Another witness, Captain James F. Duesler, examined the Mantell wreckage shortly after the pilot's body had been removed. He was dumbfounded to discover that no damage had been done to the surrounding trees, as would be expected had the F-51 glided into the field, nor was there any furrow in the ground such an approach would necessarily have created. Neither had the nose-heavy craft hit the ground nose-down, the most likely result of a downward, uncontrolled spin. The vehicle, instead, appeared to have simply "belly-flopped" directly into the clearing where it was found, without causing even a fraction of the damage to the airplane or the crash site that should have occurred according to calculations factoring the plane's known weight and estimated speed of descent. Duesler saw no blood whatsoever in the cockpit.

Even beyond this eyewitness testimony, common sense argued powerfully against the notion that Mantell, a highly-experienced military pilot, would risk life and limb chasing the tiny pinpoint of light Venus must have been that afternoon, had it been visible at all.

WHO KILLED THOMAS MANTELL?

Speculation concerning the true culprit behind the tragedy began immediately. Civilian UFOlogists were quick to point out that Venus, even if it had been visible that afternoon, was at least 15 degrees lower in the sky than the reported position of the object. Project Sign offered the possibility that Mantell had seen a Project Skyhook balloon, though no specific launch could be traced to that day. Saucer debunker Donald Menzel wrote that the disc Mantell believed he was pursuing had actually been a "sun dog" or "mock sun" caused by the reflection of sunlight off ice crystals in cirrus clouds of the upper atmosphere. Contactee George Adamski's "Space Brothers" (see Chapter Seven) informed him that the crash had been accidental, the result of the magnetic field of their spaceship encountering the poor design of Mantell's plane.