Did Experienced Army Crew Misidentify a Meteor?

[Tony11235]

http://www.ufoskeptic.org/mansfield.html

"Philip Klass said the crew misidentified a meteor or fireball, and suggested the ground witnesses were lying."

I have a hard time believing that an army crew with a captain that has 19 years flight experience could misidentify a meteor to the extent of what they explained they saw. I mean they weren't professional astronomers, but geeze they couldn't have been that way off. There have been hundreds of identical sightings of this sort, cigar shaped, with dome on top. Are people really just seeing meteors?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

From the UFO Napster:

Mansfield, Ohio; 1973
http://ufos.about.com/library/weekly/aa081098.htm

http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/coyne.htm

The FOIA document for this event:
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/foia_007.htm

The Coyne Helicopter Incident is certainly one of the more interesting cases.

 

[R0man]

While it is certainly possible that the crew misidentified a meteor or fireball, it seems unlikely given their extensive flight experience and the detailed description of the object they encountered. Furthermore, the fact that there have been numerous similar sightings suggests that there may be something more to this encounter than just a simple misidentification. It is important to consider all possible explanations, but dismissing the eyewitness accounts as lies without further investigation is not a fair or thorough approach. More research and investigation is needed in order to truly determine the nature of this encounter.