1950s Magazine Flying Saucers UFO Reports
PLUS: Features-Photos- Current Sightings Answers to Your Questions
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Description
The Famous IGY Incident Photos ANATOMY OF AWHAT’ZIT The Shape of Things That Came ‘5 THAT WILL CURL YOUR HAIR © Encounters with Humanoids HELLO, OUT THERE Life on Other Planets \ y PLUS: Features-Photos- Current Sightings Answers to Your Questions & DELL 19-216-705 oe Who Are All For more than 20 years a segment of thought on this planet has been given to the proposal that ‘‘We -.*, are not alone.’’ There has been physical evidence in “+: the shape of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) that *3,:., there are extraterrestrial craft, controlled by intelli- ¢- > gence, perhaps even
Dates mentioned
194720011967August 19, 1965August 1, 196619651957196319581959June 19, 1952August 5, 1952
Keywords
Entities
Extracted text (OCR)
The Famous IGY Incident Photos
ANATOMY OF AWHAT’ZIT
The Shape of Things That Came
‘5 THAT WILL CURL YOUR HAIR ©
Encounters with Humanoids
HELLO, OUT THERE
Life on Other Planets
\
y
PLUS: Features-Photos- Current Sightings
Answers to Your Questions
&
DELL
19-216-705
oe Who Are All
For more than 20 years a segment of thought on
this planet has been given to the proposal that ‘‘We
-.*, are not alone.’’ There has been physical evidence in
“+: the shape of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) that
*3,:., there are extraterrestrial craft, controlled by intelli-
¢- > gence, perhaps even manned by humanoids, recon-
%-'* noitering our Earth, exploring our geological make-
. ° up, examining our military bases and probing our
.° overall design, much as we have begun to probe the
. surface of the Moon. The early history of these sight-
_* ings, dating back to Kenneth Arnold's 1947 experi-
*e ence that gave the UFOs their name, Flying Saucers,
3° has been pock-marked with charges of ‘‘pure
m lunacy."’ This magazine is designed to acquaint you
with those cases which, by virtue of the evidence,
.
?
« : . . » . ae
the reliability of the sighters and the body of support-
ing scientific data, tend to establish that such aerial
phenomena do exist and should be given serious
attention and investigation as well as intelligent treat-
ment by. the press.
There is the other side of the coin, the apparent
fantasies that have sprung from the exciting but emo-
tionally disturbing prospect that we do, indeed, have
‘visitors’; the fiction writers who have selected these
phenomena as a basis for imaginative accounts; the
jokesters and publicity seekers who have perpetrated
outright hoaxes. It is all here; the sense and non-
sense, the speculation and the theories, compiled to - 4,
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FLYING
SAUCE
UFO REPORTS
“).. LIKE THE FLIGHT OF A BAT" ooo... eee eee te nner tree renter eerie 18
~ PM STILL CLIMBING 00... ceeeeee cree eee e rrr eee eennnneetersesennneseeeseeennneesee 22
MAYBE I'VE SEEN THE DEVIL ooo... cc eect ree tence eee eeereneeeeetea 24 _]
BETWEEN INDIAN HEAD AND ASHLAND ....00000.0 ccc ceeeeeereeeeereeeteeeeenes 30
FLAP IN MICHIGAN ooo... eee cece eee ccc ete cnseeetnsseeceeeneesensaeerenaseereesenaeees 33
HELLO, OUT THERE! ooo... cece cece cece tenet ee epee tee eetennnnaeeeeeeeneeeeeee 38
IF YOU CAN’T SIGHT 'EM—COIN 7EM ooo. cece cee tteenteneetteeaes 42
COMING IN FOR A CHARGE. 0.00... ceeeee cc ccee cen e cee cneeecenneaeetennseeeseseseneeeenees 44
ANATOMY OF A WHATUZIT ooo... eee ecccee cece cece rere teeter ere nneeteeceenineeeeniaeaes 46
WORTH 1000 WORDS 0.000.000... eeecceeeeee ee eee eee ee teeeeeeeeccatesestesneseesnseneeeeees 56
WHO’S MINDING THE STORE? 0.00.0... ccc eeceee cee ceteeeeeecnnneesneeesesaes 62
Editor: Carmena Freeman Art Editor: Enrico Azzato Art Consultant: Fernando Texidor
FLYING SAUCERS, UFO Reports NO. 1. Published by the Dell Publishing Co., Inc.,
750 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10017. Helen Meyer, President; William
F. Callahan, Jr., Executive Vice-President. Printed in U.S.A. © Copyright 1967 by Dell
Publishing Co., Inc. International copyright secured under the provisions of the
Revised Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. All rights
reserved under the Buenos Aires Convention. Single copy price 50¢ in U.S.A, and Canada. |
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taken by Air. Fore
for examination.»
If Anyone Asks
= Twenty years have passed since the first UFO sighting
was reported in June 1947 by Kenneth Arnold who, in his
description of what he saw, was to give the objects the
name by which they have become popularly known, Fly-
ing Saucers. During that twenty years hundreds of other
sightings have been reported in this country and abroad,
by sober minded persons of excellent reputation and often
professional training who were willing to risk ridicule to
bring attention to a phenomenon they knew deserved
skilled and authorized investigation. There also have been
numerous other reports from persons with over-stimulated
imaginations and by irresponsible jokesters perpetrating out-
right hoaxes. Unfortunately the latter took precedence and
the general public, heedless of those sources which could
not be challenged and of the impressive body of carefully re-
searched material that was growing, sneered at the possibility
that interplanetary craft could and probably does exist.
It is only within recent years that the subject has been
treated with an element of dignity and that serious con-
sideration is being given to UFOs by one-time skeptics who
came to laugh and stayed to cheer.
Many persons, new to the proposal that interplanetary
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crafts may not only exist but be in successful exploratory
operation are beset by questions that were answered long
ago for the veteran UFOlogist. It is to these new comers
that the following material is provided in answer to their
questions.
IS THERE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF UFO LANDINGS?
Cherry Creek, N.Y., August 19, 1965: A well docu-
mented report, given attention by local news media, on
file with Project Blue Book, NICAP, APRO, and men-
tioned in Incident at Exeter, by John G. Fuller, tells of the
experience of a 16-year-old farm boy whose attention was
drawn from his farm chores by the noises made by a teth-
ered bull “like I never heard come from an animal before.”
Looking out in the direction of the disturbed animal,
the youth saw a silvery, football-shaped object, “like two
- plates, lip to lip,” about 50 feet long and 20 feet thick,
giving off a red vapor and a buzzing sound. The object
disappeared briefly behind a tree and the boy ran toward
it. He had not gone far when the object shot up into the
clouds, turning them green from its reflected light and
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giving off the odor of burned gasoline.
The youth broadcast his sighting to everyone in the
farm home and his brother raced out in time to see the red
vapor disappearing into the clouds. ;
Meantime, the mother of the boys had phoned the Fre-
donia State Police Barracks to report the strange occur-
rence. She was told that Trooper E. J. Haas would be right
' out. But before the trooper arrived, a 16-year-old girl, visit-
ing at the farm home, ran in from outside to announce the
Thing had returned. She and three of the boys raced off
for a second look, this time at what they said was a yellow-
ish object moving across the field some 700 feet away.
When Trooper Haas arrived, he accompanied the 16-
year-old boy to the spot where the object first had been
sighted. Here they became aware of a pungent odor and
saw, on the ground, a purplish substance that smelled not
unlike household oil. Some of this was scraped up and
given to the State Police who were said to have turned it
over to the Niagara Falls Air Force Base. This substance
later was said to have been a combination of three-in-one
oil plus Bio-stringent (Gentian violet). Regulations forbid
the Air Force to release information on such findings, but
it was reported that the base did confirm that the four teen-
agers “did see something.” The family reported that the ex-
perience reduced the output of their cow from 2% cans to
one can of milk.
Erie, Pa., August 1, 1966: Equally certain that sighters
had “seen something” were the officers who investigated a
call to Beach 6 on the Peninsula of Presque Isle State
Park, just outside of Erie. The initial call had come from a
group of picnickers, a 22-year-old woman with two small
children; an 18-year-old youth and a 16-year-old girl, all
from the Jamestown, N.Y. area. Their car was stuck in the
sand and they needed assistance. While they waited police
arrival, they saw a star move. It got brighter, moved faster,
then dimmed and came straight down, so close that the
car vibrated. The object was described as being mush-
roomed shaped with a narrow base rising to an oval struc-
ture. There were lights on the back. It came in from the
north, hovered briefly over the area, then landed. A beam
of light came out from the craft and moved in a straight
line along the ground, lighting up the whole woods. The
object was then said to have taken off at a “tremendous
rate of speed.” Shortly after it disappeared, Peninsula Po-
lice Officers Ralph E. Clark and Robert Loeb, Jr., came
on the scene, alerted by the report of a disabled car. The
officers saw nothing in the area, but walked toward the spot
where the object had been sighted, accompanied by the 18-
year-old youth. They had been gone only briefly when they
were drawn back on the run by the honking of the car horn.
They found the 22-year-old mother hunched protectively
over her two small children, and the 16-year-old girl so wet
with perspiration her hair was stuck to her forehead. She
was trembling violently and was almost incoherent. She
said a featureless creature, gorilla shaped and standing six
feet high had approached the car. His movements were
sluggish and he moved off into the brush when she honked
the car horn.
