Naval Intelligence double-checked, triple-checked and quadruple-
checked every ship near the carrier but they could find no one who
had launched the UFO.
We kept after the Navy. The pilots and the flight deck crew who saw
the UFO had mixed feelings--some were sure that the UFO was a balloon
while others were just as sure that it couldn't have been. It was
traveling too fast, and although it resembled a balloon in some ways
it was far from being identical to the hundreds of balloons that the
crew had seen the aerologists launch.
We probably wouldn't have tried so hard to get a definite answer to
the Mainbrace photos if it hadn't been for the events that took place
during the rest of the operation, I explained to the group of ADC
officers.
The day after the photos had been taken six RAF pilots flying a
formation of jet fighters over the North Sea saw something coming
from the direction of the Mainbrace fleet. It was a shiny, spherical
object, and they couldn't recognize it as anything "friendly" so they
took after it. But in a minute or two they lost it. When they neared
their base, one of the pilots looked back and saw that the UFO was
now following him. He turned but the UFO also turned, and again it
outdistanced the Meteor in a matter of minutes.
Then on the third consecutive day a UFO showed up near the fleet,
this time over Topcliffe Aerodrome in England. A pilot in a Meteor
was scrambled and managed to get his jet fairly close to the UFO,
close enough to see that the object was "round, silvery, and white"
and seemed to "rotate around its vertical axis and sort of wobble."
But before he could close in to get a really good look it was gone.
It was these sightings, I was told by an RAF exchange intelligence
officer in the Pentagon, that caused the RAF to officially recognize
the UFO.
By the time I'd finished telling about the Mainbrace Sightings, it
was after the lunch hour in the club and we were getting some get-the-
hell-out-of-here looks from the waiters, who wanted to clean up the
dining room. But before I could suggest that we leave, Major Sadowski
repeated his original question--the one that started the whole
discussion--"Are you holding out on us?"
I gave him an unqualified "No." We wanted more positive proof, and
until we had it, UFO's would remain unidentified flying objects and
no more.
The horizontal shaking of heads illustrated some of the group's
thinking.
We had plans for getting more positive proof, however, and I said
that just as soon as we returned to Major Sadowski's office I'd tell
them what we contemplated doing.
We moved out onto the sidewalk in front of the club and, after
discussing a few more sightings, went back into the security area to
Sadowski's office and I laid out our plans.
First of all, in November or December the U.S. was going to shoot
the first H-bomb during Project Ivy. Although this was Top Secret at
the time, it was about the most poorly kept secret in history--
everybody seemed to know all about it. Some people in the Pentagon
had the idea that there were beings, earthly or otherwise, who might
be interested in our activities in the Pacific, as they seemed to be
in Operation Mainbrace. Consequently Project Blue Book had been
directed to get transportation to the test area to set up a reporting
net, brief people on how to report, and analyze their reports on the
spot.
Secondly, Project Blue Book was working on plans for an extensive
system to track UFO's by instruments. Brigadier General Garland, who
had been General Samford's Deputy Director for Production and who had
been riding herd on the UFO project for General Samford, was now
chief at ATIC, having replaced Colonel Dunn, who went to the Air War
College. General Garland had long been in favor of trying to get some
concrete information, either positive or negative, about the UFO's.
This planned tracking system would replace the defraction grid
cameras that were still being developed at ATIC.
Thirdly, as soon as we could we were planning to gather together a
group of scientists and let them spend a full week or two studying
the UFO problem.
When I left ADC, Major Sadowski and crew were satisfied that we
weren't just sitting around twiddling our UFO reports.
During the fall of 1952 reports continued to drop off steadily. By
December we were down to the normal average of thirty per month, with
about 20 per cent of these falling into the "Unknown" category.
Our proposed trip to the Pacific to watch for UFO's during the H-
bomb test was canceled at the last minute because we couldn't get
space on an airplane. But the crews of Navy and Air Force security
forces who did go out to the tests were thoroughly briefed to look
for UFO's, and they were given the procedures on how to track and
report them. Back at Dayton we stood by to make quick analysis of any
reports that might come in--none came. Nothing that fell into the UFO
category was seen during the entire Project Ivy series of atomic shots.
By December work on the planning phase of our instrumentation
program was completed. During the two months we had been working on
it we had considered everything from giving Ground Observer Corps
spotters simple wooden tracking devices to building special radars
and cameras. We had talked over our problems with the people at
Wright Field who knew about missile-tracking equipment, and we had
consulted the camera technicians at the Air Force Aerial
Reconnaissance Laboratory. Astronomers explained their equipment and
the techniques to use, and we went to Rome, New York, and Boston to
enlist the aid of the people who develop the Air Force's electronic
equipment.
Our final plan called for visual spotting stations to be established
all over northern New Mexico. We'd picked this test location because
northern New Mexico still consistently produced more reports than any
other area in the U.S. These visual spotting stations would be
equipped with a sighting device similar to a gun sight on a bomber.
All the operator would have to do would be to follow the UFO with the
tracking device, and the exact time and the UFO's azimuth and
elevation angles would be automatically recorded. The visual spotting
stations would all be tied together with an interphone system, so
that as soon as the tracker at one station saw something he could
alert the other spotters in the area. If two stations tracked the
same object, we could immediately compute its speed and altitude.
This visual spotting net would be tied into the existing radar
defense net in the Albuquerque-Los Alamos area. At each radar site we
proposed that a long focal-length camera be synchronized to the
turning radar antenna, so that any time the operator saw a target he
could press a button and photograph the portion of the sky exactly
where the radar said a UFO was located. These cameras would actually
be astronomical telescopes, so that even the smallest light or object
could be photographed.
In addition to this photography system we proposed that a number of
sets of instruments be set out around the area. Each set would
contain instruments to measure nuclear radiation, any disturbances in
the earth's magnetic field, and the passage of a body that was giving
off heat. The instruments would continually be sending their
information to a central "UFO command post," which would also get
reports directly from the radars and the visual spotting stations.
This instrumentation plan would cost about $250,000 because we
planned to use as much surplus equipment as possible and tie it into
existing communications systems, where they already existed. After
the setup was established, it would cost about $25,000 a year to
operate. At first glance this seemed like a lot of money, but when we
figured out how much the UFO project had cost the Air Force in the
past and how much it would probably cost in the future, the price
didn't seem too bad--especially if we could solve the UFO problem
once and for all.
The powers-that-be at ATIC O.K.'d the plan in December and it went
to Washington, where it would have to be approved by General Samford
before it went to ADC and then back to the Pentagon for higher Air
Force official blessing. From all indications it looked as if we
would get the necessary blessings.
But the majority of the effort at Project Blue Book during the fall
of 1952 had gone toward collecting together all of the bits and
pieces of data that we had accumulated over the past year and a half.
We had sorted out the best of the "Unknowns" and made studies of
certain aspects of the UFO problem, so that when we could assemble a
panel of scientists to review the data we could give them the over-
all picture, not just a basketful of parts.
Everyone who knew about the proposed panel meeting was eager to get
started because everyone was interested in knowing what this panel
would have to say. Although the group of scientists wouldn't be
empowered to make the final decision, their recommendations were to
go to the President if they decided that the UFO's were real. And any
recommendations made by the group of names we planned to assemble
would carry a lot of weight.
In the Pentagon and at ATIC book was being made on what their
recommendations would be. When I put my money down, the odds were 5
to 3 in favor of the UFO.