ghted the thing. It looks metallic and it's
tremendous in size. . . . Now it's starting to climb." Then in a few
seconds he is supposed to have called and said, "It's above me and
I'm gaining on it. I'm going to 20,000 feet." Everyone in the tower
agreed on this one last bit of the transmission, "I'm going to 20,000
feet," but didn't agree on the first part, about the UFO's being
metallic and tremendous.

The two wing men were now at 15,000 feet and trying frantically to
call Mantell. He had climbed far above them by this time and was out
of sight. Since none of them had any oxygen they were worried about
Mantell. Their calls were not answered. Mantell never talked to
anyone again. The two wing men leveled off at 15,000 feet, made
another fruitless effort to call Mantell, and started to come back
down. As they passed Godman Tower on their way to their base, one of
them said something to the effect that all he had seen was a
reflection on his canopy.

When they landed at their base, Standiford Field, just north of
Godman, one pilot had his F-51 refueled and serviced with oxygen, and
took off to search the area again. He didn't see anything.

At three-fifty the tower lost sight of the UFO. A few minutes later
they got word that Mantell had crashed and was dead.

Several hours later, at 7:20P.M., airfield towers all over the
Midwest sent in frantic reports of another UFO. In all about a dozen
airfield towers reported the UFO as being low on the southwestern
horizon and disappearing after about twenty minutes. The writers of
saucer lore say this UFO was what Mantell was chasing when he died;
the Air Force says _this_ UFO was Venus.

The people on Project Sign worked fast on the Mantell Incident.
Contemplating a flood of queries from the press as soon as they heard
about the crash, they realized that they had to get a quick answer.
Venus had been the target of a chase by an Air Force F-51 several
weeks before and there were similarities between this sighting and
the Mantell Incident. So almost before the rescue crews had reached
the crash, the word "Venus" went out. This satisfied the editors, and
so it stood for about a year; Mantell had unfortunately been killed
trying to reach the planet Venus.

To the press, the nonchalant, offhand manner with which the sighting
was written off by the Air Force public relations officer showed
great confidence in the conclusion, Venus, but behind the barbed-wire
fence that encircl