Investigators from the Air Force and from a sub-com-
mittee of NICAP in Jamestown, N.Y., came out to exam-
ine the witnesses. They looked at scratches on the car that
the picnickers said had not been there when they ar-
rived at Presque Isle, and dents in the car roof that had
not been there. But their attention was focused primarily
on two diamond-shaped impressions, about 18 inches
wide and six to eight inches deep which were found some
350 yards from where the car was parked. Similar cone-
shaped impressions were found leading down to the water.
Patrolmen who examined the imprints said they appeared
to have been made by claws “as if you were to take four
fingers and press hard on the sand.” One of them thought
the impressions looked as though someone had blown air
into the sand “as if you blew through a straw.”
Air Force Major William Hall, of Youngstown, took
measurements and made casts of the impressions and
checked for radiation. Tests were said to have been nega-
tive. “If they found anything of real value they haven't
revealed it to me,” Presque Isle Police Chief Dan Dascanio
said. “But from watching them work and their reactions to
what they have looked at it appears that they did find some-
thing of interest.” The chief was admittedly impressed by
the girl’s story. “When she talked with an Air Force of-
ficial . . . I could see that she made no attempt to fill in
her story when she wasn’t sure. When he asked her a speci-
fic question, she said ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was obvious that she
made no attempt to guess at any of the answers.” He de-
scribed her as a “very credible” person and added “I’ve got
to believé they saw something. . . .” He did not accept the
suggestion that the girl had seen a bear since bears were
uncommon to the region. But there was more serious con-
sideration given to the UFO sighting than the “featureless
creature.” Samples from three spots of wet sand were bot-
tled for analysis by the Air Force. The liquid was described
as colorless, odorless and sticky to the, touch. It was pointed
out that most soft drinks, coffee, water etc., evaporate
quickly on the beach. These spots remained for a day. One
officer gave some of the wet sand to a relative who is a
chemist for analysis. The report came back that when dry,
the substance formed a colorless material that could be
bent without breaking, like plastic. Material was believed
to be silicon.
Pretoria, South Africa, September, 1965; Two police-
men, Koos de Klerk and Jochn Lockem out on routine call
on asphalt highway saw what appeared to be a “sea of
flames” ahead of them. Ten seconds later, a top-shaped
object took off at tremendous.speed and disappeared in the
northwest. They heard no noise but saw jets of flame
spurting from two openings on the underside of the object.
Examining the road, they found a circular area, six feet in
diameter, still burning and grass scorched on both sides of.
the road. Samples of the asphalt were examined by a tech-
nician in the Public Works Department in Pretoria who
said a gasoline fire could not possibly have caused the burn-
ing of the road surface.
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Perhaps most significant, and certainly most aggravat-
ing, is the common. occurrence of electro-magnetic effects
in those areas where UFOs are sighted. Single cars, blocks
of houses and sometimes whole areas have suffered severe
caprices of current when UFOs were overhead. The dis-
turbance may be reflected in no more than a stalled motor
or heavy static on the radio, but in Hammond, Ind., in
1957, while police chased a UFO, there was a TV black-
out in the city. And in 1963, in Australia at the same
time an unidentified object danced over the town of Won-
thaggi, TV interference was recorded in three towns.
There was a city light failure in Rome, Italy in 1958 at
the same time a UFO passed over the city and in Brazil
in 1959 the automatic keys at a power station flipped off
as a UFO was spotted over the trunk line. After the ob-
ject had passed the power station functioned normally.
These are only a few of the instances and serious considera-
tion is still being given by some students of the power line
theory that UFOs played a role in the disastrous blackout
along the Eastern Seaboard in November, 1965.
HAVE UFOs BEEN TRACKED ON RADAR?
Goose Air Force Base, Newfoundland, June 19, 1952:
Radar experts picked up object on scope making 90 de-
gree turn over airfield after C-54 transport pilot alerted
base to fireball that was buzzing his plane. Radar experts
had seen number of meteors; did not think this was one.
Source: The Report On Unidentified Flying
Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt, for-
mer head of Air Force Project Blue
Book.
Goose: Bay, June 19, 1952: “Just as radar men picked
up a UEO track, ground men outside saw a strange, red-
lighted machine come in over the field.”
Source: Flying Saucers From Outer Space,
by Major Donald E. Keyhoe, U.S.
Marine Corps, retired.
Radar experts admit scope is
as susceptible to illusion
as is the eye, but have picked
up some strange blips.
Oneida Air Force Base, Japan, August 5, 1952: Ground
Control Intercept Station picks up track of saucer hovering
near tower. “The mysterious craft divided into three units
as if two other saucers had been launched from the first.”
Three machines raced off at speeds clocked at 300
knots. ;
Source: Flying Saucers from Outer Space
from material supplied Major Key-
hoe by Albert M. Chop, civilian
expert on UFOs, formerly acting
press chief working with Project In-
telligence officers at Wright Air
Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.
Wichita, Kans., August 1, 1965: Several unidentified
objects tracked by Weather Bureau at altitude of 6000-
9000 feet. Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Tinker Air
Force Base tracked four on its radar screen at one time,
estimating altitudes at about 23,000 feet. At 3:40 a.m.,
Weather Bureau at Wichita said it had tracked one of the
objects south and west of Wellington . . . had first ap-
peared on radar at altitude of about 22,000 feet, then de-
scended to 4000 feet.
Source: New York Times, August 3, 1965
“ . air force has come along and singled that (above)
case out to say that their radar did not confirm the visual
sightings of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. . . .
“We've got information to contradict the Air Force de-
nial here. It’s a nine page report of the Oklahoma Depart-
ment of Public Safety outlining a sighting by the police
and confirmed by the Caswell Air Force Base radar.”
Source: Quotes by Richard Hall, assistant
Director of NICAP, in Incident At
Exeter, by John G. Fuller.
Houghton, Mich., U.S. Air Force Radar Base, Kewee-
_naw Peninsula reported to UPI “solid radar contact” on
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ry
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ae
up to ten UFOs moving over Lake Superior in V-formation,
north-northeast at 9000 miles per hour.
Source: Incident At Exeter, John G. Fuller
Gulf of Mexico, December 6, 1952. One of the most
fascinating accounts of radar tracked objects was reported
in Major Keyhoe’s Flying Saucers from Outer Space based
on information released to him by Al Chop. The sighting
was first made by a bomber pilot at 5:24 a.m., 100 miles
south of the Louisiana coast. The pilot called his radar
officer at the Texas base and asked him to check the coast-
line on the auxillary scope in the cockpit. Suddenly a blip
appeared at one edge of the screen of the officer’s main ra-
. darscope. In the next revolution, the unidentified craft had
gone 13 miles. Its third appearance indicated the object
would meet the B-29 headon. The radar officer yelled for
the flight engineer to help track the object. Between the
two of them they computed the object’s speed at 5,240
mph. Such speeds seemed impossible to both the bomber
pilot and the radar officer, who took time to recalibrate his
set. He found no malfunction and by this time there were
four UFOs on his screen and also seen by the pilot. During
the first six minutes, five such saucers were sighted, ‘all
moving at more than 5000 mph. Then the scopes cleared.
For one minute the airmen saw nothing. Then two blurs of
blue-white whizzed by and five saucers raced in behind the
bomber, cut across its course, then headed straight for the
B-29., Disaster was imminent. Abruptly the UFOs slowed
to the speed of the bomber and hung behind it for ten sec-
onds. When they left, it was to join a huge mother ship
that sloshed across the radar scope and was gone, at 9000
mph. Intelligence officers questioned the experienced air
and radar men over and over again, receiving always the
same unshakeable reports on speed, design and maneuvers.
The experience could be explained in only one way: In-
teplanetary machines.
Custer, Wash., January 12, 1965: A farm family re-
ported a glowing round object had landed on a snow cov-
ered field briefly. After the object took off, the family
checked and found the snow melted in a 30 foot circle and
the earth scorched. Shortly before this brief landing, radar
officers at Blaine Air Force Base had been tracking a 30-
foot disc that had buzzed an automobile being driven by a
federal law enforcement officer a few miles from the field.
This officer’s signed statement is on file with NICAP (Na-
tional Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, in
Washington D.C.) The farm family was quoted as having
been instructed by the Air Force not to discuss the inci-
dent.
Source: Flying Saucers—Serious Business, by
Frank Edwards
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On three occasions radar equipped F-94s locked on aeri-
al targets only to have the lock-on broken by apparent vio-
lent maneuvers of the target.
Source: The Report on Unidentified Objects,
by Edward J. Ruppelt, former head
of the Air Force Project Blue Book.
DO ASTRONOMERS GIVE CREDENCE TO UFOs?
In Frank Edwards’ highly informative Flying Saucers—
Serious Business, he quotes Frank Halstead, Curator of the
Darling Observatory, Duluth, Minn. in an interview with
the author:
Edwards: “A little while ago you stated that you believe
that intelligent beings exist elsewhere in the
universe, possibly, or probably, developed far
beyond our intelligence levels in some instan-
ces?”
Halstead: “That is correct.”
Edwards: “In that case they would already have solved the
. problems of crossing space, would they not?”
Halstead: “I believe that is a reasonable assumption.”
