Patrick D. McCaslin Interview, 25 February 2001
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| INT: | Had you been asked to look for the object? The pilots had been asked by the control tower? | |
| PM: | I don't remember if the pilot's asked us to keep an eye on radar or not. I just don't remember. I know at some point I asked Chuck to go to station keep. | |
| INT: | So it was your initiative to do that? | |
| PM: | It may well have been. I was a real go-getter, I guess. I think I did it on my own initiative, but I can't be sure of that. It just seemed like a logical thing to do, to me. I mean if that's one of the things they're asking you to do, that's the optimum configuration you'd be in to do that. | |
| INT: | Yeah. How long did that last? I mean, when you picked up the first return—I guess we're talking a larger period of time. How long did you have that on your radar set, I guess? | |
| PM: | Oh, 15 minutes. | |
| INT: | Yeah. So it stayed with you— | |
| PM: | Well, I don't know. I'd say 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah, oh yeah, it was there. | |
| INT: | Okay. And...and again, when it approached, it was one dim, and all of a sudden, "Boom" it was— | |
| PM: | Yeah, one dim and then very bright. | |
| INT: | And then it stayed at that brightness? | |
| PM: | Stayed bright. And I advised the pilots that it was still out there, and as we approached the VOR, my memory is that we were gonna make a right turn into the VOR, if the VOR's here, we were gonna come in like this, do a turn, go into the VOR and then start our descent over the VOR headed back toward the base on a heading of, I don't know, 120? Something like that. Southeast. East, southeast. And that was of some concern to me because we were turning into this thing. | |
| INT: | Oh, it was off your right side? | |
| PM: | Yeah, and I may have—I think—I can't believe that I would not have advised the pilots, 'you know, we're gonna be making a right turn in the direction of this thing,' and it was, you know, 'Keep us advised.' So they started their turn back to the VOR, and my clear memory is that as we |
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