Lawrence Sperry Lawrence Sperry Lawrence Burst Sperry (21 December 1892, Chicago, Illinois, United States – December 13, 1923, English Channel) was an aviation pioneer. He was the third son of the gyrocompass co-inventor, Elmer Ambrose Sperry and his wife Zula. Sperry invented the first autopilot, which he demonstrated with startling success in France in 1914. Sperry is also credited with developing the artificial horizon still used on most aircraft in the early 21st century. On 13 December 1923 Sperry took off amid fog in a Verville-Sperry M-1 Messenger from the United Kingdom headed for France but never reached his destination. His body
Sperry UFO case fell eastward from the zenith, but which then appeared to move horizontally for several seconds. Comparing times and the relative position of his aircraft with that of Myers, Sperry felt that this was possibly the same phenomenon or object as he saw. Both he and Gates, the copilot, had however "emphatically discounted" the possibility of the phenomenon being a meteor, due to its movements. Sperry UFO case The Sperry UFO case was a sighting of an Unidentified Flying Object by the captain, Willis Sperry, and other crew of an American Airlines DC-6 airborne near Mount Vernon, Maryland on 29 May