Once I was 11 Years Old
When I was eleven years old, I had a chance to go to the movie theater with one of my friends. We chose to see Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. It changed my life forever.
A particular scene blew me away near the movie's beginning. You can see the scene by clicking on this link. In the Sonoran Desert, a group of government men investigate a strange occurrence and find planes in pristine condition with full fuel tanks. What they found was astonishing—the lost TBM Avenger bombers of Flight 19.
Consider my age, 11 years old in 1977. I did not know anything about WWII or what a TBM Avenger was. However, the men's sheer astonishment at these planes missing for over 30 years was enough to get me hooked into Ufology.
So what was flight 19? Moreover, why was it a hallmark of Close Encounters of the third kind?
Flight 19 was the designation for a training mission that left the Fort Lauderdale, Florida Naval Air Station (NAS) on December 5, 1945. Lt. Charles C. Taylor led the routine navigation and combat training exercise in a standard TBM-type aircraft.
The assignment was called "Navigation problem No. 1", a combination of bombing and navigation, which other flights had completed earlier that same day.
He Helped Us See
Taylor had about 2,500 flying hours, mostly in aircraft of this type, while his trainee pilots each had 300 total and 60 flight hours in the Avenger. Lt. Taylor had completed a combat tour in the Pacific theater as a torpedo bomber pilot on the aircraft carrier USS Hancock and had recently arrived
from NAS Miami, where he had also been a VTB (torpedo-bombing plane) instructor. The student pilots were experienced U.S. Marine Captains and had completed many training lessons in the area where the flight was to take place.
Just Disappeared
After take-off, they flew on heading 091° (almost due east) for 56 nmi (64 mi; 104 km) until reaching Hen and Chickens Shoals for low-level bombing practice. The flight was to continue on that heading for another 67 nmi (77 mi; 124 km) before turning onto a course of 346° for 73 nmi (84 mi; 135 km), in the process over-flying Grand Bahama island. The next scheduled turn was to a heading of 241° to fly 120 nmi (140 mi; 220 km) and end the exercise, and the Avengers would turn left to return to NAS Ft. Lauderdale.
However, an unidentified crew member from flight 19 was overheard on the radio asking Marine Captains Edward Joseph Powers (also flight 19) for his compass reading. Powers replied: "I do not know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn." The response after a few moments was a request from the others on the flight team for suggestions.
Lieutenant Robert F. Cox in FT-74, who was forming up with his group of students for the same mission, asked someone from flight 19 to identify the problem. A man identified as FT-28 (Taylor) came on. "FT-28, this is FT-74; what is your trouble?" "Both of my compasses are out," Taylor replied, "and I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am over broken land. I am sure I'm in the Keys, but I don't know how far down, and I don't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale."
Everything is Coming up Rosie
FT-74 informed the NAS that aircraft were lost, then advised Taylor to put the sun on his port (left) wing and fly north up the coast to Fort Lauderdale. (Later, he would indicate that his transmitter was activated.) Instead, at 16:45 (4:45 PM), FT-28 (Lt. Taylor) radioed: "We are heading 030 degrees for 45 minutes, then we will fly north to make sure we are not over the Gulf of Mexico." The flight did not appear on the radar, and no IFF existed. Traffic control advised Taylor to broadcast on 4805 kHz. This order was not acknowledged, so he was asked to switch to 3000 kHz, the search and rescue frequency. Taylor replied – "I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact."
As the weather deteriorated, radio contact became intermittent. Furthermore, the five aircraft by this point were more than 200 nmi (230 mi; 370 km) out to sea east of the Florida peninsula. Taylor radioed, "We'll fly 270 degrees west until landfall or run out of gas." Additionally, he requested a weather check at 17:24. By 17:50, several land-based radio stations had triangulated Flight 19's position within a 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) radius of 29°N 79°W; Flight 19 was north of the Bahamas and well off the coast of central Florida.
Taylor's last message was received at 18:20 (6:20 PM) "We didn't fly far enough east; we may as well just turn around and fly east again." The weather had deteriorated even more by then, and the sun had set. No one had ever heard from Lt. Charles C. Taylor and his crew again.
Singing the Blues
What makes this missing flight a scene worthy of being represented in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Moreover, why did Spielberg want to use it in his movie? The answers lie in Project Blue Book. Please read my blog called Close Encounters of the Real Kind here.
Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. Enter Josef Allen Hynek, he was an American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. Allen is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as a scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three projects: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1951), and Project Blue Book (1952–1969).
Furthermore, he was so well-known in the UFO community that he became a consultant after his time with PBB and developed the "Close Encounter" classification system. He was among the first to conduct scientific analysis of reports, especially of trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs. Spielberg wanted him as the technical consultant on his new movie.
I'm no Einstein
As a result, Spielberg learned new information from Hynek that was unavailable to the public. In addition to the countless interviews Steven conducted with eyewitnesses to UFOs, Allen had guided him through the Blue Book compiled reports of 12,618 sightings of unidentified flying objects, of which 701 remain unexplained to this day. The missing men and planes of Flight 19 caught his attention.
In a 1977 interview conducted by Sight and Sound magazine, Steven said: "Many of the sightings people have at night are because they never look and are just discovering the sky; so many reports are easy to explain astronomically, conventionally. There are other reports that are impossible to describe conventionally, but the primary science community isn't ready to change Einstein's rules."
Some postulate that Steven and Allen talked about the covert government involvement with aliens since Rosewell in 1947. Furthermore, Flight 19 was reflected in the film because the men who went missing in the Bermuda Triangle may have returned home many years later. As a result, you can see this depicted at the film's end when the "mother" ship opens its doors and aliens and humans come walking out. The Flight 19 pilots are staggering down the gangway into a new era as the credits roll.
Josef Allen Hynek, American astronomer, professor, and ufologist
Know what You Know
Fact or fiction, the lines between formal education and what we know are blurring at a faster rate. My advice is to try not to get distracted. Follow your heart and continue to explore. Moreover, do not forget to have fun doing it!
