mantell Godman Not Venus

Fran Ridge:
Robert Ginna, in the April 7, 1952 "LIFE" article, "Have We Visitors From Outer Space", had mentioned that the Mantell case was still unexplained: "Buried in the heap of hysterical reports were some sobering cases. One was the calamity that befell Air Force Captain Thomas F. Mantell on Jan. 7, 1948.......It now seems possible that Mantell was one of the very few sighters who actually were deceived by a Skyhook balloon, but the incident is still listed as unsolved by the Air Force files."

There is no doubt that Ginna was told about the case, even the alleged skyhook, and that 5 years after the incident occurred the case was still unexplained. In 1960, when I set up the NICAP team at Vincennes, Indiana, one of my special advisers from Universal Scientific, was Lewis Blevins. Blevins had been one of the many scientists who had worked for Project SIGN. He was emphatic: The Mantell case was NOT explained and the incident had shaken a lot of people up.

The documents below were found by researcher, Dan Wilson. Page three of this restricted routing slip had something we all had missed. Venus, we knew, had been ruled out a long time ago. But Brad Sparks brought to the attention of the UFO community, the statement by A. Deyarmond, made in November of 1948 (11 months after the incident), that the case was considered unexplained.

ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET

1. Re Sighting of 7 Jan 1948 : Reference is made to your conversation with Capt. Sneider on 19 October 1948 concerning your desire for a check on the position and visibility of Venus on 7 Jan 1948 between the hours 1330 and 1350 as compared to the position of an unidentified aerial object.

Page ID (PID)	USAF-SIGN7-26
Collection	Project Sign
Roll Description	Project Sign Roll 7
Document Code	N/A