THE CARROT

Ch.1 - Next Wave

Thursday June 19, 1947
Edwards Air Force Base
Muroc, CA

Colonel Albert Boyd, Chief of the Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio, pestered the flight controls of the newest jet in the Air Force's test bed inventory. Today would be a history notable occasion, as the first highly modified Lockheed P-80R (F-80 Shooting Star) jet would exceed six hundred miles per hour at low level.

Having logged twenty-three thousand hours in over seven hundred twenty planes, in his total career, Boyd would retire in nineteen fifty-seven having flown and approved every type aircraft the Air Force owned. He would leave behind a legacy of advancements and become known as the Father of Modern Flight Testing.

Today, Boyd felt the adrenaline flow in his veins, but this was nothing new. Controlling the jittery muscle reaction was always a challenge, but after all the flight risks he had completed he had done a masterful job of controlling this problem. Today was no different, but there was something in the back of his mind that came and went like a fleeting thought; an unclear and ill-defined something that would become a frequent companion to the future.

Boyd squeezed the mic trigger for radio contact.

"Tango flight ready to commence run. Over," said Boyd.

"Roger that, Tango. Say level and you are cleared for run," replied ground control, located some distance away on the Rogers Dry Lake bed.

"Tango flight level at angels five. Commencing run to one hundred feet above ground level," reported Boyd.

Boyd pushed the stick over to dive and moved the thrust lever up to the stop. Letting the plane do its job he watched the ground speed indicator advance through four hundred, five, five seventy-five and then six hundred twenty miles per hour at one hundred feet elevation. He felt some elation at another successful run.

"Ground control, Tango flight at speed, plus. Can you confirm?" asked Boyd over the radio.

"Tango flight, you are at speed. Radar confirms at six hundred twenty three and some tenths. Be advised we have radar contact off your port wing at your nine o'clock. Distance two miles. Return to base. Over."

"Roger that. Returning to base," replied Boyd, pulling the stick back to gain altitude.

Having to squint in the bright sunlight reflecting off the lakebed Boyd looked over his left shoulder. Indeed, there was another aircraft pacing his flight path. He could not identify the plane.

He felt he had looked too long in that direction and returned his attention to the cockpit to find that he had drifted left. Bringing the jet back on course he ventured another look. The other aircraft was nowhere to be seen.

On his turn into the landing pattern he pondered who or what that aircraft was. He was in the fastest aircraft on earth at the moment and that plane had no trouble keeping up.

~~~

Between June 14, 1947 and June 28, 1947 there were multiple sightings related to out of sequence technology involving aircraft that were capable of doing things our most advanced aircraft of the time could not duplicate. This was known as the UFO wave of 1947, the tail end part of the larger increase in modern era sightings that began in the 1800s many years before Orvil and Wilbur Wright's famous first flight on December 17, 1903.

~~~

On Saturday June 14, 1947 (Flag Day), Ranch Foreman, William Ware "Mac" Brazel noticed some strange clusters of debris while working on the Foster Ranch homestead some 30 miles north of Roswell.