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PCR #103 (Vol. 3, No. 11) This edition is for the week of March 11--17, 2002.

La Floridiana by Will Moriaty

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The Odyssey of Flight 257
On March 9, 1957, a Pan American AirLines DC-6 piloted by Captain Matthew Van Winkle was on an trans-eastern flight to Miami. About two hundred miles north of there, the good captain had to circumnavigate, as there were thunderstorms in the typical flight path to Miami.

Van Winkle repositioned the DC-6 to an area east of the aircraft's planned route along Florida's east coast. He was getting ready to radio Miami air traffic control to report his position when he spotted a bright light heading towards his aircraft from the east. He estimated that it was coming from the Atlantic coast and heading inland at great speed.

His initial fear was that he might have strayed too far from his planned course into the restricted air space of Cape Canaveral. He thought that it might have been a military interceptor sent to investigate why he was off his normal flying lane. The closer the light got, the less feasible this fear was. For he and his co pilot were looking at a brilliantly lit round object with a tinge of green within that was otherwise pure white. It was as brilliant as a magnesium flare, yet heading in what seemed like a controlled flight. Van Winkle's emotions quickly elevated from fear to stark terror as he contemplated that this object might be a missile launched at his airliner!

Fearing impact, Van Winkle quickly put the four-engine piston into a steep climb, and then had to perform an emergency procedure in order to prevent stalling his engines. As he did this, his aircraft went through 1,500 feet in a matter of seconds. The maneuver was successful, as the "missile" never collided with the aircraft, but it was not without incident. Due to the lack of reaction time to issue the "Fasten Seat Belts" signs in the passenger cabin, several people were tossed around the cabin like rag dolls. Van Winkle called ahead to Miami and requested that a fleet of ambulances be standing by, as there were serious and minor injuries to some of the passengers. He also explained to the Miami tower the incident that led to his request.

Miami air traffic controllers were perplexed. Flight 257 had not strayed that far off course, and the idea of the American government launching a missile at a passenger aircraft originating in the United States was inconceivable. Shortly afterward, the Civil Aeronautics Board launched an investigation of the matter. It was determined that:

1. There were no military aircraft in the area.
2. No missiles had been launched from the Cape at that time.
3. Several others piloting aircraft over Florida confirmed that they had seen a brilliant flash of light that same day.
4. Van Winkle overreacted to a meteor.

But was this actually a meteor? The description of this object was very similar to the "green fireballs" that plagued top-secret research and rocketry facilities in the New Mexico desert in 1949 and 1950. Regardless of the actual cause, of which we will probably never know, Captain Van Winkle undoubtedly did an admirable job of trying to save his passengers, crew, and aircraft, even if the object was never a true threat to the aircraft.

Ole Three Toes Update
In NCPCR's tireless efforts to provide you, our valued reader, with the latest and most factual news, it was recently brought to my attention last week the "Ole Three Toes" sea creature that I told you about three weeks ago in La Floridiana was probably a hoax. In the March/April 2002 edition of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine we read the following excerpt from Page 33: "One of the biggest names in cryptozoology, Ivan Sanderson, was badly fooled by tracks he confidently proclaimed would be impossible to fake. In 1948 and for a decade afterward, giant three-toed footprints were found along the beach in Clearwater, Florida. Sanderson, described as a man who "was extremely knowledgeable on many subjects, and had done more field work than most zoologists do today" (Greenwell 1988), spent two weeks at the site of the tracks investigating, analyzing the tracks and consulting other experts. He concluded that the tracks were made by a fifteen-foot-tall penguin." "In 1988, prankster Tony Signorini admitted he and a friend had made the tracks with a pair of cast-iron feet attached to high top sneakers. J. Richard Greenwell, discussing the case in The ISC Newsletter (Winter 1988) summed the case up this way: "The lesson to be learned within cryptozoology is, of course, fundamental. Despite careful, detailed analysis by zoologists and engineers, which provided detailed and sophisticated mechanical and anatomical conclusions supporting the hypothesis of a real animal, we now see that, not only was the entire episode a hoax, but that it was perpetuated by relatively amateur, good-natured pranksters, not knowledgeable experts attempting, through their expertise, to fool zoological authorities." Well there you have it! Thanks to Nolan for bringing this article to my attention. I hope to obtain a copy of the Winter 1988 ISC Newsletter so that I can relay in a future La Floridiana a more in depth description of this alleged hoax which was front page news 44 and 54 years ago both nationwide and along Florida's Gulf Coast.


"La Floridiana" is ©2002 by William Moriaty.  Webpage design and all graphics herein are creations of Nolan B. Canova.  All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2002 by Nolan B. Canova.