Mystery still surrounds missing F-89 jet

Fifty-three years ago this month, a U.S. Air Force F-89 Scorpion jet vanished from radar screens over Lake Superior after being sent to intercept an unknown aircraft. On the evening of Nov. 23, 1953, Air Force radar tracked the missing jet until it merged with an unidentified object 70 miles off the Keweenaw Peninsula, at an altitude of 7,000 feet.Newspaper reports said the missing plane, which had left the Kinross Air Force Base at 5:22 p.m. “was last heard from when it radioed the base from somewhere out over the lake.”Pilot 1st Lt. Felix E. Moncla Jr., 27, of Mercauville, La. and radar operator 2nd Lt. Robert Wilson, 22, of Ponca City, Okla. were presumed dead, likely somewhere under the snow-swept waters of Lake Superior.The U.S. military said the object the plane chased was a Royal Canadian Air Force Mohawk C-47 transport plane, but that claim was later denied by the Canadian government, saying there were no such aircraft in the area at the time.Algoma Central Railway workers roughly 100 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie said they heard a crash that occurred shortly contact with the F-89 was lost by the military. But after a search, no sign of the crew or fighter jet was discovered.In autumn 1968, prospectors in the Cozens Cove area of Ontario found mechanical parts north of Sault Ste.

Marie, including a tail stabilizer section, that military officials said were from a high-performance jet aircraft.A newspaper article from the time said the parts were thought to have perhaps been from the missing Kinross plane, but that idea was later discounted. The article doesn’t say why.Over the years, a great deal of speculation has surrounded the “Kinross Incident,” with some UFO investigators suggesting the Scorpion may have struck, or even been devoured by, a craft from another planet.“It is a compelling mystery with an interesting UFO twist,” said Gord Heath, a British Columbia resident interested in the Kinross incident since 2000. “Many people at radar tracking stations observed the F-89’s return merging with the blip from the other craft before it disappeared. The possibility that a UFO ‘swallowed’ the F-89 makes this an interesting puzzle.”Now, more than five decades after the crew disappeared without sending a distress signal, the mystery of what happened to Moncla, Wilson and the Scorpion jet has been given new life.Reports from The Great Lake Dive Company — a downstate venture said to be made up of Michigan natives with a common interest in shipwreck hunting and historical preservation — say they used side-scan sonar equipment to discover the missing plane, along with a piece of the object it presumably collided with.

View: Full Article | Source: Mining Journal

yeah it did get him