The idea for gathering together a group of scientists, to whom we
referred as our "panel of experts," had been conceived early in 1952--
as soon as serious talk about the possibility that the UFO's might be
interplanetary spaceships had taken hold in both military and
scientific circles. In fact, when Project Grudge was reorganized in
the summer of 1951 the idea had been mentioned, and this was the main
reason that our charter had said we were to be only a fact-finding
group. The people on previous UFO projects had gone off on tangents
of speculation about the identity of the UFO's; they first declared
that they were spacecraft, then later, in a complete about-face, they
took the whole UFO problem as one big belly laugh. Both approaches
had gotten the Air Force into trouble. Why they did this I don't
know, because from the start we realized that no one at ATIC, in the
Air Force, or in the whole military establishment was qualified to
give a final yes or no answer to the UFO problem. Giving a final
answer would require a serious decision--probably one of the most
serious since the beginning of man.
During 1952 many highly qualified engineers and scientists had
visited Project Blue Book and had spent a day or two going over our
reports. Some were very much impressed with the reports--some had all
the answers.
But all of the scientists who read our reports readily admitted that
even though they may have thought that the reports did or did not
indicate visitors from outer space, they would want to give the
subject a good deal more study before they ever committed themselves
in writing. Consequently the people's opinions, although they were
valuable, didn't give us enough to base a decision upon. We still
needed a group to study our material thoroughly and give us written
conclusions and recommendations which could be sent to the President
if necessary.
Our panel of experts was to consist of six or eight of the top
scientists in the United States. We fully realized that even the Air
Force didn't have enough "pull" just to ask all of these people to
drop the important work they were engaged in and spend a week or two
studying our reports. Nor did we want to do it this way; we wanted to
be sure that we had something worth while before asking for their
valuable time. So, working through other government agencies, we
organized a preliminary review panel of four people. All of them were
competent scientists and we knew their reputations were such that if
they recommended that a certain top scientist sit on a panel to
review our material he would do it.
In late November 1952 the preliminary review panel met at ATIC for
three days.
When the meeting ended, the group unanimously recommended that a
"higher court" be formed to review the case of the UFO. In an hour
their recommendation was accepted by higher Air Force authorities,
and the men proceeded to recommend the members for our proposed
panel. They picked six men who had reputations as being both
practical and theoretical scientists and who were known to have no
biased opinions regarding the UFO's.
The meeting of the panel, which would be held in Washington, was
tentatively scheduled for late December or early January--depending
upon when all of the scientists who had been asked to attend would be
free. At Project Blue Book activity went into high gear as we made
preparations for the meeting. But before we were very far along our
preparations were temporarily sidetracked--I got a lead on the facts
behind a rumor. Normally we didn't pay attention to rumors, but this
one was in a different class.
Ever since the Air Force had become interested in UFO reports, the
comment of those who had been requested to look them over and give a
professional opinion was that we lacked the type of data "you could
get your teeth into." In even our best reports we had to rely upon
what someone had seen. I'd been told many times that if we had even
one piece of information that was substantiated by some kind of
recorded proof--a set of cinetheodolite movies of a UFO, a spectrum
photograph, or any other kind of instrumented data that one could sit
down and study--we would have no difficulty getting almost any
scientist in the world interested in actively helping us find the
answer to the UFO riddle.
The rumor that caused me to temporarily halt our preparations for
the high-level conference involved data that we might be able to get
our teeth into.
This is the way it went.
In the fall of 1949, at some unspecified place in the United States,
a group of scientists had set up equipment to measure background
radiation, the small amount of harmless radiation that is always
present in our atmosphere. This natural radiation varies to a certain
degree, but will never increase by any appreciable amount unless
there is a good reason.
According to the rumor, two of the scientists at the unnamed place
were watching the equipment one day when, for no apparent reason, a
sudden increase of radiation was indicated. The radiation remained
high for a few seconds, then dropped back to normal. The increase
over normal was not sufficient to be dangerous, but it definitely was
unusual. All indications pointed to equipment malfunction as the most
probable explanation. A quick check revealed no obvious trouble with
the gear, and the two scientists were about to start a more detailed
check when a third member of the radiation crew came rushing into the
lab.
