I was the chief physical anthropologist for the US Air Force at the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ... from 1946 to 1972. During that time I worked with a great many pilots ... usually test pilots. I don't want to identify [this] man because he had to make a report of his experience to the Air Force and this report went to the Pentagon, and it has never appeared in public. He once ... was able to look at the Project Blue Book ... [but] his experience never appeared ...
He had been a fighter pilot in Korea in the early '50s. [Afterwards, but before] he came back to Wright-Patterson, he also was sent to Keesler Air Force Base ... as an instructor for pilots ... of F-84s ... On this particular occasion [he and his student pilot] had flown to El Paso and were flying east back to Keesler across north Texas...near midnight ... at [around] 20,000 feet. It was a clear night, no clouds, no storm, nothing ... so he decided he would take a little nap. All of a sudden, the student in front shook the stick laterally several times ... [bumping my friend's knees] so the student woke him up. And my friend said, "Well, what's going on? The student said, "Have a look. Over the side ... There's a light off to the right front. My friend [replied] "Oh, I think that's Venus. Just keep going." So ... he went back to sleep for five minutes.
After that time the student waggled the stick once again, and my friend said, "Now what's going on?" The student said, "That can't be Venus because it's moving." Whereupon my friend had a look over the side and sure enough a very brilliant light was moving. So he said, "Head toward it." and the student did.
They flew toward this light and as they neared it, suddenly the craft which they now were able to see, went roaring past them, directly past them, and flying to the rear of my friend's aircraft. Talking to his student on the aircraft radio, he said, "Look, keep your hands off, now. Keep your hands off the controls, completely off the controls. I'm now in control ... just sit there.
So, my friend then took control, did a vertical bank, and went right back following the vehicle that had flown past them. Again he flew straight towards it, and again this machine had stopped as it went past him, after awhile, after some distance. They flew straight toward that vehicle and once again as they neared it, this thing went by them at a tremendous clip. My friend said that he could see the whole affair and it was simply elliptically shaped object, with a glow, a bright glow, and he said they were close enough that he thought he could distinguish the lines between various plates that made up the vehicle. He said there were windows, but the windows were not lighted. He could not see into the craft. It had a dome over the top, very much like the usual pictures of flying saucers. So, he headed ... toward this thing [again] and the F-84 flies at about between 500 and 600 miles an hour when its wide open, and he flew straight toward this thing. He said all of a sudden it just went right by him again, going in the opposite direction from him. Whereupon he simply pulled it into a vertical bank once again and started back the other way.
They had started at elevation about 20,000 feet ... and in effect he had this little dog fight between him and the saucer for maybe ten to fifteen minutes...and on one occasion as the vehicle had just passed him, and he had gone into his vertical bank, suddenly a light came on, a brilliant pencil of light came on from that vehicle, and shone directly into his cockpit. It came on instantly and instantly it was in that cockpit. He said he saw the shadows of his knees on the floor of his cockpit. He thought to himself, "This is no place for me." So, while he was in his vertical bank, he simply kicked the rudder hard, in this case it was left rudder, and dived straight for the ground.
He felt very confident of his ability, but when this light stabbed right into his cockpit instantly [on the first shot], he knew that that was impossible for him to match ... so he dived to the earth and he shut off his lights and he went down just as fast and far as he could above the earth, leveled out at a relatively low altitude, and headed back toward Kessler Air Force Base.
He ... finally landed at 1:30 in the morning ... it was after 3:30 before he was able to [write his report] and leave the debriefing room and get to his home. He got into his bed at his home and at 7:30 in the morning the phone rang and it was someone from the Pentagon, who said, "We have just received your report of your combat with a flying saucer ... now you tell me exactly what took place ..." They talked for over two hours.
