B: There are some errors here. The published book does
not mention Maj. Bogg's name in the Mantell treatment, instead Ruppelt
refers to him only as "a major in the Pentagon ... the Air Force's UFO
'expert' in the Pentagon." Yet it is not lined through to
indicate "Boggs" was deleted from the published book, when it
should be lined through. There might be other errors as well,
these are just the ones most noticeable to me.
By the way, one lead I'm working on is that Mantell apparently
turned right and to the NW at the very end. His wingmen said they
lost sight of him as he went into the sun, which gives us a pretty
exact direction, as the sun was at 227 degs azimuth elevation 15
degs. They had been heading 215 degs, the exact 215 degs reported
by base commander Col Hix for the UFO, but I need to verify F-51
heading as there are some discrepant numbers.
If this checks out it would seem that Mantell turned about 12 degs
to the right and to the NW, due to the UFO's movement to the NW, the
exact opposite direction of the Skyhook balloon floating to the SE (yes
it does seem irrefutable that there was a Skyhook-like balloon in the
Nashville area having come across W Kentucky early in the afternoon,
but not in South-Central Kentucky where Mantell chased the UFO).
Also it turns out the maximum climb angle on the F-51D is 17 degs so
going up into the sun at 15 degs elevation would seem to confirm that
he was at or close to his maximum climb angle and rate.
Also, there is a possibly misused quote I am trying to check out
where a wingman, probably Lt Clements, supposedly said "Where the hell
are we going?" or "What the hell are we looking for?" just before
Mantell took off at maximum climb then crashed. This
has been used to try to prove the wingmen saw nothing and so it was a
delusion by Mantell. However I've found conflicting quotes and
the timing appears to be EARLY in the chase before all three F-51D
pilots had found the object in the sky, NOT LATE in the chase as if
they had seen nothing and didn't know what it was all about and had
been on a fool's errand of Mantell's for almost a half hour (the
insinuation that seems to be made).
I found references in the Accident Summary and news accounts if I
recall correctly, that state that at least one if not both wingmen did
see a bright object in the sky, like a canopy reflection of bright
sunlight, but not actually a canopy reflection. But that
also does sound like a Skyhook balloon because the sun reflects off a
semi-transparent glassy-like plastic (some news reports from Tenn. have
witnesses using those exact words "glassy" like reflection of sun,
etc.).