Before they could tell the newcomer about the unexplained radiation
they had just picked up, he blurted out a story of his own. He had
driven to a nearby town, and on his return trip, as he approached the
research lab, something in the sky suddenly caught his eye. High in
the cloudless blue he saw three silvery objects moving in a V
formation. They appeared to be spherical in shape, but he wasn't
sure. The first fact that had hit him was that the objects were
traveling too fast to be conventional aircraft. He jammed on the
brakes, stopped his car, and shut off the engine. No sound. All he
could hear was the quiet whir of a generator in the research lab. In
a few seconds the objects had disappeared from sight.
After the first two scientists had briefed their excited colleague
on the unusual radiation they had detected, the three men asked each
other the $64 question: Was there any connection between the two
incidents? Had the UFO's caused the excessive radiation?
They checked the time. Knowing almost exactly when the instruments
had registered the increased radiation, they checked on how long it
took to drive to the lab from the point where the three silver
objects had been seen. The times correlated within a minute or two.
The three men proceeded to check their radiation equipment
thoroughly. Nothing was wrong.
The rumor stopped here. Nothing that I or anyone else on Project
Blue Book could find out shed any further light on the source of the
story. People associated with projects similar to the research lab
that was mentioned in the rumor were sought out and questioned. Many
of them had heard the story, but no one could add any new details.
The three unknown scientists, at the unnamed lab, in an unknown part
of the United States, might as well never have existed. Maybe they
hadn't.
Almost a year after I had first heard the UFO-radiation story I got
a long-distance call from a friend on the west coast. I had seen him
several months before, at which time I told him about this curious
rumor and expressed my wish to find out how authentic it was. Now, on
the phone, he told me he had just been in contact with two people he
knew and they had the whole story. He said they would be in Los
Angeles the following night and would like very much to talk to me.
I hated to fly clear to the west coast on what might be a wild-goose
chase, but I did. I couldn't afford to run the risk of losing an
opportunity to turn that old recurrent rumor into fact.
Twenty hours later I met the two people at the Hollywood Roosevelt
Hotel. We talked for several hours that night, and I got the details
on the rumor and a lot more that I hadn't bargained for. Both of my
informants were physicists working for the Atomic Energy Commission,
and were recognized in their fields. They wanted no publicity and I
promised them that they would get none. One of the men knew all the
details behind the rumor, and did most of the talking. To keep my
promise of no publicity, I'll call him the "scientist."
The rumor version of the UFO-radiation story that had been kicking
around in Air Force and scientific circles for so long had been
correct in detail but it was by no means complete. The scientist said
that after the initial sighting had taken place word was spread at
the research lab that the next time the instruments registered
abnormal amounts of radiation, some of the personnel were to go
outside immediately and look for some object in the sky.
About three weeks after the first incident a repetition did occur.
While excessive radiation was registering on the instruments in the
lab, a lone dark object was seen streaking across the sky. Again the
instruments were checked but, as before, no malfunction was found.
After this second sighting, according to the scientist, an
investigation was started at the laboratory. The people who made the
visual observations weren't sure that the object they had seen
couldn't have been an airplane. Someone thought that perhaps some
type of radar equipment in the airplane, if that's what the object
was, might have affected the radiation-detection equipment. So
arrangements were made to fly all types of aircraft over the area
with their radar in operation. Nothing unusual happened. All possible
types of airborne research equipment were traced during similar
flights in the hope that some special equipment not normally carried
in aircraft would be found to have caused the jump in radiation. But
nothing out of the ordinary occurred during these tests either.
It was tentatively concluded, the scientist continued, that the
abnormally high radiation readings were "officially" due to some
freakish equipment malfunction and that the objects sighted visually
were birds or airplanes. A report to this effect was made to military
authorities, but since the conclusion stated that no flying saucers
were involved, the report went into some unknown file. Project Blue
Book never got it.