Edwards: “Such space travelers would conceivably have
visited Earth, then?”
Halstead: “This is pure speculation, or almost pure specu-
lation, but I think that we should assume that
we have had space visitors. . . . I feel that we
have had visitors from space just as I feel that
in the universe we are not alone.”
Edwards: “In your opinion, Mr. Halstead, could the Uni-
dentified Flying objects of our time be space
ships?”
Halstead: “Frankly, sir, they could hardly be anything
else.”
The experience of Professor Walter N. Webb, chief lec-
turer on astronomy at Charles Hayden Planetarium in
Boston, who described the yellow glow that undulated over
the hills at the south end of Silver Lake in Michigan
in 1951 is another example of the trained eye confronted
with an unidentifiable object. To the experienced astron-
omer the wavey path ruled out planes and planets and ex-
isting conditions ruled out inversion effect of ground based
lights. The professor’s conclusion: An UFO. To further
substantiate the conviction of reputable astronomers that
UFOs do exist, there is the account of Dr. Clyde Tom-
baugh’s experience in 1949. Dr. Tombaugh, discoverer of
the planet, Pluto, was at his Las Cruces, New Mexico, home
when he saw a cigar-shaped object silhouetted against the
sky. He could make out a row of yellow lighted openings,
giving the impression of portholes or windows, running
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from front to back. In a letter to Richard Hall, of NICAP,
Dr. Tombaugh said these illuminated rectangles main-
tained a fixed position in respect to each other, which sup-
ported his impression of solidity. “I was really petrified
with astonishment,” he wrote. And, in an article for Life
magazine he stated that “in all his long years of sky watch-
ing he had never seen the equal of this remarkable craft.”
Greenville, S.C., May 13, 1952: Four astronomers
watched four oval shaped glowing saucers flying in dia-
mond-shaped formation. They were silent. They wobbled
several times, then went out of sight.
Source: Flying Saucers from Outer Space,
Major Donald Keyhoe
Cigar-shaped object is frequent sighting. This, over
Anaheim, Cal., in 1957 “flickered with reddish light.”
The A.P.R.O. Bulletin, official publication of the Aerial
Phenomena Research Organization, with headquarters in
Tucson, Ariz., recently reported on a sighting made in
1964 by two technicians attached to the Cosmic Radiation
Center at Chile University near Santiago, Chile. They had
been awakened by the intense heat in their room despite
the piercing cold on that November night at that altitude.
One of the men went outside, found the heat there even
more intense and the. mountain lighted up by a bright or-
ange color. Afraid some tanks of liquid gas had caught fire,
he called to his companion. The other man arrived just in
time to see an object ascend from the bottom of the canyon
and disappear from sight in the sky at a tremendous speed.
Dr. Gabriel Alvial, Director of the center, and Professor
Claudio Anguita, Director of the Astronomical Observatory
of Chile University, in reporting the incident to the press,
stated their belief in unidentified aerial objects and said
that “something beyond our ken is prowling the earth,” and
that “we are not alone in the universe.”
Understandably, one of the first recorded sightings of a
UFO, dating back to 1896 when a “cigar-shaped” object
moving, unexplainably, into the wind was witnessed by
hundreds of people on the West Coast in the San Fran-
cisco area, triggered the same “real” and “hoax” response
that such reports unleash today. Those who had seen it
credited it as an authentic mystery ship and those who had
not were quick to attribute it to pranksters in balloons.
Astronomers could be found in both camps, those who at-
tributed the sighting to Venus, or other planets, and those
who, despite the threat of ridicule, held firmly to their
convictions that the “ship” could not be so readily explained
and that they had witnessed sound evidence of unidenti-
fiable craft.
The UFO Evidence quotes the late Dr. H. Percy Wil-
kins, British lunar astronomer from his book “Mysteries of
Space and Time,” in relation to that astronomer’s recogni-
tion that most UFOs can be attributed to conventional ob-
jects: “. . . a residium remains which cannot be thus ex-
plained.” Part of this residium would logically have to in-
clude the report submitted to NICAP by Dr. Charles H.
Otis, professor emeritus of biology, Bowling Green State
University. In his report, Dr. Otis told of sighting a num-
ber of silent, wingless, high flying objects over Ann Arbor,
Mich., in July, 1952. He counted 15 of what he referred
to as “ships,” and described them as moving in the form of
“organized flotilla.” They were identical in size and shape
Celongated and split at the rear with no discernible cabin,
windows or persons) and they maintained perfect position
in the flotilla. Each “ship” gave off what the doctor de-
scribed as a “caterpillar track” from their two pronged tails
in the rear. Dr. Otis explored several possibilities that
might account for these unwavering and glowing trails, but
found none of them satisfactory. ,
On the surface it may appear that astronomers who do
not believe in interplanetary craft exceed those who do.
The theory has been offered, however, that these astrono-
mers are inclined to be more vocal than their more credu-
lous colleagues. The scorn and ridicule of a nation are not
easy to accept and it has been well.demonstrtaed that un-
less a person has seen a UFO for himself he is inclined to
be not just skeptical but downright insulting in his attitude
toward believers. A man of science would be understand-
ably reluctant to expose himself to the jibes of his col-
leagues, employers and audience.
An impressive listing of UFO sightings by scientists is
provided in The UFO Evidence, supplemented by detailed
reports and sketches on some of the more noteworthy ex-
periences. The introduction to this section carries the
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ru
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Jet crewman sent up over Capital in 1952 to
scout UFOs seen twice over Washington, D.C.
views of three world-famous scientists among whorh is Pro-
fessor Hermann Oberth, pioneer in space travel, who was
convinced that UFOs “are piloted by super-intelligent be-
ings from another planet.”
For those to whom acceptance of such a far out explana-
tion is unthinkable, Edward J. Ruppelt in The Report on
Unidentified Flying Objects reminds us that only 100 years
ago two eminent members of the French Academy of Sci-
ences rejected meteorites in the same way with a scathing:
“It can’t be . . . stones don’t fall from the sky.” And that
at about the same time our own then Chief Engineer for
the Navy labeled the possibility of flying heavier-than-air
craft as absurd and it was only twenty years ago that our
Chief of Staff to the President said of the atomic bomb:
“It will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”
These incidents may have prompted Ruppelt to close
his fine book with “. . . maybe the many pilots, radar spe-
cialists, generals, industrialists, scientists and the man on
the street who have told me ‘I wouldn’t have believed it
either if I hadn’t seen it myself,’ knew what they were
talking. about.”
WHAT DO AIR PILOTS SAY?
It was the pilot of a privately owned plane who made
the first recorded sighting, Kenneth Arnold; gave it its
name, Flying Saucers; and submitted information without
which no history of UFOs in America would be complete.
That was on June 24, 1947 in the vicinity of Mt. Ranier,
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Wash., when the observer watched nine disc shaped ob-
jects flying in linked line, “much like geese.”
He was a veteran mountain pilot, flying his own plane,
over country familiar to him. During the less than two
minutes they were in view he estimated their length at 45
to 50 feet; their speed at 1,700 mph; their distance from
him at 20-25 miles away. They hada skipping motion
and every so often two or three would dip or shift course
and occasionally disappear behind a peak of the Cascade
Mountains.
The skeptics spiked away at Arnold’s account, unwilling
to accept the speed at which he had estimated their flight;
the distance away . . . settling finally, for their own
peace of mind, on jets as the explanation, although there
was one school that held out for wind whipping snow over
the mountain ridges.
There were many others, however, familiar with Ar-
nold’s experience, character and knowledge of the region
who were less anxious to kiss off this incident. As publicity
built, Arnold was interviewed by intelligence officers from
HQ of the Fourth Air Force. The interviewer stated that. in
his opinion, Arnold had seen what he stated he saw. This
opinion was shared by many newsmen in the area who
had considered the story a hoax at inception, planned to
report it as such, but came away, after intensive investiga-
tion, with the same “saw-what-he-said conviction.”
The conclusion of the Army Air Force’s was that Mr. Arn-
old had seen a mirage, brought about by existing atmos-
pheric conditions.
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At that time the American public might not have been
prepared for any other conclusion, but the flood of reports
that followed hot on the heels of the Arnold sighting was
to sew doubt in the minds of many of those who had dis-
missed this initial “saucer” as a misconception.
There was a report the next month from a test pilot at
what is now Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mo-
jave Desert. He watched what he thought was a weather
balloon until he saw that it was going against the wind.
He described it as spherical in shape, yellow-white in color.
Two hours later, in the same neighborhood, a crew of tech-
nicians sighted what they thought was a parachute can-
opy. Then they realized it was traveling too fast for a test
parachute, and against the wind. It was soundless, had no
Pilots are more certain of their sightings than
others. Here two swear to “pinkish-pancake” object.
visible means of propulsion and, after 90 seconds, disap-
peared behind mountains. Their opinions, based on the
shape and functional appearance, was that the object was
man-made.
One year later, in July of 1948, a pilot flying a com-
mercial airliner from Houston, Tex. to Atlanta, Ga., saw
a bright light closing in on him so fast that he knew it
could not be a jet. He nudged his co-pilot, then wheeled
in a tight left turn as the object spun off 700 feet to the
right. The pilots described a deep blue glowing underside,
two rows of glowing windows and a 50-foot trail of red-
orange flame. The only passenger who witnessed the inci-
dent saw “a strange, eerie streak of light, very intense.”
