the UFO. Before long word of the sighting had gotten around to key
personnel on the base, and several officers, besides the base
operations officer and the base intelligence officer, were in the
tower. All of them looked at the UFO through the tower's 6 x 50
binoculars and decided they couldn't identify it. About this time
Colonel Hix, the base commander, arrived. He looked and he was
baffled. At two-thirty, they reported, they were discussing what
should be done when four F-51's came into view, approaching the base
from the south.

The tower called the flight leader, Captain Mantell, and asked him
to take a look at the object and try to identify it. One F-51 in the
flight was running low on fuel, so he asked permission to go on to
his base. Mantell took his two remaining wing men, made a turn, and
started after the UFO. The people in Godman Tower were directing him
as none of the pilots could see the object at this time. They gave
Mantell an initial heading toward the south and the flight was last
seen heading in the general direction of the UFO.

By the time the F-51's had climbed to 10,000 feet, the two wing men
later reported, Mantell had pulled out ahead of them and they could
just barely see him. At two forty-five Mantell called the tower and
said, "I see something above and ahead of me and I'm still climbing."
All the people in the tower heard Mantell say this and they heard one
of the wing men call back and ask, "What the hell are we looking
for?" The tower immediately called Mantell and asked him for a
description of what he saw. Odd as it may seem, no one can remember
exactly what he answered. Saucer historians have credited him with
saying, "I've sighted the thing. It looks metallic and it's
tremendous in size. . . . Now it's starting to climb." Then in a few