Disappearance Over Lake Superior

Air Defense Command ground intercept radar operators based in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan picked up an unusual target over the Soo Locks on the night of November 23rd, 1953. A lone F89C Scorpion jet interceptor was scrambled from nearby Kinross Air Force Base to investigate. The Scorpion was piloted by First Lieutenant Felix Moncla with Second Lieutenant Robert Wilson serving as the jet's radar operator.



 

 

Ground radar was tracking two radar blips over Lake Superior. One blip represented Moncla and Wilson in their F89. But what was the other object?

 

The Air Force interceptor was flying at 8,000 feet at 500 miles per hour. Radar operators watched as the two blips came closer and closer together. The two radar targets merged in to one. Observers suspected that Moncla had either flown over or under the object he was chasing. Suddenly, the single blip faded from the screen. The last radar contact had occurred roughly 70 miles from Keweenaw Point over Lake Superior.

 

Attempts to contact the F89 by radio were unsuccessful. A search and rescue team was dispatched immediately. They found no trace of the Air Force jet or the object it was chasing despite an expansive search that lasted in to the next day.

 

Various explanations for the jet's disappearance were offered. Did a case of vertigo cause Lieutenant Moncla to crash his F89 in to Lake Superior? Was the F89 actually chasing a Royal Canadian Air Force plane that had strayed off course? For the record, Canadian officials vigorously denied that.

 

The strangest explanation? Noted UFO investigator Donald Keyhoe wrote about it in his 1955 book The Flying Saucer Conspiracy. Keyhoe eerily wrote that he had received a phone call the night of the F89 disappearance from a friend in the Air Force. Keyhoe said his friend advised him that Kinross Air Force Base was reporting that they had lost an F89 after it had been "hit by a flying saucer".