When the crew chief at the Air Force Base near Macon,
Ga., reported seeing a bright light in the same vicinity,
traveling at tremendous speed, and a pilot over the Vir-
ginia-North Carolina line reported a “bright shooting star”
at the same time over Montgomery, Ala., the ATIC took
notice. After investigation they summed up the glowing
fast-traveler as a meteor. Major Donald Keyhoe, in his Fly-
ing Saucers From Outer Space, has reported that the project
analyst himself was not happy with this summation and
allowed that it “seems very improbable.”
That the ultimate conclusions on what UFO sighters
have seen should rest with the Air Force has proved dis- _
quieting to many observers and particularly unsettling to
experienced pilots who feel that they are sufficiently fa-
miliar with known air craft and with the constellations
not to be bamboozled into easy mistakes. A case in point
is that of Captain Peter Killian, flying an American Air-
lines cargo plane from Newark to Detroit in February, 1959.
What he saw were three brightly lighted UFOs that kept
pace with his plane, changing position as they moved.
What he was told he saw was a military tanker refueling
some jets. Other air crews in the area had reported seeing
the same objects. It is not easy to conyince veteran pilots
that they have been fooled into mistaking fueling tankers
and jets for UFOs. So the Air Force offered another con-
clusion: the constellation Orion. But how to explain the
stars in Orion changing formation. For Captain Killian,
those UFOs are unexplained.
Coral Lorenzen, who with her husband L. J. Lorenzen,
direct the activities of the highly reputable Aerial Phe-
nomena Research Orgainzation in Tucson, Ariz., has cited
the experience of another far from satisfied pilot in her
well researched book Flying Saucers: The Startling Evi-
dence of The Invasion From Outer Space. It was APRO’s
investigation of a 1961 sighting near Salt Lake City, Utah,
that familiarized her with the aspects of Pilot Waldo J.
Harris’ frustrating brush with the Air Force.
Harris, who from the ground had seen what he thought
was a plane in the sky as he was‘about to take off on a
routine flight around noon of October 2, 1961, was sur-
prised when he got aloft to see that the object was still in
the same position as it had been when he first saw it. Puz-
zled, he headed for it and saw what he described as a
large disc, undulating at an altitude of some 6500 feet.
His radioed report to the airport brought out several inter-
ested spectators who trained their binoculars on the maneu-
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vering pilot and the object as Harris tried to close in.
Harris got within what he estimated was three miles of
~ the object, near enough to see that its surface was not un-
like “sand blasted” aluminum, approximately 50 feet in
diameter and five to ten feet thick at the center. Although
in its rocking motion it sometimes took on the look of a
zeppelin, when it finally took off, going straight up, then
to the south, Harris could see it was more like a disc, plates
linked by their lips. The UFO hovered briefly over Lake
Omni station, then with a great thrust of speed, moved
west and out: of sight within seconds.
By the time the Lorenzens interviewed Harris, they were
familiar with the conclusions of the Air Force on this sight-
ing: A research balloon or Venus. The veteran pilot was
familiar with the Pentagon established conclusion, too.
But he had seen a gray disc, hovering, then shooting off
with terrific acceleration to the south then the west, against
the ‘wind. This was Venus? This was a weather balloon?
Two Navy commanders and several other officers from Na-
val Intelligence interviewed Harris, too. They didn’t try
to sway the pilot’s convictions. They, too, were convinced
the object was real and unidentified.
A concise, convincing and provocative report on Sau-
cers. was submitted to Project Blue Book in 1954 by Lieu-
tenant Colonel Richard Headrick, USAFR, senior pilot,
and later confirmed by letter in a brief description to
. NICAP which reports it in The UFO Evidence, pg. 25, in
the same outline the colonel presented.
1. “Saucers exist. (I saw two).
2. They were intelligently controlled or operated.
CEvasive tactics, formation flight, hovering flight.)
3. They are not propelled on any thermodynamic prin-
ciple. (No contrails while jet intercept aircraft left heavy
ones. ) ;
4. They are mechanisms rather than hallucinations, op-
tical illusions, natural phenomena.
The Colonel’s evaluation: ;
5. They are not U.S. secret weapons, for if they were,
many contracts | am now working on would be dropped.
Also they would not fly outside military test reservations.
6. They are not Russian for similar reasons. Russians
have complained about their flying over their borders. They
would not risk malfunction over our territory.
7. I presume they are extraterrestrial.
8. Provided they are, interstellar navigation would like-
ly present little more complication than navigation within
our solar system. Therefore, discussion on whether or not
planets in the solar system are capable of supporting life
is not material.
9. Judging from all evidence I have read, personal con-
tact has not yet been established either on the ground or
by the radio transmission.”
It makes sense that a sizable number of UFO reports
would come from the men who make their living in the
skies and who are conversant with the types of curious
lights and shapes with which they may come in contact.
Airline pilots have been the source of some of the most in-
formative reports that are on record with the Air Force
from the time of its initial organized filing, first with Proj-
ect Sign then Project Grudge, and finally Project Blue
Book. But in the Spring of 1950 even this usually calm
branch of the service was jolted by the number and quality
of reports from pilots that began to pour in.
In three months, starting with April, air line crews had
accounted for 35 reports on UFOs and Captain Eddie
Rickbacker, in an interview, quoted in The UFO Evidence,
pg. 33, said: “Flying saucers are rea]. Too,many good men
have seen them, that don’t have hallucinations.”
It was not until the summer of 1952, however, that the
very capital itself was rocked. That was with the famous
sightings over Washington, D.C., sightings that hit the
headlines with INTERCEPTORS CHASE FLYING SAUCERS
OVER WASHINGTON, D.c., before Air Force Intelligence
even knew about it.
There had been forewarnings, sightings near Quantico,
and Newport News, Va., another at Langley Air Force
Base, another 60 miles southwest of Washington, all
within a few nights of each other in mid-July.
But on July 19, it was Washington, D.C., on the nose,
picked up by radar at National Airport and at Andrews,
and reported as 8 unidentified targets near Andrews AFB,
accelerating too rapidly to be planes. Airline pilots were
also sighting the unknown lights that slowed, then spurted
ahead with fantastic speed. Within 14 minutes, one pilot
spotted six. The grandaddy of them all was a huge “fiery-
orange” sphere that hung over the Andrews Radio range
station.
That many crack radar experts and veteran pilots
couldn't be kissed off. They had seen something and it fell
to Edward Ruppelt, then head of Project Blue Book, to
decide what explanation the Air Force could release to the
press.
A week later, Washington had its second visit. This time
the objects were spread in an arc around the nation’s capi-
tol and jets were being vectored out to see what they were.
The objects would shoot off before the jets could get near.
It wasn’t easy for nerve-wracked Air Intelligence to fend
off the public excitement and queries engendered by such
headlines as FIERY OBJECTS OUTRUN JETS OVER CAPI-
TAL. One of the most sympathetic chapters in Ruppelt’s
excellent Report On Unidentified Objects, deals with the
almost insoluble problem that confronted ATIC during
that week. It was a chance remark by an ATIC official, sug-
gesting that the radar targets might have been caused by
temperature inversions, according to Ruppelt’s account, that
eventually got the press off their backs and quieted a dis-
tressed nation with the headline arr FORCE DEBUNKS
SAUCERS AS JUST NATURAL PHENOMENA. Although Mr.
Ruppelt acknowledged that the “twin sightings are still
carried as unknowns.”
Yes, one does find skeptics and outright non-believers
among the air pilots of all nations. But one finds solid
converts to the UFO legions, too, one of whom, Air Chief
Marshal Lord Dowding, RAF (England) was quoted in a
UFO activity report released in 1965 by NICAP: “I am
convinced that these objects do exist and that they are not
manufactured by any nation on earth . . . (they must)
come from some extraterrestrial source.”
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One’s inclination if he sights a strange object in the sky is to stand open mouthed and ogle.
Your report of a UFO can be of more value if you notice and record information on this sample report form.
NATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS COMMITTEE ON AERIAL PHENOMENA
1536 Connecticut Avenue N. W.
NOrth 7-9434 Washington 6, D.C,
REPORT ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT(S)
This form includes questions asked by the United States Air Force and by other Armed Forces’ investigating agencies, and additional
questions to which answers are needed for full evaluation by NICAP.
After all the information has been fully studied, the conclusion of our Evaluation Panel will be published by NICAP in its regularly
issued magazine or in another publication. Please try to answer as many questions as possible. Should you need additional! room, please
use another sheet of paper. Please print or typewrite. Your assistance is of great value and is genuinely appreciated. Thank you.
1. Name Place of Employment
Address Occupation
Education
Special Training
Telephone Military Service
2. Date of Observation Time AM PM Time Zone
3. Locality of Observation
4. Row long did you see the object? Hours Minutes Seconds
5. Please describe weather conditions and the type of sky; f.e., bright daylight, nighttime, dusk, etc.
6. Position of the Sun or Moon in relation to the object and to you.
7. If seen at night, twilight, or dawn, were the stars or moon visible?
8. Were there more than one object? If so, please tell how many, and draw a sketch of what you saw, indicating
direction of movement, if any.
