Walesville — F-94 Lost Pursuing UAP, 4 Deaths

On July 2, 1954, an F-94C Starfire jet interceptor from Griffiss Air Force Base was vectored to intercept an unidentified radar target over Oneida County, New York. As the aircraft closed on the target, both the pilot and radar operator reported an intense, sudden heat filling the cockpit. The heat was so severe that both crewmen were forced to eject immediately. The unmanned F-94C continued on a descending trajectory and crashed into the village of Walesville, New York, striking a car and killing a mother and two children; a fourth person on the ground also died. The two crew members survived after ejecting. The USAF investigation classified the incident SECRET. The official explanation attributed the cockpit heat to a mechanical engine failure. However, the classified Blue Book files, obtained through FOIA in later decades, document the interceptor's proximity to an unidentified radar return at the time both crewmen reported the simultaneous heat event. The Walesville crash is the second documented fatality event connected to a UAP intercept mission in official USAF records, after the Mantell incident of 1948.