As promised, American Airlines forwarded my letter to retired pilot Capt. Willis Sperry. "Doc," as he was known to friends, wrote back, willing to answer my questions. We'll post his response in another blog entry.
The photo shown here, drawn from U.S. press material, depicts three people interviewed in "U.F.O." On the left is (recently deceased) former Navy warrant officer and chief photographer Delbert C. Newhouse, who, with his family during a vacation trip, saw and filmed several objects in the sky over Utah. In the middle is Nicholas Mariana (also deceased), who filmed two objects flying over Montana skies, with the analytical benefit of photographing them as they passed behind a tower which could be used as a point of reference. Both films are shown in their original color in this otherwise black-and-white motion picture -- and though no mention is made in the documentary, each film was returned by the government following extensive analysis with the best frames missing, according to their owners. "U.F.O." does, however, almost literally put each film under the microscope to show why military investigators could only identify the objects as "unknowns."
The third person shown is Capt. Sperry himself, who allowed himself to be interviewed in the motion picture about his 1950 UFO encounter while a pilot for American Airlines. More on that later.