9. Please describe the object(s) in detail. For instance, did it (they) appear solid, or only as a source of light; was it revolving,
etc? Please use additional sheets of paper, if necessary.
10. Was the object(s) brighter than the background of the sky?
11. If so, compare the brightness with the Sun, Moon, headlights, etc.
12. Did the object(s)— (Please elaborate, if you can give details.)
a. Appear to stand still at any time?
b. Suddenly.speed up and rush away at any time?
c Break up into parts or explode?
d. Give off smoke?
e. Leave any visible trail?
f. Drop anything?
g- Change brightness?
h. Change shape?
i. Change color?
13. Did the object(s) at any time pass in front of, or behind of, anything? If so, please elaborate giving distance, size, etc, if possible.
14. Was there any wind? If so, please give direction and speed.
15. Did you observe the object(s) through an optical instrument or other aid, windshield, windowpane, storm window, screening, etc?
What?
16. Did the object(s) have any sound? What kind? How loud?
17. Please tell if the object(s) was (were) —
a. Fuzzy or blurred.
b. Like a bright star.
c. Sharply outlined.
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—
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18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24,
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Was the object —
a. Self-luminous?
b. Dull finish?
c. Reflecting?
d. Transparent?
Did the object(s) rise or fall while in motion?
Tell the apparent size of the object(s) when compared with the following held at arm's length:
a. Pinhead d. Nickel g- Orange
b. Pea e. Half dollar h, Grapefruit
c. Dime f. Silver dollar i. Larger
Or, if easier, give apparent size in inches on a ruler held at arm’s length.
How did you happen to notice the object(s)?
Where were you and what were you doing at the time?
How did the object(s) disappear from view?
Compare the speed of the object(s) with a piston or jet aircraft at the same apparent altitude.
Were there any conventional aircraft in the location at the time or immediately afterwards? If so, please elaborate.
Please estimate the distance of the object(s). .
What was the elevation of the object(s) in the sky? Please mark on this hemisphere sketch: OOOO
‘Names and addresses of other witnesses, if any.
Please draw a map of the locality of the observation showing North; your position; the direction from which the object(s)
appeared and disappeared from view; the direction of its course over the area; roads, towns, villages, railroads, and other
landmarks within a mile.
Is there an airport, military, governmental, or research installation in the area?
‘Have you ‘seen other objects of an unidentified nature? If so, please describe these observations, using a separate sheet of paper.
Please enclose photographs, motion pictures, news clippings, notes of radio or television programs (include time, station and
date, if possible) regarding this or similar observations, .or any other background material. We will return the material to you.
5
Were you interrogated by Air Force investigators? By any other federal, state, county, or focal officials? If so, please state
the name and rank or title of the agent, his office, and details as to where and when the questioning took place.
Were you asked or told not to reveal or discuss the incident? If so, were any reasons or official orders mentioned? Please
elaborate carefully.
We should like permission to quote your name in connection with this report. This action will encourage other responsible
citizens to report similar observations to NICAP. However, if you prefer, we will keep your name confidential. Please note
your choice by checking the proper statement below. In any case, please fill in al! parts of the form, for our own confidential
files, Thank you for your cooperation.
ce!
You may use my name. ( )} Please keep my name confidential. ({ )
Date of filling out this report: Signature:
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™ He was dwarf-size and looked as though he’d weigh no
more than 35 pounds, but his body was hard as steel and
covered with stiff hairs; his eyes glowed in the dark and his
arms tapered to claws, and carried enough strength to
bounce a full grown man 15 feet with a single push of his
hand. The man who was bounced, was a sturdy Venezuelan
who, in the early morning hours of November 28, 1954 was
on his way from Caracas to Petare with his assistant to pur-
chase produce.
They stopped their truck to investigate a Juminous
sphere, ten feet in diameter, that hovered a few feet from
the ground ahead of them. The hairy little person who ap-
proached them should have been easy to overpower and
take to the police. Such goings-on deserved official investi-
gation. But when the produce merchant prepared to take
the little man in, he became involved in a scuffle of unim-
agined proportions.
The helper, who at first was inclined to go to his employ-
er’s assistance, changed his mind when he saw two other
tiny creatures come out from the bushes, carrying rocks, and
enter the illuminated sphere through a side opening. The
helper ran for police, leaving his employer alone with the
creatures.
In his effort to escape, the produce merchant drew a
knife. It glanced off the hard, hairy little body as though
he’d struck steel and in the next instant he was blinded by a
stream of light from a small tube directed into his face by
one of the other small creatures. Unarmed, disabled and
outmanned, the man sank to the ground in a frenzy of
fright and the sphere took off in a great blast of speed.
When help arrived, the man was given medical treatment
for a long red gash in his side and subjected to extensive
police questioning, but found to be completely sober and
visibly upset by his experience.
Pure fiction, you say, stemming from the possible sighting
of some easily explained natural phenomenon that, in the
eerie predawn hours, played havoc with the imaginations of
two Venezuelan working men. But hold, the above ‘account
which is reported in detail in Coral Lorenzen’s Flying
Saucers (Signet) does not stop there.
A few days later, one of the doctors who had examined
the victim, reported that he actually had witnessed the in-
cident. He had been making a night call when he came
upon the stopped truck and saw the fantastic skirmish. Not
wanting to get involved in undesirable publicity, he drove
off and even at the time he revealed this information he re-
fused to permit use of his name. But the incident was
brought to the attention of American authorities and the
doctor was invited to Washington, D.C. to give his first
hand account.
Nor was this the only instance of an encounter with “lit-
tle hairy creatures” in that area. Less than a month later, two
young rabbit hunters were set upon by four tiny manlike
creatures. One of the hunters tried to fend off the assailants
with his shotgun, but the weapon burst apart with the blow
“as though it had struck rock.” The youths, scratched,
bruised and close to hysteria, were questioned by police and
by psychiatrists who found them to be “sane, responsible”
and “badly frightened by something very unusual.”
A few days later, another man was set upon by a small,
hairy person in the woods of the Ministry of Agriculture’s
Exposition Park. Two friends of his, one a member of the
National Guard, heard his screams and came upon him un-
conscious on the ground just as a hairy little man leaped
into a shiny disc like craft that then took off with a deafen-
ing buzz. Authorities found all thrée men to be extremely
frightened and the actual victim in a state of shock with
severe gashes on his side and back that looked like claw |
marks. In Coral Lorenzen’s Flying Saucers, this account is
mentioned as “one of the first believable accounts of contact
with occupants of UFOs.”
Less believable, but more fascinating, is the story of a
23-year old Brazilian farmer, whose experience was investi-
gated in depth by APRO representative Dr. Olavos Fontes,
and presented in detail in Flying Saucers (Signet).
This man was “kidnaped” right off his own tractor in a
freshly plowed field and taken aboard a “torpedo-shaped”
ship that was a glowing red until it settled to the ground on
three metal protrusions. Then it went dark. The “kidnap-
ers” were little creatures in striped grey suits and strange
helmets from which tubes ran from top to back.
The farmer, once inside what appeared to be a metal
craft lighted from the ceiling, was bathed in a thick, clear
liquid. Then two tubes were placed against his chin and
blood was drawn off into a vessel.
The experience made him nauseous and he was placed on
a bed in a room from which a greyish vapor exuded through
tiny holes in the wall.
It was here he was visited by a blonde woman, short,
well-formed and complete with all features except a mouth
which was only a slit, no lips.
Within short order, she had seduced him twice. Then
she left and the farmer was given his clothes and taken on a
conducted tour of the “ship,” through what appeared to be a
control room. He tried to snatch up a small box he found
there as proof of his experience, but it was taken from him
and he was released from the ship.
He found that the wires had been detached from the
tractor battery, though once replaced, the machine ran all
right. The farmer, however, didn’t function so well the first
several days after his experience. He was restless, couldn’t
sleep; his body itched and purple sores broke out in various
places.
Dr. Fontes interviewed this young man at a time when
sores were still visible on the man’s body and the bruise
marks, reportedly left by the tubes inserted to draw blood,
could still be seen on his chin. Dr. Fontes found him to be a
“healthy, normal man with no obvious psychological prob-
lems,” (The APRO Bulletin, July-August 1966). The man
was reluctant to discuss the seduction but did mention that.
the sound made by all of the creatures was a “growling
noise,” and “at.times he was “repelled by the sounds the
woman made.”
Dr. Fontes’ complete report was sent to APRO in 1958
and has since been incorporated in Coral Lorenzen’s Flying
Saucers in a far more detailed and extensive account. Any-
one familiar with the report and with the published experi-
ences of Barney and Betty Hill, of New Hampshire (re-
ferred to in another part of this magazine) cannot help but
be struck by the resemblances, as was Mrs. Lorenzen, in the
two recollections, there are references to. the “slit-like
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we
Dumb-bell shaped foot
imprints suggested a
waddling step rather
than the stiff-legged
gait of a robot. A
heavy weight had
made the clear im-
prints. Investigators
were skeptical of their
value as evidence.
mouths,” the animal sounds, and the attempts to take some-
thing from the ship as evidence of the experience.
Mrs. Lorenzen closes her account of the Brazilian experi-
ence with: “When Dr. Fontes visited Mr. Lorenzen and me
during one of his trips to the United States, I asked him
point blank. ‘Do you believe (the V-B) story, Olavo?’ His
reply: ‘It is too bizarre to believe.’ ”
Not all bizarre encounters with “little hairy men” how-
ever have taken place south of the border. North America
has its own recorded examples, some of which aroused
enough concern to send Air Force intelligence out on in-
vestigative trips of no small dimension.
