An Eastern Air Lines DC-3, the airline and aircraft type Chiles and Whitted were flying Lestocq, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Eastern Air Lines pilots Clarence Chiles and John Whitted reported a glowing, wingless, cigar-shaped object with rows of lit windows passing their DC-3 near Montgomery at about 2:45 a.m. Ruppelt said it prompted the Air Force's 1948 'Estimate of the Situation'; the case was later relabeled a meteor.
