The A.P. interviewed Mr. McKelvie soon after he landed, and ran the following story:
“Kennett Square, Pa., July 24 (AP) . Clarence L. McKelvie, assistant managing editor of the American Education Press, said he was the only passenger on the EAL Houston-Boston plane who was not asleep when the phantom craft was sighted.
“‘I saw no shape or form,’ Mr. McKelvie said. ‘I was on the right side of the plane, and suddenly I saw this strange eerie streak out of my window. It was very intense, not like lightning or anything I had ever seen.’
“The Columbus man said he was too startled and the object moved too quickly for him to adjust his eyes to it.”
In Washington, Air Force officials insisted they could shed no light on the mystery. Out in Santa Monica, General George C. Kenney, then chief of the Strategic Air Command, declared the Air Force had nothing remotely like the ship described.
“I wish we did,” General Kenney told reporters. “I’d sure like to see that.”
The publicized story of this “space ship” set off another scare—also the usual cracks about screwball pilots. But Chiles and Whitted were not screwballs; they were highly respected pilots. The passenger’s confirmation added weight. But even if all three had been considered deluded, the Air Force investigators could not get around the reports from Robbins Air Force Base.
Just about one hour before the DC-3 incident, a strange flaming object came racing southward through the night skies over Robbins Field, at Macon, Georgia. Observers at the air base were astounded to see what appeared to be a huge, wingless craft streak overhead, trailing a varicolored exhaust. (The witnesses’ description tallied with those of Chiles and Whitted.) The mystery ship vanished swiftly; all observers agreed that it disappeared from the line of sight just like a normal aircraft.
While I was working on this case, a contact in Washington gave me an interesting tip.
“Within forty-eight hours after that Eastern sighting, Air Force engineers rushed out blueprint plans and elevations of the ‘space ship,’ based on what the two pilots told them.”