The first of these really shook the rafters of the Pentagon
and reverberated throughout the nation. It had to do with a
scoutmaster in West Palm Beach, Fla., a former Marine
and a “solid citizen.”
On the night of August 19, 1952, he was driving three
scouts home from a meeting when his attention was drawn
to a peculiar light about 30 yards off the road in a palmetto
thicket. Ordering the boys to stay in the car, he took a ma-
chete and flashlight and went off to investigate.
He later reported that he had come upon a clearing over
which hovered a large, saucer-shaped object with turret top
and several regularly spaced vanes between each of which
were nozzle-like openings.
He was aware of an oppressive heat and a pungent odor,
but more than that, he was annoyed by the spooky feeling
that he was being watched. He wanted to strike out at what-
ever this “thing” was, but suddenly a ball of red fire spurted
out and he was enveloped in a vapor-like mist. He lost con-
sciousness.
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Meantime the three scouts, aware that something was
wrong back in the palmetto thicket, had run for help. They
returned with a farmer and his wife and members of the
Florida State Highway Patrol. They found the scoutmaster
just climbing back onto the road, so scared he could scarcely
tell his story.
Advised roughly of what had happened, the group moved
back into the palmettos and relocated the clearing. The
grass was flattened out and the flashlight still lay there.
The scoutmaster was rushed into the sheriff's office. His
face and arms showed evidence of burning, his hair was
singed and there were burns in his cap. The Air Force was
promptly alerted.
The scout leader was subjected to a thorough examination
that substantiated the burnings, even to scorched nostrils.
Air Force investigators examined the scene of the “inci-
dent,” went over the ground with Geiger counters, could
find no burnt matches or evidence that lightning had struck
or that a fire had deliberately been set. They took the ma-
chete and the cap for laboratory analysis and later indicated
that their findings lent credeace to the fantastic story.
The cap carried strong evidence of scorching that could
have been achieved by pressing with a hot iron, but there
also were tiny spark burns that could not be explained in
this fashion. But the most convincing evidence that the
scoutmaster had, indeed, been victim of a nightmare experi-
ence was contained in some sample grass clumps taken from
the scene.
The grass itself was undamaged, but the roots were
charred.
Edward Ruppelt in his Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects, (Doubleday) acknowledges this was startling evi-
dence in support of the scoutmaster’s story. “The only way
it could have been faked would have been to heat the earth
from underneath to 300 degrees F, and how do you do this
without using big, cumbersome equipment and disturbing
the ground? You can’t.”
The Air Force through its Project Blue Book set-up was
left with the unpleasant task of having to minimize this
highly publicized report in the face of almost indisputable
evidence to support it. The story had appeared in almost
every paper in the country and had been believed by many
readers. But ATIC wrote it off as a hoax. “The best hoax in
UFO history,” (The Report on Unidentified Flying Ob-
jects.) ;
The scoutmaster’s story, now 15 years old, is being dusted
off and reviewed with less skeptical eye in the light of more
recent happenings. that, though they may not rattle the im-
perturbable “show me” types, have seriously disturbed those
who recognize that “anything can happen,” and perhaps
has.
As a matter of record, just a few months after the Florida
story, a family in West Virginia was “shown” in a manner it
had no desire to-be. They were investigating a glowing ob-
ject that appeared to have landed on a hill behind their
home. One of the youths carried a flashlight and in its beam
he saw a shape which he first believed to be a woods animal.
Moving closer, he made out what was later described as a
huge monster with glowing body and bulging eyes.
The family raced home to safety, but found some of their
bodies to be covered with an oilish substance and during
the night all of the youngsters became ill, their throats
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D002-9
photos on these and
following two pages
from APRO.
a. One of the deep round
depressions found af-
ter third visit to
Weeki-Wachi Springs
cite of a “space craft
= visit.” Was it left by
the landing gear, or
part of an elaborate
hoax perpetrated on a
ready public?
swelled and one of them went into convulsions.
Local authorities ‘investigated the scene the next morning
and found matted grass and bits of black plastic. The inci-
dent might have been dismissed as an example of imagined
horrors in the wake of sighting some unexplained night time
light of eerie dimension. But that same day hundreds of
other reports filtered in from other people in the surrounding
area who had sighted strange lights and objects in the sky
the previous evening. Among these was a member of the
schoolboard who said he had seen a strange craft take off
from the hilltop.
The Air Force wrote the light off as a meteor; the monster
as a clump of shrubbery given spooky shape by a boy’s over
stimulated imagination; the glowing ’eyes as those of an owl.
Moreover, ATIC claimed it was making no investigation of
the incident. Monster stories would ‘have to be expected in
view of the temporary excitement generated by the series of
sightings in 1952, and ATIC could not give its time to
every scare story that hit the papers.
Local investigators were less inclined to kiss-off the inci-
dent, and it was later disclosed that despite the claims of
ATIC that the story was not of enough value to warrant
investigation, a team of plain-clothes investigators, passing
themselves off as salesmen, had canvassed the area, asking
questions pertinent to the “monster” sighting and not at all
pertinent to the product they were peddling. Several per-
sons suspected these salesmen actually were representatives
from Army intelligence, working in secret to avoid rousing
public panic over the possibility that the Pentagon did lend
credence to the story. The allegation has been denied by the
Air Force.
continued on next page
eer eee
15.
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Similar allegations were denied again in 1957 when an
incident of equally chilling proportions was reported along
the Indiana-Kentucky border. This, too, involved a family
who had gone out to investigate a glowing object that had
set their dog to barking.
They claim to have been confronted by a tiny creature
under four feet high, dressed in an aluminum suit and pos-
sessed of web-like hands. -
Two male members of the family were said to have fired
on the thing which fell back and ran off.
Later the creature was said to have been seen clinging to
the screen of a window in the home and glaring at the
fright-numbed residents through wide-slit eyes. Again the
men fired on it, driving it away.
There was a third visit that night, and a third firing. ‘This
time the shots were heard to strike metal and there were
confirming reports from people in the neighborhood who
said they heard the shots and the “hits.”
Whatever appeared at that home that night threw a para-
lyzing fear into the tenants, as was attested to by the local
police chief when the family appeared in the neighboring
town that night to tell of its hair-raising experience.
The Air Force sent investigators out for a brief interview
with the victims and then was said to have dismissed the
incident as without value to them. But local residents were
aware, two weeks later, of a team of door-to-door peddlers
who seemed more interested in the tale of the tin-suited
visitors than they were in selling their products.
A much more recent encounter with “humanoids” was
reported in detail in The APRO Bulletin, March-April
1965. The experience deals with the Florida “landing” in-
cident near Weeki-Wachi Springs and is one that is viewed
with a skeptical eye by the directors of APRO for reasons
they mention in their report. But with their commendable
caution and researchists’ instinct for waiting until all of
the answers are in, they announce that they are not yet
closing the books on the case.
Much of the following material was drawn from the ac-
count appearing in the above mentioned issue of the APRO
Bulletin.
The meeting occurred about a mile and a half from the
Weeki-Wachi Springs home of a 65-year-old Florida man
who was out walking in the sand dunes that afternoon of
March 2, 1965, when his attention was attracted to a
strange space-ship some 150 feet away.
While he was studying this most unusual saucer-like
craft, a robot-like creature emerged from the brush, walked
to within 15 feet of the man, pulled a rounded black object
from his pocket and flashed it once, “like lightning at night.”
Then ran off.
The man, as one might expect, fled too. But in his haste
he stumbled against a bush, knocking loose his glasses.
When he bent to retrieve them, he lost his hat. While he
was trying to recover these dropped articles, the “robot” re-
appeared, placed the little black object against his chin
again, flashed the light once more, then raced to the craft
and took off at high speed.
The “witness”, relieved that the visitor and his funny
16
flying macine were gone, was curious by this time and went
back to examine the spot where the “ship” had been. He
found two folded sheets of paper of tissue texture which he
pocketed for closer scrutiny. Then he went home to examine
his experience under calmer conditions.
He waited overnight to report the incident, claiming that
he did not think he would be believed. But when finally he
did appear in the office of a radio station in Brooksville, it
was to give a remarkably detailed description of the robot
he had seen.
“Roughly five feet tall and clothed in a silver-gray, stiff-
appearing suit atop which was a helmet much like a glass
bowl inverted over its head and resting on its shoulders. The
head inside was covered by dark material which covered
the hair area. The ears, mouth and nose appeared normal,
but the eyes were large and very wide set, with a “flat-area”
between. The hands were covered by mittens which ap-
peared to be very pliable and the same color as the suit.”
The space-ship, shaped like a soap bubble, was of irri-
descent cast with reddish-purple and greenish-blue predom-
inating. Slats circled the airfoil and when the craft took off
these opened and shut with a rumbling noise. The landing
gear folded up into the belly of the ship. The ship moved in
a vertical direction at high speed and was gone within 15
seconds.
