From a Washington Post review by Sarah Scoles headlined “What if UFOs are real? The government has been trying to find out, too.”:

Pilot Clarence Chiles and co-pilot John Whitted were flying a commercial jet from Houston to Atlanta when they saw a bright light coming right at them, skimming the sky too fast to be another plane, at least by 1948 standards. The aircraft looked like a plane’s fuselage, clipped of its wings, glowing blue beneath its body. After it zoomed by, the object shot a flame from its back end and then sped off into the clouds. The Air Force investigated this eerie event as part of Project Sign, its first UFO research program.