Shortly after the second UFO-radiation episode the research group
finished its work. It was at this time that the scientist had first
become aware of the incidents he related to me. A friend of his, one
of the men involved in the sightings, had sent the details in a letter.
As the story of the sightings spread it was widely discussed in
scientific circles, with the result that the conclusion, an equipment
malfunction, began to be more seriously questioned. Among the
scientists who felt that further investigation of such phenomena was
in order, were the man to whom I was talking and some of the people
who had made the original sightings.
About a year later the scientist and these original investigators
were working together. They decided to make a few more tests, on
their own time, but with radiation-detection equipment so designed
that the possibility of malfunction would be almost nil. They formed
a group of people who were interested in the project, and on evenings
and weekends assembled and set up their equipment in an abandoned
building on a small mountain peak. To insure privacy and to avoid
arousing undue interest among people not in on the project, the
scientist and his colleagues told everyone that they had formed a
mineral club. The "mineral club" deception covered their weekend
expeditions because "rock hounds" are notorious for their addiction
to scrambling around on mountains in search for specimens.
The equipment that the group had installed in the abandoned building
was designed to be self-operating. Geiger tubes were arranged in a
pattern so that some idea as to the direction of the radiation source
could be obtained. During the original sightings the equipment-
malfunction factor could not be definitely established or refuted
because certain critical data had not been measured.
To get data on visual sightings, the "mineral club" had to rely on
the flying saucer grapevine, which exists at every major scientific
laboratory in the country.
By late summer of 1950 they were in business. For the next three
months the scientist and his group kept their radiation equipment
operating twenty-four hours a day, but the tapes showed nothing
except the usual background activity. The saucer grapevine reported
sightings in the general area of the tests, but none close to the
instrumented mountaintop.
The trip to the instrument shack, which had to be made every two
days to change tapes, began to get tiresome for the "rock hounds,"
and there was some talk of discontinuing the watch.
But persistence paid off. Early in December, about ten o'clock in
the morning, the grapevine reported sightings of a silvery, circular-
shaped object near the instrument shack. The UFO was seen by several
people.
When the "rock hounds" checked the recording tapes in the shack they
found that several of the Geiger tubes had been triggered at
10:17A.M. The registered radiation increase was about 100 times
greater than the normal background activity.
Three more times during the next two months the "mineral club's"
equipment recorded abnormal radiation on occasions when the grapevine
reported visual sightings of UFO's. One of the visual sightings was
substantiated by radar.
After these incidents the "mineral club" kept its instruments in
operation until June 1951, but nothing more was recorded. And,
curiously enough, during this period while the radiation level
remained normal, the visual sightings in the area dropped off too.
The "mineral club" decided to concentrate on determining the
significance of the data they had obtained.
Accordingly, the scientist and the group made a detailed study of
their mountaintop findings. They had friends working on many research
projects throughout the United States and managed to visit and confer
with them while on business trips. They investigated the possibility
of unusual sunspot activity, but sunspots had been normal during the
brief periods of high radiation. To clinch the elimination of
sunspots as a cause, their record tapes showed no burst of radiation
when sunspot activity had been abnormal.
The "rock hounds" checked every possible research project that might
have produced some stray radiation for their instruments to pick up.
They found nothing. They checked and rechecked their instruments, but
could find no factor that might have induced false readings. They let
other scientists in on their findings, hoping that these outsiders
might be able to put their fingers on errors that had been overlooked.
Now, more than a year after the occurrence of the mysterious
incidents that they had recorded, a year spent in analyzing their
data, the "rock hounds" had no answer.
By the best scientific tests that they had been able to apply, the
visual sightings and the high radiation had taken place more or less
simultaneously.
Intriguing ideas are hard to kill, and this one had more than one
life, possibly because of the element of mystery which surrounds the
subject of flying saucers. But the scientific mind thrives on taking
the mystery out of unexplained events, so it is not surprising that
the investigation went on.
