In 1986, when Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon addressed a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Committee, he was like a preacher in a pulpit. However, his choice of accessory wasn’t a Bible but a model plane kit. “What I, as a member of Congress, am not even allowed to see is now ending up in model packages!” he said, brandishing a sleek hunk of plastic. On the surface, Wyden’s complaint seemed bizarre, but this was no ordinary model kit. It was a 12-inch, 1:48 scale replica of a top-secret fighter plane dubbed the F-19 that had not been confirmed to exist by the Defense Department or the Air Force. Yet here it was on hobby shop shelves across the country. For a paltry $9.50, anyone — even Soviet intelligence — could get a glimpse of the U.S. military’s stealth fighter. All they needed was some glue and the patience to assemble its 66 pieces. Like many observers, Wyden wanted to know how Testor, the company behind the model, could possibly know what this highly-classified project looked like. Somehow, a model toy was suddenly being eyed as a national security threat. It was free advertising for Testor, but the government forced them to recall it. John Andrews, a designer for Testor, maintained that he had never seen any classified material. He did, however, have a sketch given to him by a pilot friend who believed he had seen the F-19 in operation. Testor wasn’t quite done. In 1994, they released a UFO kit said to be based on eyewitness accounts of an extraterrestrial aircraft seized by the military. It has to make you wonder if they were onto something.
