He was a United States Air Force pilot, who was sent airborne for an air defence intercept over Lake Superior in 1953. According to the official reports, he left Kinross AFB to intercept a RCAF plan that had gone off course, except the Canadians have no record of any planes in the area that night.

Ground Radar operators reported that they had a blip on the radar, then a second one (Moncla’s plane), then the two merged and flew off. No sign of Moncla’s F-89 jet was ever recovered. Not on land or in the Lake. He was simply gone, and the prevailing theory is that he encountered an UFO.