Chiles–Whitted UFO encounter
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🛸 Case
Contents 5
| Type | Case |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Chiles-Whitted, Chiles–Whitted |
| On the Timeline | 1 event, 1956 |
The Chiles–Whitted UFO encounter was a sighting by two Eastern Air Lines pilots of a wingless, cigar-shaped object with two rows of lit windows near Montgomery, Alabama, at about 2:45 a.m. on 24 July 1948. It strongly influenced the Air Force's Project Sign and is said to have prompted its "Estimate of the Situation" concluding that some UFOs were interplanetary.[1][2]
The sighting
Captain Clarence S. Chiles, a chief pilot, and co-pilot John B. Whitted were flying a DC-3 airliner at about 5,000 feet when they saw a glowing object approaching. Both described a wingless, cigar-shaped craft about 100 feet long with two rows of bright windows and a flame from its tail; Chiles said it resembled a B-29 fuselage. It passed close by, and they felt their plane rock, before it climbed sharply into the clouds; the sighting lasted about 10 to 15 seconds. The only passenger awake, C.L. McKelvie, saw a bright streak of light. A crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia reported a very bright light passing overhead about an hour earlier.[1][3]
Project Sign
Investigators noted that the pilots disagreed on some details, such as whether there was a cockpit or a nose boom. Nonetheless, according to Edward Ruppelt, the sighting helped convince Project Sign staff to draft a top-secret "Estimate of the Situation" arguing that UFOs were interplanetary craft, which Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg rejected in October 1948 for lack of proof.[1][4]
Explanations
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, then the Air Force's consultant, proposed that the pilots had seen an unusually bright meteor, and Harvard astronomer Donald Menzel and skeptic Philip Klass later agreed, pointing to increased meteor activity that night. In 1959 Project Blue Book officially listed the case as a fireball meteor. Atmospheric physicist James McDonald, who interviewed the pilots in the 1960s, concluded that they had not seen a meteor.[1][5]
On the UAP Timeline
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- Ruppelt's account of the Estimate of the Situation (February 1956) — Edward Ruppelt writes he once saw a top-secret 'Estimate of the Situation' on UAP.
References
- Chiles–Whitted UFO encounter — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Jerome Clark, The UFO Book (1998) — Internet Archive · archive.org · archived copy
- "The Chiles-Whitted Encounter", UFO Casebook · ufocasebook.com · archived copy
- Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956) — Internet Archive · archive.org · archived copy
- Donald Menzel and Lyle Boyd, The World of Flying Saucers (1963) — Internet Archive · archive.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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