The rogional director of the weather bureau at Anchorage, Alaska,
was recipient of strange report on August 4th by some pilots
employed by regional flight service. Why the aviators contacted the
weather bureau is a mystery itself/nonetheless/the forecasters in
Anchorage forwarded the report to the Alaska Military Communication
System at Seattle, Washington, thus getting it into Intelligence
channels. As for the sighting, it seems that Captain J. Peck and his
co pilot, V. Daly, were flying their plane near Bethel, Alaska,
small town in the western part of the state not far from the mouth
of the Kuskokwim River, when the pilots radioed the regional weather
station something was dead ahead which they couldn't identify
(perhaps the flyers first believed the thing to be weather
instrument?); anyway, the object was silhouetted against the sky
which was lit brilliantly by the sun low on the horizon. Captain
Peck hauled back on his controls to bring his plane up to safer
altitude. Now thousand feet higher, the pilots glanced downward and
spotted the UFO closer but on changed course. Still dark against the
sky, it looked to be as large as a C-54. Intrigued, Captain Peck
dived on the object as it pulled away doing his best to get better
view, but it speeded up to an estimated 500 mph and was lost to view
in four minutes, fantastic performance for something smooth surfaced
with no apparent engines of any kind. 222.
(This was after the famous Tacoma hoax) This fervent
castigation of the saucers put a certain Signal Corps operator in
Seattle in vacillating mental state, for he was sitting on the UFO
report from the weather bureau at Anchorage, Alaska, concerning the
sighting made by Captain Peck. The Captain was well known in the
Northwest because he was the chief pilot for regional company air
service, 17 year veteran of flying and definitely no nonsense guy.
The Signal Corpsman wondered: should he send the report to
Washington ? Hesitating only briefly he passed it along to higher
headquarters with personal note attached in which he did his own
castigating by infixing that Captain Peck's observation was of
"national interest?" 224 This caused some perturbations in
Washington when the message arrived in the offices of the High
Command, but for the moment that story will have to wait. (UFOs A
History 1947, Loren Gross)
