Mantell Accident Report Jan 7 1948.
A 52 page compilation of various military documents.
A great proportion of this compilation is mostly illegible. Pdf Page 40 finally begins a clearly typed summary of the event.
The bulk of the illegible documents are made up of the original sighting reports, affidavits of witnesses to the aircraft crashing, certificates to
support the fact that the aircraft was mechanically sound beforehand and that there was no oxygen fitted to the aircraft, a character reference
stating that Mantell was of sound mind, communications tower report.
Pdf page 44 discusses the various (4) individual sightings of the object that have been labeled by the investigator as likely to be Venus and
there is supplied the incident index from Project Grudge.
The investigator also had to correlate these sightings’ details with that of others, including the pilot, Mantell before he crashed which were not
as consistent with the planet Venus…he therefore had to come to a conclusion of a combination of events: the planet Venus being seen by some, and a
weather balloon being seen by others, all on the same day and similar timeframe. He did admit that the balloon would have to be extremely high up to
be seen from the different viewpoints over the expansive area. He posed the question of whether it could have been more than one balloon.
Regarding the aircraft crash, there is a sketch of the event which shows where part of the pilot’s skull and scalp was found quite a distance behind
the aircraft and notes that the body was still in the aircraft though the belt was shredded pdf pg 52 and in the affidavits of witnesses is the
mention that the aircraft did not explode on impact with the earth. Pdf pg 29 and 37.
Pdf pageg 25 is the statement of Sgt Blacknell who was working in the tower and in radio contact with Mantell. It is fairly legible. Mantell
says that he has “an object in sight… and it appears half my speed or approximately 180 miles an hour.” His description of the object was “It
appears to be a metallic object or possibly reflection of sun from a metallic object and it is a tremendous size.”
I would like to link this document with PBB File on Capt. Mantell Case of Sighting and
Crash of P-51 07JAN48

