Mystery at Post 83

On November 29, 1996, the day after Thanksgiving, a Miami County, Ohio, man was unloading groceries from his car. As he was entering his home, something disturbing happened. "The ground shook, and my house started vibrating," the man said during a conversation in his living room three weeks later. "It sounded like two huge plates colliding. I felt the impact. My windows and curtains even rattled for about thirty seconds. The sound shook the house between 7:30 and 8:00," the witness added. "About half an hour later, Franklin Police Department officers arrived, searching the area for a crashed plane."

Later that night, a visit to the Franklin Police Department to inquire about Lt. Massey's search in Franklin revealed some conflicting information. "I believe your witness is mistaken," Massey said. "We did not initiate a search and rescue operation until 9:07 a.m. in response to a countywide report of a possible plane crash in the area." The search and rescue operation was extensive, involving several police departments from Warren and Montgomery counties.

The search began at 8:49 p.m. when Miami Police Headquarters received a call from the FAA Flight Service Station at Dayton International Airport. Emergency coordinators reportedly notified the Miami department of the detection of an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmission) transmitter located two miles west of Dayton International Airport. Oddly enough, the ELT signal was not detected locally, as expected, but via satellite.

As the rescue operation began, search teams moved west and then south of Wright Brothers/South Dayton Main Airport. The change in search location was prompted by a change in the ELT's transmission location, which initially appeared about 15 miles northwest of Wright Brothers Airport and was later, under strange circumstances, tracked more than two miles west of the airport.

At 9:17 p.m., ground units in Springboro and Miamisburg began detecting a strong odor of burning rubber. Interestingly, a third location on State Route 741 was also where a witness from the second location reported hearing explosions, also between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. No physical evidence was found to confirm that a plane had crashed there, and no debris was recovered.

The whole affair involving the mysterious ELT signal, the loud explosion and crash sounds heard by independent witnesses from two locations, the visual observation of an object with a single red light, the uncertain course of events at Post 83, the radar trace provided to police by Dayton International Airport, the smell of burning rubber, the subsequent cancellation of certain reporting procedures by DIA that later turned out to have occurred, the lack of log entries kept by DIA operators, the subsequent inquiries regarding CAP's handling of the reports, and Langley's involvement in reporting this to the Air Force are all mysteries related to this tangled, complex drama that remain unresolved. (Source: Kenny Young)