KINROSS

Opening

On the evening of 23 November 1953, an F-89C Scorpion interceptor took off from Kinross Air Force Base in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to identify an unknown radar target over Lake Superior. Its pilot was First Lieutenant Felix Moncla Jr., from Louisiana. Behind him sat Second Lieutenant Robert Wilson, the radar operator. Ground controllers guided them toward the target for about half an hour. Then, on the radar screen, the two returns grew closer until they merged into one, about 70 miles off Keweenaw Point at around 8,000 feet. The single return moved on briefly, then faded. No trace of the aircraft or the two men has ever been found.

What makes Kinross more than a sad accident is what happened afterwards. The Air Force's own first account said the jet had "merged with an object." Its later account said the object was a Canadian aircraft. Canada said there was no Canadian aircraft.

Timeline

23 November 1953, evening. Air Defense Command radar operators covering the Sault Ste. Marie area pick up an unidentified target over Lake Superior, near the Soo Locks, one of the most important shipping routes on the Great Lakes. An F-89C from the 433rd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron is scrambled from Kinross.

During the intercept. Controllers vector Moncla toward the target for about 30 minutes as it moves over the lake.

The merge. The two blips close and appear to become one. The controller watches the single return, and then it disappears from the screen. Radio calls to the F-89 get no answer.

Following days. American and Canadian aircraft and boats search the lake. They find no wreckage, no oil slick, and no bodies.

24 November 1953. Newspapers carry an Air Force statement that the jet was tracked by radar until it "merged with an object" off Keweenaw Point. The line is soon dropped.

The official account. The Air Force accident report says Moncla identified the target as a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47 transport that had strayed off course, then crashed, possibly after vertigo during a turn. A public information officer later says the unknown "was a Canadian DC-3. It was over the locks by mistake."

After. The RCAF says none of its aircraft were involved in any such intercept that night.

Later years. According to Donald Keyhoe, Moncla's widow was given two different explanations by Air Force officers: that her husband had flown too low and hit the lake, and that the jet had exploded at high altitude.

2006. An online story claims that a dive company found the F-89 on the lake bed with its canopy closed. The company can't be traced, the photos are shown to be fakes, and the story is withdrawn.

Key figures

First Lieutenant Felix Moncla Jr. was the pilot. He was experienced on the F-89, and his family pressed for answers for decades.

Second Lieutenant Robert Wilson was the radar operator in the back seat.

The ground controller watched the merge on the scope. His name is in the accident report but rarely appears in public accounts.

Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine officer who ran the civilian UFO group NICAP, publicised the case and the conflicting statements.

Physical and documentary trail

On the paper: the Air Force accident investigation report, the early press statement with its "merged" wording, Project Blue Book's file, and the RCAF's denial.

No part of the aircraft has ever been recovered. Lake Superior is very deep and very cold, and it's known for not giving up what sinks in it, so the lack of wreckage isn't strange by itself. The missing Canadian aircraft is the problem.

Merged with an object.

Competing explanations

A crash during the intercept. The jet flew close to its target at night, and the pilot became disoriented and went into the lake. The radar "merge" was two returns overlapping on the scope as the jet came alongside, and the fade was the crash. This is the official reading, minus the unexplained Canadian aircraft.

A mid-air collision. If the target was another aircraft, a collision would explain the merge and the loss. That aircraft would also be missing, and none was.

Something took the aircraft. This is the reading that made Kinross famous. It depends on taking the merge literally: one blip continuing after the two joined, and then nothing.

Later life of the case

Kinross is one of the most cited military UFO cases, because two airmen died and the official account changed. It's a regular subject of documentaries and of lake searches. The 2006 hoax has done lasting damage, as fake "wreck found" stories still circulate online.

Finding

Two airmen were lost chasing an unidentified target, and the Air Force's explanation named a Canadian aircraft that Canada says wasn't there. A crash in the dark over a cold lake is the most likely end. What they were chasing has never been identified, and the Air Force's first description of what happened is still the most unsettling one.

What still will not resolve: the target on the radar screen, and where the F-89 went down.