The most spectacular of such formations was the great meteor procession of February 9, 1913. At about 9:05 in the evening the leader or leaders appeared in the sky over western Canada, their fiery red bodies followed by long streaming tails. These immense fireballs showed no tendency to fall toward the earth but, like the green fireballs of New Mexico, “moved forward on a perfectly horizontal path with peculiar, majestic, dignified deliberation,” and disappeared in the distance to the southwest. No description can surpass that given by Professor Chant[[V-21]] who spent two weeks in locating and interviewing many of the witnesses.
“Before the astonishment aroused by this first meteor had subsided, other bodies were seen coming from the northwest, emerging from precisely the same place as the first one. Onward they moved, at the same deliberate pace, in twos or threes or fours, with tails streaming behind, though not so long nor so bright as in the first case. They all traversed the same path and were headed for the same point in the southeastern sky.
“Gradually the bodies became smaller, until the last ones were but red sparks, some of which were snuffed out before they reached their destination. Several report that near the middle of the great procession was a fine large star without a tail, and that a similar body brought up the rear.
“To most observers the outstanding feature of the phenomenon was the slow, majestic motion of the bodies; and almost equally remarkable was the perfect formation which they retained. Many compared them to a fleet of airships, with lights on either side and forward and aft;... Others, again, likened them to great battleships, attended by cruisers or destroyers.”
No other recorded meteors have persisted for so great a distance. Thousands of persons saw this great procession as it soared over Saskatchewan, central Canada, Toronto and the Great Lakes region, New York and Pennsylvania, the shipping lanes from New York to Bermuda, and on over the South Atlantic, where before it vanished it was observed by ships as far south as Brazil—a distance of some 5000 miles, one fifth of the earth’s circumference. The descriptions do not vary significantly and they all mention the slow, level flight, parallel to the earth’s surface.
Some astronomers have suggested that these unusual meteors may have been a group of natural satellites deflected by the earth’s gravitation, slowing down and finally disintegrating as they made their final revolution[[V-14]]. But if the UFO cult had existed in 1913, the flying-saucer enthusiasts would probably have regarded the fireball procession as a fleet of spaceships, and would have speculated on the problem of what planet dispatched them and for what purpose.
The Chiles-Whitted Sighting
The Chiles-Whitted UFO, sighted on July 24, 1948, is one of the most publicized of the classics. Although the object appeared, passed, and vanished in an interval of roughly ten seconds, and the descriptions given by the three witnesses differed on several vital points, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, astronomer consultant to ATIC, in his report of April 30, 1949, identified it as an undoubted meteor. Nevertheless, not until 1959 did the Air Force officially accept this solution, and the literature of saucerdom still cites the incident as indisputable proof of alien spaceships.
On the evening of July 23 an Eastern Airlines DC-3 took off from Houston, Texas, en route for Boston, with an experienced pilot and copilot in the cockpit. By 2:40 A.M. C.D.S.T. July 24 the plane was a few miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, flying at an altitude of 5000 feet. The night was clear, and a bright moon just four days past full shone through a layer of broken clouds about 1000 feet above the plane. At 2:45 A.M. the pilot, Captain C. S. Chiles, noticed a dull red glow some distance ahead, approaching from a little above and to the right of the plane. He remarked to his copilot, Lieutenant J. B. Whitted, “Look, here comes a new Army jet job.”[V-19] In the next few seconds, however, he changed his mind about the identity of the object. As both men watched, the brilliantly glowing unknown continued to approach with incredible swiftness, apparently on a collision course; it seemed to veer slightly, passed the plane on the right almost level with and parallel to the flight path, then seemed to pull up sharply and disappear into the clouds. Captain Chiles estimated that the object was in sight for about ten seconds. The one passenger who was awake, sitting at the right of the cabin, saw the light for only an instant as it flashed by.
The brief impressions of these three witnesses were the sole foundation for newspaper stories that the plane had narrowly escaped collision with a spaceship.