“Airplane!”

This was Stringfield’s first reaction but during World War II he had made the long trek up the Pacific with the famous Fifth Air Force and he immediately realized that if it was an airplane it would have to be very close because of the large distance between the lights.  And, as a clincher, no sound came through the still night.

He dialed the long distance operator and said the magic words, “This is Foxtrot Kilo Three Dash Zero Blue.”  Seconds later he was talking to the duty sergeant at the Columbus Filter Center.  A few more seconds and the sergeant had his story.

Another jet was scrambled and this time Stringfield, via a radiotelephone hookup to the airplane, gave the pilot a vector.  Stringfield heard the jet closing in but since it was a one-way circuit he couldn’t hear the pilot’s comments.

Once again the UFO took off.

This was a fitting climax for the Cincinnati flap.  As suddenly as it began it quit and from the mass of data that was collected the Air Force got zero information.

In the mystery league the UFO’s were still ahead.

Although the majority of the UFO activity during the last half of 1955 and early 1956 centered in the Cincinnati area there were other good reports.

Near Banning, California, on November 25, 1955, Gene Miller, manager of the Banning Municipal Airport and Dr. Leslie Ward, a physician, were paced by a “globe of white light which suddenly backed up in midair,” while in Miller’s airplane.  It was the same old story:  Miller was an experienced pilot, a former Air Force instructor and air freight pilot with several thousand hours flying time.

Commercial pilots came in for more than their share of the sightings in 1956.

On January 22, UFO investigators talked to the crew of a Pan American airliner.  That night, at 8:30P.M., the Houston to Miami DC-7B had been “abeam” of New Orleans, out over the Gulf of Mexico.  There was a partial moon shining through small wisps of high cirrus clouds but generally it was a clear night.  The captain of the flight was back in the cabin chatting with the passengers; the co-pilot and engineer were alone on the flight deck.  The engineer had moved up from his control panel and was sitting beside the co-pilot.

At 8:30 it was time for a radio position report and the co-pilot, Tom Tompkins, leaned down to set up a new frequency on the radio controls.  Robert Mueller, the engineer, was on watch for other aircraft.  It was ten, maybe twenty seconds after Tompkins leaned down that Mueller just barely perceived a pinpoint of moving light off to his right.  Even before his thought processes could tell him it might be another airplane the light began to grow in size.  Within a short six seconds it streaked across the nose of the airliner, coming out of the Gulf and disappearing inland over Mississippi or Alabama.  Tompkins, the co-pilot, never saw it because Mueller was too astounded to even utter a sound.