According to my friend the scientist, a few people outside the
laboratory where the "rock hounds" worked were told about the
activities of the "mineral club," and they started radiation-
detection groups of their own.
For instance, two graduate astronomy students from a southwestern
university started a similar watch, on a modest scale, using a
modified standard Geiger counter as their detection unit. They did
not build a recorder into their equipment, however, and consequently
were forced to man their equipment continuously, which naturally cut
down the time they were in operation. On two occasions they
reportedly detected a burst of high radiation.
Although the veracity of the two astronomers was not doubted, the
scientist felt that the accuracy of their readings was poor because
of the rather low quality of their equipment.
The scientist then told me about a far more impressive effort to
verify or disprove the findings of the "mineral club." Word of the
"rock hounds" and their work had also spread to a large laboratory in
the East. An Air Force colonel, on duty at the lab, told the story to
some of his friends, and they decided to look personally into the
situation.
Fortunately these people were in a wonderful spot to make such an
investigation. At their laboratory an extensive survey of the
surrounding area was being made. An elaborate system of radiation-
detection equipment had been set up for a radius of 100 miles around
the lab. In addition, the defenses of the area included a radar net.
Thanks to the flashing of silver eagles, the colonel's group got
permission to check the records of the radiation-survey station and
to look over the logs of the radar stations. They found instances
where, during the same period of time that radiation in the area had
been much higher than normal, radar had had a UFO on the scope. These
events had occurred during the period from January 1951 until about
June 1951.
Upon learning of the tentative but encouraging findings that the
colonel's group had dug out of their past records, people on both the
radiation-survey crews and at the radar sites became interested in co-
operating for further investigation. A tie-in with the local saucer
grapevine established a three-way check.
One evening in July, just before sunset, two of the colonel's group
were driving home from the laboratory. As they sped along the highway
they noticed two cars stopped ahead of them. The occupants were
standing beside the road, looking at something in the sky.
The two scientists stopped, got out of their car, and scanned the
sky too. Low on the eastern horizon they saw a bright circular object
moving slowly north. They watched it for a while, took a few notes,
then drove back to the lab.
Some interesting news awaited them there. Radar had picked up an
unidentified target near the spot where the scientists in the car had
seen the UFO, and it had been traveling north. A fighter had been
scrambled, but when it got into the proper area, the radar target was
off the scope. The pilot glimpsed something that looked like the
reported UFO, but before he could check further he had to turn into
the sun to get on an interception course, and he lost the object.
Several days passed before the radiation reports from all stations
could be collected. When the reports did come in they showed that
stations east of the laboratory, on an approximate line with the
radar track, had shown the highest increase in radiation. Stations
west of the lab showed nothing.
The possible significance of this well-covered incident spurred the
colonel's group to extend and refine their activities. Their idea was
to build a radiation-detection instrument in an empty wing tank and
hang the tank on an F-47. Then when a UFO was reported they would fly
a search pattern in the area and try to establish whether or not a
certain sector of the sky was more radioactive than other sectors.
Also, they proposed to build a highly directional detector for the F-
47 and attempt actually to track a UFO.
The design of such equipment was started, but many delays occurred.
Before the colonel's group could get any of the equipment built, some
of the members left the lab for other jobs, and the colonel, who
sparked the operation, was himself transferred elsewhere. The entire
effort collapsed.
The scientist was not surprised that I hadn't heard the story of the
colonel's group. All the people involved, he said, had kept it quiet
in order to avoid ridicule. The scientist added that he would be glad
to give me all the data he had on the sightings of his "mineral
club," and he told me where to get the information about the two
astronomers and the colonel's group.
Armed with the scientist's notes and recorder tapes, I left for my
office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton.
With the blessings of my chief, I started to run down the rest of
the radiation information. The data we had, especially that from the
scientist's "mineral club," had been thoroughly analyzed, but we
thought that since we now had access to more general data something
new and more significant might be found.
