Mantell 1948: Visualisation · Signals from the Periphery

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Clock · CST

14:45:00

Altitude

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Useful consciousness

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Reserve

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MANTELL 1948 · THE FATAL CHASE
7 January 1948 · Godman Field, Kentucky
four F-51s asked to look; the leader had no oxygen aboard
the object: an angle, not yet a size
the killer: altitude, and an empty mask bracket
▶ runs the afternoon · the watch stops at 3:18

Part

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Evidence

fact ⇄ what kind of claim · live

His wristwatch stopped at 3:18 pm

entered by the coroner · the case's one perfectly hard number

MEASURED

At 25,000 ft: 3-5 minutes of useful consciousness

the FAA/USAF physiology table · settled aviation medicine

MEASURED

F-51D 44-63869: service ceiling 41,900 ft

the aircraft outclimbed its pilot's physiology by miles

MEASURED

No oxygen aboard: the ferry was planned low-level

accident report · one mask in the whole flight, on a wingman

REPORTED

Every radio quote is a reconstruction; nothing was recorded

"tremendous size" is one operator's memory, two days later

REPORTED

Wingmen broke at ≈22,500 ft; Ruppelt's book says 15,000

the dispute is inside the official record itself

REPORTED

Venus: right bearing, 33° up, and twelve arcseconds across

Sign's first answer, argued down by its own file

MODELLED

The Skyhook ID fits, and has never produced a launch record

consensus answer · Sparks's 140-mile geometry keeps a seam open

READING

The holes, the missing body, the radioactivity, the voice

all absent from the file · Ruppelt checked, in print, in 1956

READING

View

Scenario

THE RECORD

▶ One difference runs everything here. The F-51 could climb to 41,900 feet; a pilot without oxygen stops being conscious around 25,000.

Replay · 14:45 → 15:20 CST

Clock14:45:00

The whole afternoon is thirty-five minutes. The anchors are reported; the motion between them is modelled, and the panel below says which is which.

The sight machine

Assumed diameter…

The one number nobody measured. Every explanation of this case is a choice of this dial.

Apparent size…

What the tower did measure: Hix said about a quarter of the full moon; Wood, by the end, a tenth.

The counterfactual

Turn-back altitude…

Drag here or on the mint line in the Climb view. Setting it switches the scenario: the same afternoon, minus the last decision.

Display

Labels

Contrail

Pilot's eyesthe tunnel closes as the reserve drains

Clouds

Readout · live from the models

Altitude

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Climb rate

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Useful consciousness here

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Reserve

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Implied distance

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Naked-eye limit

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What is measured vs modelled here

Measured: the physiology table, the aircraft's numbers, and the stopped watch. Reported: the timeline anchors, the altitudes, and every radio quote, all reconstructions written by the tower crew two days later; nothing was recorded. Modelled: the curve between the anchors, the consciousness reserve, the sky positions, and every number the sight machine prints. Reading: the balloon identification itself. This instrument does not decide what hung over Godman; it prices the candidates.

The climb and the reserve model

The replay is a monotone curve through the reported anchors: contact ≈14:45 near 10,000 ft, the 15,000 ft transmission, the ≈22,500 ft break-off, the report's ≈25,000 ft blackout consensus, the ≈30,000 ft top, and impact at 15:18 by the watch. The reserve integrates dR/dt = −1/TUC(h) along that curve using the published table (18k: 20-30 min, 20k: ~10, 25k: 3-5, 30k: 1-2). It is not fitted: run the arithmetic and it runs dry before 25,000 feet, where the accident report put the blackout. The Venus and sun positions are computed for 15:00 CST; the object's path is taken from the tower statements.

Where this drawing takes liberties

Sixty thousand feet of sky cannot share a frame with a 32-foot fighter, so world height is logarithmically compressed and the balloon is drawn dozens of times oversized; at true scale it is a white pixel, which is the Sight view's whole point. The horizontal chase is a treadmill: the leader stays centred while Kentucky streams past below. Attitudes in the final spiral are choreographed from the accident report's narrative, not simulated aerodynamics, and the replay ends at the ground without dramatising the break-up. The contrail is decorative; contrail physics is not modelled.

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drag = orbit · scroll = zoom · ▶ runs the afternoon at 30×