Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Montgomery and the Chiles–Whitted Encounter

added01 September 2026

On the night of 24 July 1948 the crew of an Eastern Air Lines DC-3 was over Alabama. Captain Clarence Chiles and First Officer John Whitted saw a cigar-shaped object with two rows of glowing windows and a tail of flame coming towards them; it passed and climbed away. Both men banked hard to avoid it. One passenger confirmed a flash of light. On the ground that same night a similar object was reported over Robins Field in Georgia. The modern explanation is a large fireball, several of which crossed the south-eastern states in those weeks. The row of windows remains the detail a fireball accounts for least well.

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32.36750, -86.30000

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