First I contacted the government agency for which all of the people
involved in these investigations had been working, the scientists who
recorded the original incident, the scientist and his "mineral club,"
the colonel's group, and the rest.
The people in the agency were very co-operative but stressed the
fact that the activities I was investigating were strictly the
extracurricular affairs of the scientists involved, had no official
sanction, and should not be tied in with the agency in any way,
shape, or form. This closed-door reaction was typical of how the
words "flying saucer" seem to scare some people.
They did help me locate the report on the original incident,
however, and since it seemed to be the only existing copy, I arranged
to borrow it. About this same time we located the two graduate
astronomy students in New Mexico. Both now had their Ph.D.'s and held
responsible jobs on highly classified projects. They repeated their
story, which I had first heard from the scientist, but had kept no
record of their activities.
On one occasion, just before dawn on a Sunday morning, they were on
the roof, making some meteorological observations. One of them was
listening to the Geiger counter when he detected a definite increase
in the clicking.
Just as the frequency of the clicks reached its highest peak--almost
a steady buzz--a large fireball, described by them as "spectacular,"
flashed across the sky. Both of the observers had seen several of the
green fireballs and said that this object was similar in all respects
except that the color was a brilliant blue-white.
With the disappearance of the fireball, the counter once more
settled down to a steady click per second. They added that once
before they had detected a similar increase in the frequency of the
clicks but had seen nothing in the sky.
In telling their story, both astronomers stressed the point that
their data were open to a great deal of criticism, mainly because of
the limited instrumentation they had used. We agreed. Still their
work tended to support the findings of the more elaborate and
systematic radiation investigations.
The gods who watch over the UFO project were smiling about this
time, because one morning I got a call from a colonel on Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base. He was going to be in our area that morning
and planned to stop in to see me.
He arrived in a few minutes and turned out to be none other than the
colonel who had headed the group which had investigated UFO's and
radiation at the eastern laboratory. He repeated his story. It was
the same as I had heard from the scientist, with a few insignificant
changes. The colonel had no records of his group's operations, but
knew who had them. He promised to get a wire off to the person
immediately, which he did.
The answer was a bit disappointing. During the intervening months
the data had been scattered out among the members of the colonel's
group, and when the group broke up, so did its collection of records.
So all we had to fall back on was the colonel's word, but since he
now was heading a top-priority project at Wright, it would be
difficult not to believe him.
After obtaining the colonel's story, we collected all available data
concerning known incidents in which there seemed to be a correlation
between the visual sighting of UFO's and the presence of excess
atomic radiation in the area of the sightings.
There was one last thing to do. I wanted to take the dates and times
of all the reported radiation increases and check them against all
sources of UFO reports. This project would take a lot of leg work and
digging, but I felt that it would offer the most positive and
complete evidence we could assemble as to whether or not a
correlation existed.
Accordingly, we dug into our files, ADC radar logs, press wire
service files, newspaper morgues in the sighting area, and the files
of individuals who collect data on saucers. Whenever we found a
visual report that correlated with a radiation peak we checked it
against weather conditions, balloon tracks, astronomical reports, etc.
As soon as the data had all been assembled, I arranged for a group
of Air Force consultants to look it over. I got the same old answer--
the data still aren't good enough. The men were very much interested
in the reports, but when it came time to putting their comments on
paper they said, "Not enough conclusive evidence." If in some way the
UFO's could have been photographed at the same time that the
radiation detectors were going wild, it would have been a different
story, they later told me, but with the data I had for them this was
the only answer they could give. No one could explain the sudden
bursts of radiation, but there was no proof that they were associated
with UFO's.
The board's ruling wrote finish to this investigation. I informed
the colonel, and he didn't like the decision. Later I passed through
the city where the scientist was working. I stopped over a few hours
to brief him on the board's decision. He shook his head in disbelief.
It is interesting to note that both the colonel and the scientist
reacted in the same way. We're not fools--we were there--we saw it--
they didn't. What do they want for proof?