Sighting record / 1962
May 1962. An Aer Lingus Viscount is crossing the south of England, bound from Cork to Brussels. In command is Captain Gordon Pendleton, a former RAF pilot and a self-described sceptic about flying saucers. Then something appears about five miles ahead. A luminous globe. No wings. It closes at a speed the crew put at 500 to 700 miles an hour and passes about a thousand feet below the airliner. Pendleton passed the report to London Airways. Standing at Dublin Airport, the captain told RTÉ News: "I have never seen anything like it." A meteorological balloon was considered and rejected. No one has published an answer since.
Spring 1962. Aer Lingus was flying Vickers Viscounts across Europe, and one of them was EI-AKL, named "St Colmcille". The turboprop had been delivered new to the Irish airline in March 1959. On this flight it was bound from Cork to Brussels. In command was Captain Gordon Pendleton, a former RAF pilot who had joined Aer Lingus in 1952. Beside the captain sat co-pilot Peter Murphy, named Peter Murray in the French press. Pendleton had long been a sceptic about flying saucers.