U.S. Senator from Georgia (1933-1971) and longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (1951-1969), among the most powerful senators of his era. While traveling by train through the Soviet Transcaucasus region on a military fact-finding trip, he and two aides watched two disc-shaped objects ascend near the tracks and fly off at speed. He reportedly told his companions, "We saw a flying disc. I wanted you boys to see it so that I would have witnesses." The sighting was kept classified for roughly three decades and, unusually, was never entered into Project Blue Book's own case files.
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