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Clinton County Air Force Base was a Strategic Air Command bomber alert facility in the early 1960s. The All Weather Flying Center was based at the Clinton County Army Airfield during the late 1940s. The big Skyhook balloons, part of a classified naval research project, were launched from Clinton County AFB in the late 1940s. On 07 January 1948 newspapers across the U.S. carried headlines similar to the Louisville Courier: "F-51 and Capt. Mantell Destroyed Chasing Flying Saucer." The "Mantell Incident" was the most thoroughly investigated sighting of that time. Captain Thomas Mantell died trying to reach a Skyhook balloon, launched from Clinton County AFB. He didn't know that he was chasing a balloon because he had never heard of the huge, 100-foot-diameter skyhook balloons, let alone seen one. Mantell's death was ultimately caused by the hype over UFOs, which no doubt caused him to chase after it at all costs. In the late 1960s Clinton was the site of a UASF Special Operations Squadron Field Training Detachment, preparing gunship crews for deployment to Vietnam. In 1971, the Department of Defense closed the Clinton County Air Force Base in Wilmington, Ohio, eliminating over 300 civilian jobs and an annual payroll of $9 million. Wilmington citizens and the business community banded together and turned the 1,432-acre facility into a commercial air park, the home of Airborne Express since 1980. |
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