' and the two policemen who initially witnessed the object described it in their report as "performing feats that were actually unbelievable".

Cheers.

Karl --- Interesting thread....and as always --- thanks for your reasearch on the UFO enigma. IMHO...this 1956 Alabama aerial sighting --- is just another brillant technological display of pure plasma energy transfer to thrust/anti-gravitational output --- as in the bluish-white high power phase of a Foofighter [alien starship from another planet], that not only beckons us to the stars; but also drives my curiousity as to what is the color phase of plasma for a starship that travels in the superluminal realm?

reply to post by ThinkingCap


"as I always felt like the colors were a byproduct of whatever energy is used to propel the crafts"

I too agree with this assesment. The lights are not always lights per say, like on human aircraft. The lights are a function of the propulsion. If they did not want to be seen they would not be flying around with all these lights on. Maybe there is no way around it for them, as they cannot turn the "lights" off and still fly.

Of course they might care less about if they are beeing seen or not, as they know that people on ATS will just write the sightings off as hoaxers.

in the video they looked like white birds flying around.

anyone expert in birds can comment on how bird look like when videotaped / filmed from long range? is the movement correct for birds?

just want to make sure all natural possibilities eliminated before judging.

Probably a air craft test ?!

Another great case, Karl12. Priceless that the witness was a 'hardened UFO skeptic'

Object pulling extreme manoeuvres, obviously under intelligent control, very difficult to believe it was some sort of 'black project', witnessed by two pilots, one of which was 'a published anti-UFO skeptic who had already written a 'debunking' article in an Airline Pilot magazine three years before.'. Yep, I would say that is an excellent case.

Interesting even the Condon report didnt try and tape on some half baked debunk.

However, in 1956, a commercial pilot could still (just about) get away with a solid UFO report and keep his credibility and job. Wonder if it happened now if we would even hear about it?

Listen......Do you hear that?.......Thats the sound of absolute silence from the de-bunkers.

Wonderful, isnt it?

reply to post by karl 12

Originally posted by Thunda
Listen......Do you hear that?.......Thats the sound of absolute silence from the de-bunkers.

Wonderful, isnt it?

this question goes out to anyone

why do people think that just because they say that they think its a bird
or now dont laugh swamp gas sorry couldnt help myself
that its not a ufo and or its a hoax? who made them the experts.

i have seen many ufos and maybe id say maybe a couple were
maybe not of this world (ETs probes id say)
some of my sightings have never even been described by others yet
so i always click your threads in the hope that one day there they will be

anyway keep up the good threads

check please

star and flag

Originally posted by maryhinge
reply to post by karl 12

 

Originally posted by Thunda
Listen......Do you hear that?.......Thats the sound of absolute silence from the de-bunkers.

Wonderful, isnt it?

this question goes out to anyone

why do people think that just because they say that they think its a bird
or now dont laugh swamp gas

sorry couldnt help myself
that its not a ufo and or its a hoax? who made them the experts.

i have seen many ufos and maybe id say maybe a couple were
maybe not of this world (ETs probes id say)
some of my sightings have never even been described by others yet
so i always click your threads in the hope that one day there they will be

anyway keep up the good threads

check please

star and flag

edit on 13/12/2012 by maryhinge because: (no reason given)

There is a pretty big difference between a UFO and an alien spaceship. I've seen UFO's myself, things flying in the sky that I could not identify. Does that also mean it automatically is an alien spaceship because you say so? The "debunking" goes both ways, you see (or would that be considered, "bunking" ). Neither extreme is healthy for the investigation of these strange phenomena.

I honestly wish I could definitively say there are extraterrestrial life forms elsewhere in the universe....I really do. But to date, there is no evidence (real evidence, repeatable, and independently verifiable) the proves there is life off this little spec. Even a fossilized bacterium would be an earth shattering discovery....but it simply has not yet occurred.

reply to post by karl 12


Never heard of this case before..thanks for posting...I enjoyed the read

I find it interesting that Captain W. J. Hull, was a so called skeptic that he claimed to be until he saw a UFO in 1956 that made him a believer, but then if you read this letter in the link below written to him by William Nash on April 18, 1954 sounds to me like Hull was involved in, or interested in UFO's way before he actually claimed he saw one?

Am I not reading my dates right?
To me it's another fascinating story that goes down the Sh2tter with all the rest of the stories.

www.project1947.com...

I want to believe guys, but every story I read and then re read just never seems to add up?

reply to post by mysteryskeptic


And if you read the thread above it was well known that he was a UFO sceptic.

Originally posted by mysteryskeptic
I find it interesting that Captain W. J. Hull, was a so called skeptic that he claimed to be until he saw a UFO in 1956 that made him a believer, but then if you read this letter in the link below written to him by William Nash on April 18, 1954 sounds to me like Hull was involved in, or interested in UFO's way before he actually claimed he saw one?

Am I not reading my dates right?
To me it's another fascinating story that goes down the Sh2tter with all the rest of the stories.

www.project1947.com...

I want to believe guys, but every story I read and then re read just never seems to add up?

I really dont see how you reached that conclusion based on the OP. Hull was indeed 'interested' in the subject of UFO's, but from the point of view of a skeptic- a published one at that. If you read the post it says "author of anti-UFO skeptical article "The Obituary of the Flying Saucer" in The Airline Pilot magazine (Sept. 1953),"- the response from Bill Nash is more of a rebuttal than anything else, and certainly doesnt throw the story "down the Sh2tter with all the rest of the stories."

The original letter, from Hull to the research group 'Civilian Saucer Intelligence' (Who, in contrast to the many amateurish early "flying saucer clubs", CSI actually conducted rigorous investigations of UFO reports.) to CSI President John Du Barry, ends with the following statement: "You will remember me as objectively skeptical and cynically critical of most of the purported saucer sightings. But I think you have to believe a veteran airline pilot with 17 years of service, 15,000 hours and 3 million miles in his log-book. I am seeking no publicity. I didn't report this sighting to the press and not a word has ever been printed about it until this moment."