The Thomas Mantell incident began at 1:20pm on 7 January 1948, when the control tower operators at Godman Army Airfield, Kentucky sighted an unidentified airborne object in the sky close to the base.

They were flying towards Godman Field when, at approximately 2:45pm, the control tower officer in charge ordered them to investigate the strange object.

Captain Mantell acknowledged, but a short time later one of the pilots requested permission to break away as he was running low on fuel, leaving the three remaining aircraft to head in the direction of the strange object.

The official Air Technical Information Command report on the crash stated that they were of the opinion that Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to oxygen starvation.

The trimmed aircraft had continued to climb until increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to level out.