In 1953, Air Defence Radar over Lake Superior, Michigan, detected a UFO travelling at rapid speeds. An F-89C interceptor jet was dispatched to investigate, the plane and its pilots were never seen again.

In 1953, over Lake Superior, a jet as well as its crew disappeared after being scrambled to track a UFO

On the evening of November 23, 1953, Air Defence Command radar detected the presence of an unidentified object moving at 500 mph over Lake Superior. An F-89C all-weather interceptor, piloted by Lieutenant Felix Moncia Jr., with radar observer Lieutenant R. R. Wilson in the rear cockpit, was dispatched from Kinross Air Force Base, near the Soo Locks in northern Michigan. Under radar guidance, the jet headed toward the target.

At 8000 feet, 70 miles off Keweenaw Point, and 160 miles northwest of the Soo Locks, the blip of the F-89 and that of the UFO merged, then faded from the screen. Nothing more was heard from the interceptor, and no trace of it was ever found, despite an extensive search.

The Canadian government denied on several occasions that any incident involving one of its aircraft and a USAF interceptor had occurred on the date in question. In any case, the official Air Force version implied an implausible incompetence on the parts of radar operators at such a sensitive installation. The official version has it that Moncla may have suffered from vertigo and lost control of his aircraft, though records indicate he was flying on instruments. No transcript of Moncla's radio conversation with the controllers has ever been released.

The Air Force gave conflicting accounts to Moncla's widow. First, she was told that the F-89 had flown too low in its effort to identify the Canadian plane and crashed into the water. Subsequently, another officer asserted that the interceptor had exploded at a high altitude.

Disappearing Aircraft.

For years rumours have circulated that the Air Force is covering up other cases in which UFOs apparently snatched military aircraft. The most interesting of these stories comes from the testimony of Master Sergeant O. D. Hill of Project Blue Book - or so Cleveland ufologist Tom Comella would assert in a nationally published magazine article that has never been challenged.

According to his account, on February 4, 1956, Comella and three other civilian UFO investigators met with Air Technical Intelligence Centre (ATIC) representatives at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where Blue Book was headquartered. Their purpose was to discuss two cases in which low-flying objects had passed over residential areas. The ATIC personnel promised to get back to them. But they heard nothing until June 28, when Edgar Smith, a member of the civilian group, received a visit from M. Sgt. Hill, though Hill had not participated in the original meeting. After initially reciting the standard anti-UFO Blue Book line, Hill told Smith that the project existed to "prevent another Pearl Harbour." He said that "our planes have been and still are disappearing from the sky." Then asking not to be quoted, he related two cases.

The first of these sounds in every way except one like the Kinross episode. The sole discordant detail is Hill's reference to a "thorough search of the land area"; the Kinross case took place, of course, over a body of water. Perhaps Hill's recall was imperfect. Smiths notes have Hill saying this of the second case:

"A transport plane with 26 persons aboard was rapidly approaching its air base some 10 miles away from shore. Back on land at the radar station the operator was carefully tracking the transport plane and was in constant radar communication with the plane. Suddenly the radar operator spied a second blip on his radarscope. He immediately radioed the transport and advised the pilot to beware of the alien object." The UFO was travelling at a high rate of speed, about 2500 mph. It jumped about on the radarscope like a tennis ball. All of a sudden the mysterious blip headed straight for the transport plane, and before the radar operator could warn it, the two objects had united into one on the radar screen. The one remaining blip sped straight up at a terrific rate of speed. A surface search of the water in the vicinity revealed no oil slick, although a general's briefcase was found floating. The plane has completely disappeared."

Hill told Smith that such incidents had officials worried. Two hundred scientists were at work on the UFO problem for the U.S. government.

As soon as Hill left his house, Smith called Comella to summarize the sergeant's account and tell him Hill was on his way. Hill repeated the stories to Comella and added that many top officials believed UFOs to be of extraterrestrial origin. A month later Smith and Comella saw Hill at ATIC headquarters, then met separately with the new Blue Book head, Captain George T. Gregory. When asked about the disappearance cases, Gregory attributed them to "bugs or small birds that get into the radar pattern." When Comella asked if birds were responsible for the aircraft's disappearance, too, Gregory said, "Well, we just cannot talk about those cases."

Hill never disputed Comella's version of events. There seems no reason to doubt that Comella's account of their interaction is correct. To date, no independent confirmation of the second disappearance case (if we assume the first to refer to the Kinross event) has surfaced.

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