APRO’s Florida investigator was in touch with the man
from Weeki-Wachi Springs soon after word of his experi-
ence was made known. He extracted much information
from the man that had not been released to the press and he
was at first impressed with the witness’ seeming reliability
and powers of observation. But the same afternoon that the
man appeared at the radio station, Air Force personnel ar-
rived from MacDill Field to scrutinize the scene and the
subject and representatives from magazines and entertain-
ment media moved in to see in what fashion this latest re-
port on “humanoids” could best be exploited.
More than a day had passed since the time of the en-
counter; rains had washed out what physical evidence
might have existed and it was reported that a lie-test had
tended to discredit some of the man’s story. A carnival at-
mosphere surrounded the section, attracting sightseers, pho-
tographers, feature writers and souvenir hunters.
Those who were there for the purpose of extracting facts,
including a second APRO representative, came away with
the impression that the whole thing was a hoax. Those who
were there to milk the incident of its human interest value
had a field day.
The notes, hieroglyphics penned on tissue-thin paper,
were turned over to the Air Force and it was later reported
that simple deciphering had broken the code on 18 letters
of the alphabet and that the notes were the work of an ama-
teur. Analysis has established that the paper itself was made
of commonly found fibers used extensively in the manufac-
ture of certain tissues. The Air Force concluded that fur-
ther analysis from that quarter would be an unnecessary
expense and unrewarding procedure.
From other sources it was learned that the man from
Weeki-Wachi Springs had in some manner assimilated a
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Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9
message from his visitor on March 2 that the robot would
be back.in 29 days. It has been reported in Saucer News,
June 966, that the “witness” returned to the scene with
two friends on the afternoon of March 31 and that the three
of them did see the saucer-shaped ship come in over the
~_dunes but that it was intercepted by an Air Force jet and
isappeared from sight in five seconds.
The Air Force denies that such an incident occurred.
The subject was to make still a third trip to the sight of
his initial “encounter”; this time in October, 1965, accord-
ing to reports. On this occasion he was said to have found
footprints, sharply defined, as though made by heavy weights
(see photograph). They were “dumb-bell shaped” and the
sequence of steps revealed what would be something of wad-
dling movement as opposed to the more stiff-legged gait of
the “robot.”
At the same time that the footprints were “found,” four,
deep, circular impressions, such as might have been left by
the landing gear of the craft, were “located,” and photo-
graphed.
The consensus is that the October visit with its accom-
panying “finds” was definitely a hoax perpetrated by local
publicity seekers.
There are some who believe the March 31 sighting did
take place and that evidence exists to verify the “near colli-
sion” with the Air Force jet. Such evidence has not been ré-
leased.
There are many who accept the man’s first “encounter”
as a possibility.
With characteristic thoroughness, the APRO organiza-
tion deciphered the note message in its entirety in the be-
lief that no piece of evidence should be dismissed without
careful scrutiny regardless of dubious aspects attached to
the experience. The message in toto ran: “Planet Mars . . .
are you coming home soon . . . we miss you very much
. why did you stay away too long”.
Attention is drawn to the last sentence which suggests
that the writer was not too conversant with the English lan-
guage. Previously the announcement had been made that
the two notes appeared to have been penned by different
writers. APRO directors mention the possibility that in the
event the “landing” occurred, the occupants of the craft
might have enclosed their intended message within the
folds of an easily translatable phoney to muddy the path
for investigators. They refer to the fact that the Air Force
decoded only a part of one message and did nothing about
the other.
APRO holds no brief for the authenticity of the story,
per se, but it does call attention to the fact that in May,
1965, a polygraph test administered to the man revealed he
was a normal reactor who exhibited guilt reactions when he
attempted deception and that his responses to pertinent
questions in four separate tests exposed no such deception.
The position adopted by APRO is that the incident may
well have been a hoax, but if so, the subject had help, “pos-
sibly hypnosis was used. Whoever participated in the hoax,
however, would have had to have a very intimate knowledge
of UFO lore. Then we must search among ourselves.” (The
APRO Bulletin).
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9
Nyy Sa} dersty worl sa By ue} ML ely iw ti] tb eye RY
t
LSV Rha) Be Pal eh eS Yee!
Ine et ae] eS ih
"ee
¥ > any ? co yom y 3
) fp eda Kare Mee) Soy | me SR-e] SM yee ya ve] Nowy slice
Pinte be 8 Eh git ah tet] ote oh bat ye] Ey SMa] Sy ee] ok oe RT]
J F veg] HO Me] & é ees Dente 2G Yep eet] ON Ble mte =|
Ik yee NAIM R SM Sate) oe Bur] SY ty th te] ef
[Bee vs]
pr & we]
WN ey Ue -!
Hieroglyphics were deci-
phered in part by Army In-
telligence ; said to be the work
of amateurs, printed on tis-
sue-thin paper made of fibers
in common use throughout the
world.
A U a
chNVwtY FY A F
= ;
: 8 at te
) Y Kv“ Vy BA
ne \ A,
a i Qkee yw tw G NED
CUE
a jw OM wl Roy a
yo hE SO
0. . rv & a ; ;
Gite FES RLM N ES Pw ake
i is A A rs
Ht eoue ne
APRO investigators did
not give full credence to
the “find”, but translated
full message: Planet Mars
. are you coming home
soon... we miss you very
much. Why did you stay
away too long.
17
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9
“Like The Flight Of A Bat--"
= Jt came winging in over the sea off Trindade Isle, Bra-
zil, bright from either self-light or reflected sun. A green-
ish vapor hung about it as it made an undulating but ex-
tremely fast line for land.
Watching it were nearly 100 persons, crew members of
the Brazilian Navy's Almirante Saldanha, on a routine
trip from Rio de Janeiro to the island. The time was just
past noon on January 16 in the International Geophysi-
cal Year, 1958, and the personnel of the ship, which had
been participating in IGY exercises, included a retired
Brazilian Air Force officer, Captain Jose Teobaldo and a
* group of submarine explorers headed by Amilar Vieira Fil-
ho. Also aboard, by invitation of the Navy, to photograph
some of the exercises, was Almiro Barauna, professional
photographer.
“Get Barauna,” was the first thought as the amazed
viewers watched the unidentifiable object. In seconds Bar-
auna was there with his camera. He scanned the area sin-
gled out for him by the excited crewmen, seeking his sub-
ject. Then he saw it “like the flight of a bat” coming in to-
ward a point of land named “Galo Crest.”
He set his Rolleiflex 2.8, Model FE, at 1/125 with an
£/8 opening (a choice he later realized had overexposed
the film), and got off two shots before the glowing, saturn-
like object disappeared behind Desejado Peak.
The viewers crowded in, their attention riveted on the
peak behind which the object had sped. Within seconds
it was back again, lower, larger and flying in the opposite
direction. Barauna got three more shots but the last two
were lost; the object was traveling rapidly and the witnesses
were pushing and jostling for better viewing position; cer-
tainly not ideal conditions for a photographer. Then for a
moment the object appeared to stop in mid-air. Barauna
took one more shot, his last. The object picked up speed and
disappeared.
The film was processed on the ship under the vitally
interested eyes of several officers including Commander
Carlos A. Bacallar. Only the negatives were available for
examination at the time since there was no photographic
paper on hand, but these were scrutinized by every person
aboard and two days later, after the ship had returned to
port, enlargements of the prints were turned over to Navy
authorities who sent them to Cruzeiro du Sul Aerophoto-
grammetric service to be analyzed. The report: Negatives
were genuine. No evidence of a trick or falsification.
_ Barauna was subjected to further investigation by na-
val authorities, and other witnesses aboard the ship were
- questioned. Ultimately Barauna was told that the chief
intelligence officer was convinced the photos were authen-
tic and congratulations were extended to the photographer.
The reports gained widespread attention but the photos
were not released at the time. Dr. Olavo Fontes, of Rio de
*
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ro
Ii glittered as it came in
over the sea. Reflected oe
sunlight? Its.own light? oe
And it gave offa green
| vapor as it headed for
. ahigh peak on Galo-Crest.
larger, and flyin:
the opposite direct
shots were lost.
lease 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9 ©
Janeiro, special representative for APRO (Aerial Phenom-
ena Research Organization) was among the many persons
who became interested in the photos. Typical of the con-
scientious work done by researchists and investigators for
APRO, Dr. Fontes went to the Navy Ministry, was shown
the four photos, plus a fifth which he. learned later had
been taken by another photographer at an earlier sighting
in the same area.
In his characteristically well documented report to
APRO (later published in the January, March and May,
1960, APRO Bulletins, and incorporated in The Great
Flying Saucer Hoax, by Coral E. Lorenzen, co-founder of
APRO), Dr. Fontes revealed some startling and hitherto un-
published information. There had been six previous sight-
ings in the Trindade area before the filmed sequence taken
aboard the Almirante Saldanha; one in November, two in
December and four in early January. It was the sixth of
these, an incident on January 6, that held the attention of
Dr. Fontes.
