Chiles’ and Whitted’s
Encounter with the Unknown
Date: July 24, 1948
Location: Montgomery, Alabama, United States
The Chiles and Whitted UFO sighting is one of the cases that forced the United States Air Force to initiate an investigation into the numerous UFO reports that were being made. This case has enough evidence that the conclusion the air force’s Project Sign came to was that the reported object was interplanetary.
On July 24, 1948, pilot Clarence Chiles and copilot John Whitted were on board the Eastern Airlines DC-3 aircraft, en route to Atlanta from Houston. Both pilots had military experience, Chiles having logged over 8,500 hours. The time was around 02:45 and the aircraft was flying southwest of Montgomery at an altitude of five thousand feet when Chiles noticed a bright light dead ahead. Initially, the two pilots thought that the light was the exhaust from an aircraft that was flying ahead of them. However, they then noticed that whatever was in front of them was disk-shaped and approaching their aircraft at an incredible speed.
The disk-shaped object was flying at such a great speed that it reached their position instantly, with both pilots expecting a collision to happen at any second. Luckily enough, Chiles and Whitted were taken aback as they saw the bright light fly tightly overhead, just seven hundred feet above their aircraft and just barely avoiding a crash. As the light flew overhead, Chiles made a sharp left turn and as the two looked back at the object, they saw it halt and start a steep vertical climb as it disappeared out of sight. The ability of the object to halt so suddenly from such a velocity and to start such a steep vertical climb was incomprehensible. On board the flight, only one other passenger had seen the object streak past the aircraft. The unnamed individual described the object as a “strange, eerie streak of light, very intense.” 116 The light was so intense, and everything had happened so quickly that he was unable to make out any other details.
A few minutes after Chiles and Whitted’s sighting, a crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia reported seeing a bright light pass over the base at an incredible speed. Three days later, a third individual came forward. The individual had stated that he was flying commercially over Virginia, North Carolina, when at the same time of Chiles and Whitted’s encounter, he saw what looked like a bright shooting star fly rapidly through the sky.
Witness Statements
American physicist Dr. James McDonald interviewed both witnesses separately and the two pilots gave a similar witness statements. Chiles and Whitted both stated that the object could not have been a terrestrial aircraft; its maneuverability and abilities could not have possibly been withstood by a human.
The cigar-shaped aircraft was the size of a B-29 bomber—approximately 99 feet long—but was twice as thick. There were no visible engines or wings, but both Chiles and Whitted described a row of windows that had a bright blue light (similar to burning magnesium) glowing inside. Once the object flew overhead and they looked back at it, they saw that it also had a “bright trail of orange, red flame” shooting out of its end. Beneath the aircraft was also a glowing blue light.
Although the object was enormous in size, it was exceptionally maneuverable. What I find so compelling about this case is the fact that the object was able to maneuver so accurately over the DC-3. The maneuverability and capability prove that the object was being piloted by a highly intelligent being who possessed spatial awareness.
The unidentified flying object was seen by at least three other independent eyewitnesses. The most important eyewitness statement that corroborates and verifies Chiles’ and Whitted’s story is the one made by the crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. If we take a look at the location of the DC-3 at the time of the sighting, given that the UFO passed over the aircraft, it would have passed over Macon, Georgia, which is just two hundred miles away from the air force base.
The Investigation
At the time of the sighting, Project Sign was investigating all UFO reports. This case was highly credible; it had multiple independent witnesses from different locations whose statements substantiated one another. There was no other plausible explanation other than the extraterrestrial hypothesis. No terrestrial aircraft could carry out such maneuvers, and no human being could have endured the G forces.
The investigators at Project Sign wrote up a report titled the “Estimate of Situation,” which explained how the object witnessed by Chiles and Whitted was interplanetary. This was the only hypothesis that made sense. The report, which was sent to Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg, was highly classified. Although the preliminary investigation stated that all evidence showed that the UFO was extraterrestrial, Vandenberg agreed with the conclusion that Dr. J. Allen Hynek had come to. Hynek stated that what Chiles and Whitted had seen was not an interplanetary flying object but a bright meteorite. This statement was endorsed by Dr. Donald Menzel, another astronomer and notable UFO skeptic.
It must be noted that all three individuals who attempted to debunk the extraterrestrial hypothesis were all prominent UFO skeptics, who went to extreme lengths to try and disprove any cases that prove the existence and presence of extraterrestrial life.
Conclusion
Under no circumstances can a meteor possess the characteristics of the reported UFO, or maneuver the same way the object did. It is evident that Vandenberg’s own biases influenced the conclusion of the report.
In 1968, Dr. James McDonald spoke in front of the United States Congress and explained how the majority of UFO reports had been poorly investigated and prematurely dismissed. In his concluding statement, McDonald stated the following: “To conclude, then, my position is that UFOs are entirely real, and we do not know what they are because we have laughed them out of court. The possibility that these are extraterrestrial devices, that we are dealing with surveillance from some advanced technology is a possibility I take very seriously.” 117