On that date a weather balloon, equipped with a full in-
strument load to be jettisoned some 14,000 feet up over
Trindade, was being tracked from the ground when its sig-
nals suddenly became faint and its transmitter finally si-
lent. The balloon was still climbing and nearing the cumu-
lus cloud head when it appeared to be sucked into a cloud
and disappeared from sight. Ten minutes later it reap-
peared, traveling so fast that it was apparent the instru-
ment load was gone. Somehow the balloon had entered the
cloud with the full instrument load and reappeared ten
minutes later without it. The instruments were never found;
never seen coming down. Then from Coral Lorenzen’s ac-
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9
The last shot as UFO seemed
_ to stop in mid-air. Then
at took off with terrific
speed and disappeared
into the horizon. —
count; based on Dr. Fontes’ report: “ soon after the
balloon reappeared another object left the cloud. A silvery
object, the color of polished aluminum, came slowly from
behind the cloud, moving in a south-west to east direction
it appeared to have the shape of a half-moon, and it
altered its course finally, moving from east to west.”
In the seventh sighting, occurring just a few days be-
fore Barauna filmed his shots, witnesses described the ob-
ject they saw hovering over Desejado peak as a “highly pol-
ished flattened spheroid,” encircled by a rapidly spinning
ring. It appeared to be intelligently controlled. A photo of
this is the one Dr. Fontes believes to have been the fifth
photo shown him by the Navy Ministry.
It is in her book that Coral Lorenzen brings several
items to the attention of UFOlogists: (1) The unidenti-
fied objects were sighted at the scene of and only after a
former war base was reactivated and supplied with men
and equipment. (2) One and possibly two of these ob-
jects were photographed and the one set of photos that was
subjected to extensive investigation and analysis by ob-
jective agents, was declared genuine and without evi-
dence of trickery or falsification. (3) Indication of inter-
ference with a weather balloon by an unidentified object
that may have absconded with meteorological instrumenta-
tion equipment. (4) Only pressure from the press and
public brought about publication of the photos which had
been treated with utmost secrecy by-the Brazilian Navy.
In NICAP’s The UFO Evidence, for which ratings are
provided for photographs of unidentified objects according
to their acceptability as authentic, the Barauna sequence
is given an * (considered strongest evidence of UFOs.)
21
“Um Still Climbing...”
This photo, used here only for
ilustraticn parposes aid wot related
fo the story nedtcriel, was svapped
by Deputy Shoril Arthur Strauch,
Nibley Co., Minn, at bf pan,
Oct. 21,1965, near St. George,
Minn. UFO was described as having
four Lighted portholes below central
dome; changed colar fron orange to
bright white; made sound like
cleetric trausformer, Photo (fram
APRO Balletiny was
shotachen object was inslight
mation, Jiesd be fore iHaceclorated,
# On file with Project Blue Book is. the account of an
early sighting fatality that has baffled UFO historians since
news of it was first flashed to a shocked public in 1948
with the words “F-51 AND CAPT. MANTELL DESTROYED
CHASING FLYING SAUCER.”
The death and the puzzling circumstances surrounding
it are referred to today as The Mantell Incident, but at the
moment of the first sighting, 1:20 p.m., January 7, 1948,
Captain Thomas Mantell was on a ferry mission, more
than an hour away from knowledge of the tragedy which
fate had in store for him.
A bright disc shaped object had been seen by the tower
crew at Godman Field, Ky. Unable to identify it, the crew
brought the object to the attention of the Base Operations
Officer, Base Intelligence Officer and, eventually, Base Com-
mander. Flight Commander Captain Mantell flew over the
field at 2:45 p.m. and was requested to investigate the
UFO, which by this time had drawn the attention of, and
queries from, people in Maysville and Owensboro, Ky., sev-
eral of whom described the object as “circular” as much as
“300 feet in diameter” and “moving at a pretty good clip.”
Mantell, accompanied by two wing men, all flying F-
51s, set off in pursuit and at 10,000 feet, Mantell called
the tower to report “I see something above and ahead of me
and I’m still climbing.”
The other two wing men leveled off at 15,000 feet and
turned back. Neither they nor Mantell were outfitted for
flights requiring oxygen and any height above 15,000 feet
could be disastrous. They had tried to contact Mantell by
radio but without success and he was still climbing. His
last words to the tower were: “I’m going to 20,000 feet.”
A few minutes later, 90 miles from the tower, Mantell’s
plane was seen to have “exploded in mid-air.” It disinte-
grated before it struck ground and the answer as to what
had prompted Mantell’s last words “I’m still climb-
ing . . .” despite the knowledgeable pilot’s awareness that
death could result, was forever sealed in his lifeless body.
In Major Donald Keyhoe’s book Flying Saucers From
Outer Space, it was reported that the Air Force refused
to release photos of the wreckage and the body “out of re-
spect for the feelings of Mantell’s relatives.” But the se-
crecy surrounding the crash set off a flood of rumors that
the body had been “pierced by a mysterious ray,” and
even more sensationally that, “no body had been found at ~'
all. Mantell had been spirited away by unknown space-
men.”
These rumors were quickly scotched by the ATIC (Air
Technical Intelligence Center) and its report was filed
with what then was known as Project Sign and is today
Project Blue Book. It reads: “It is the ATIC opinion that
Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to oxygen starva-
tion, the aircraft being trimmed continued to climb until
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wre eee epee ergy Seite ee epee
ent pee ween pee eee
Up he zoomed, without oxygen,
5000 feet beyond what was
safe, in pursuit of an Unknown.
What was it that lured this
experienced pilot to what
proved to be his ultimate and
still mystifying death?
increasing altitude caused a sufficient loss of power for it to
level out. The aircraft then began a turn to the left due to
torque and as the wing dropped so did the nose until the
aircraft was in a tight diving spiral. The uncontrolled de-
scent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to dis-
integrate. It is believed that Captain Mantell never re-
gained consciousness. This is borne out by the fact that
the canopy lock was still in place after the crash, discount-
ing any. attempt to abandon the aircraft. The UFO was in
no way directly responsible for this accident. However, it is
4 . :
probable that the excitement caused by the object was re-
sponsible for this experienced pilot conducting a high al-
titude flight without the necessary oxygen equipment.”
Coit a)
But what was the object that had generated the excite-
ment? Air Force Intelligence officers first suggested Venus
as the answer. One of the brightest objects in the heavens,
Venus had, a few weeks before, been chased by F-51s in a
sighting that had some similarities to the Mantell Incident.
When it was pointed out that Venus was practically in-
visible on January 7 there was a flurry of backing and fill-
ing and contradiction.
The controversy that swirled around the Mantell Inci-
dent has been carefully documented by the Jate Edward J.
Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue Book, in his book
The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects. It was in
1952, when he was asked to assume direction of Project
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IA; RDPS1 ROO 0 R000100010002-9 inent scien-
tist, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, then head of the Ohio State Uni-
versity Astronomy Department to ask why Venus had been
promoted as the logical object that had been sighted. Hy-
nek explained that at the time of the sighting, Venus and
the object were in practically the same spot in the sky.
This, he said, was what led to what he believed to be an
erroneous conclusion: Ruppelt states: “Dr. Hynek said that
he didn’t think that the UFO was Venus.”
It was Ruppelt’s job, however, to establish what, if not
Venus, the object was. Other suggestions had been tossed
into the hopper; sundogs (diffused light reflected from ice
particles); experimental balloons (Skyhooks? At that time
in a highly secret test stage but known to reach altitudes
in excess of 60,000 feet and diameters of 100 feet); can-
opy reflections?
Ruppelt dismissed sundogs since descriptions of the ob-
ject had mentioned rather well defined edges. Sundogs are
fuzzy. He dismissed canopy reflection because Mantell cer-
tainly would not have chased a reflection for over fifteen
minutes. He seriously considered the Skyhook theory. De-
scriptions of the UFO could fit these experimental balloons
and it was subsequently determined that on January 7,
1948, the Navy had released such a balloon from Clinton
County airport in Ohio that would have been in the area
of Godman at the time of the sighting. Ruppelt submitted
his report to the Pentagon. “It could have been a balloon.”
Ruppelt did not deny that the Air Force and/or the
Navy might have records attesting to the launching of such
a balloon from Clinton County Air Force Base on the day
of Mantell’s death. He, however, did not see those records
and could find no one who would state flatly that such an
operation did take place on the specific date.
The incident, to him, remained another of the UFO
“jigsaw puzzles.” Answers were based on assumption and
some early explanations that had been provided by Air
“Force Intelligence were later discarded.
The theory has been advanced that the Air Force had
come to suspect that interplanetary craft were reconnoiter-
ing the Earth; that the mysterious aspects of the Mantell
crash had strengthened these suspicions. This theory, with
any specific incidents to lend it support, might generate
fear and actual panic if it were to become publicly known.
Could this account for the Air Force’s readiness to pro-
mote first Venus as the widely seen UFO; then a Skyhook?
Was there an effort to simplify and to cloud the issue until
a fickle public had turned its interest elsewhere. There are
serious proponents of this thesis.
Most of them are familiar with the conclusions drawn
by the Air Force and on record in Project Blue Book:
“that Venus was probably the original cause of the sight-
ing since the object remained in the area for a long period
of time and was relatively stationary.” Most of them are
equally aware of the knowledgeable determinations of ex-
perts who have stated that Venus would have been a pin-
point of light, difficult to see on a clear day, impossible to
see on a hazy one (January 7, 1948 was hazy.) The de-
scriptions provided by sighters were not of “pinpoints.”
The Mantell Incident remains, after 20 years, one of the
bafflers in the minds of serious students of aerial phenomena
and is cited frequently as an example of puzzling behav-
iour that might not now pose so many questions had it been
treated with less secrecy at the time.
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