Do They or Don't They?
During the past four years the most frequent question I've been
asked is: "What do you personally think? Do unidentified flying
objects exist, or don't they?"
I'm positive they don't.
I was very skeptical when I finished my tour of active duty with the
Air Force and left Project Blue Book in 1953, but now I'm convinced.
Since I left the Air Force the Age of the Satellite has arrived and
we're in it. Along with this new era came the long range radars, the
satellite tracking cameras, and the other instruments that would have
picked up any type of "spaceship" coming into our atmosphere.
None of this instrumentation has ever given any indication of any
type of unknown vehicle entering the earth's atmosphere.
I checked this with the Department of Defense and I checked this
through friends associated with tracking projects. In both cases the
results were completely negative.
There's not even a glimmer of hope for the UFO.
Then there's Project MOONWATCH, the Optical Satellite Tracking
Program for the International Geophysical Year.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the director of MOONWATCH wrote to me: "I can
quite safely say that we have no record of ever having received from
our MOONWATCH teams any reports of sightings of unidentified objects
which had any characteristics different from those of an orbiting
satellite, a slow meteor, or of a suspected plane mistaken for a
satellite."
Dr. Hynek should know. He has investigated and analyzed more UFO
reports than any other scientist in the world.
And the third convincing point is that twelve years have passed
since the first UFO report was made and still there is not one shred
of material evidence of anything unknown and no photos of anything
other than meaningless blobs of light.
The next question that always arises is: "But people are seeing
something. Experienced observers, like pilots, scientists and radar
operators have reported UFO's."
To be very frank, we heard the words "experienced observer" so many
times these words soon began to make us ill.
Everyone, except housewives with myopia, were experienced observers.
Pilots, "scientists" (a term used equally as loosely), engineers,
radar operators, everyone who reported a UFO was some kind of an
"experienced observer." This man had taught aircraft recognition
during World War II. He was an experienced observer. That man spent
four years in the Air Force. He was an experienced observer. We soon
learned that everyone is an experienced observer as long as what he
sees is familiar to him. As soon as he sees something unfamiliar it's
a UFO.
Pilots probably come as close to falling into this category as
anyone since they do spend a lot of time looking around the sky. But
even those who can rattle off the names and locations of stars,
planets and constellations don't know about a few relatively rare
astronomical phenomena.
The bolide, or super meteor, is a good example. Few pilots have
ever, or will ever, see a deluxe model bolide but when they do
they'll never forget it. It's like someone shooting a flare in front
of your face. There are a number of reports of bolides in the Blue
Book files and each pilot who made each report called each bolide a
UFO. The descriptions are almost identical to the classic
descriptions of bolides found in astronomy books.
While on the subject of meteors, if most people realized that
meteors can have a flat trajectory, they can go from horizon to
horizon, they can travel in "formation" (groups), and they can be
seen in daylight (as "large silver discs"), the work of UFO
investigators would be lighter.
Enough of meteors and back to our experienced observers.
The example of pilots and bolides holds true in many, many other
cases.
Take high flying jets for example. To a person in an area where
there isn't much high altitude air traffic, a thin, blood red streak
in the sky at sunset, or shortly after, is a UFO. To anyone in an
area where there are a lot of high flying jets even our myopic
housewife, it's just another vapor trail. They're as common as the
sunset.
When the flashing red strobe lights, now used on practically all
aircraft, were still in the experimental stage back in 1951 they gave
us fits. Every time an airplane with one of these flashing lights
made a flight people within miles, including other pilots, called in
UFO reports. Now these strobe lights are common and no one even
bothers to look up.
The same held true, and still does, for the odd array of lights used
on tanker planes during aerial refueling operations.
Some phenomena are so rare and so little is known about them that
they are always UFO's. The most common is the disc following the
airplane.
I've never heard an explanation for this phenomenon but it exists
and I've seen it on three occasions. Maybe a dense blob of air tears
off the airplane, floats along behind, and reflects the sunlight.
Whatever it is, it gives the illusion of a saucer "chasing" an
airplane. Sometimes it's steady and sometimes it darts back and
forth. It only stays in view a few seconds and when it disappears it
fades and looks for all the world as if it's suddenly streaking away
into the distance.
Birds, bees, bugs, airplanes, planets, stars, balloons, and a host
of other common everyday objects become UFO's the instant they are
viewed under other than normal situations.
Then there is radar. This poor inanimate piece of electronic
equipment has taken a beating when UFO proof is being offered. "Radar
is not subject to the frailties of the human mind," is the outcry of
every saucer fan, "and radar has seen UFO's."
Radar is no better than the radar observer and the radar observer
has a mind. And where there's a mind there is the same old trouble.
If the presentation on the radarscope doesn't look like it has looked
for years a UFO is being tracked.
Radar is temperamental. The scope presentation of each radar has
certain peculiarities and an operator gets used to seeing these.
Occasionally, and for some unknown reason, these peculiarities
suddenly change. For months a temperature inversion may cause 50 or
75 targets to appear on the radarscope. The operator has learned to
recognize them and knows that they are caused by weather. They are
not UFO's. But overnight something changes and now this same
temperature inversion causes only one or two targets. The operator
isn't used to seeing this and the targets are now UFO's.
Many times we'd stumble across the fact that after the first report
of a UFO being tracked on radar the same identical type of target
would be tracked again, many times. But by this time the operator
would have learned that they were caused by weather and it wouldn't
be reported to us.
It is interesting to note that, to my knowledge, there has never
been a radar sighting classed as "unknown" when radarscope photos
were taken. The reason is simple. The radar operator can take ample
time to re-examine what he had to interpret in seconds during the
actual sighting. Also, more experienced radar operators have a chance
to examine the scope presentation.
Mixed in with the fact that there are few really qualified observers
on this earth is the power of suggestion. About the time someone
yells "UFO!" and points, all powers of reasoning come to a screeching
halt.
We saw this happen day after day.
Few people I ever talked to, once they had decided they were looking
at a UFO, stopped to calmly say to themselves, "Now couldn't this be
a balloon, star, planet, or something else explainable?"
In one instance I traveled halfway across the United States to
investigate a report made by a high ranking man in the State
Department. An experienced observer. It was evening by the time I got
to talk to him and after he'd excitedly told me all the pertinent
facts, how this bright fight had "jumped across the sky," he said,
"Want to see it? It's still there but it's not jumping now."
We went outside and there was Jupiter.
Then, there was the UFO over Dayton, Ohio, in the summer of 1952.
I first heard about it at home. It was about six in the evening when
the phone rang and it was one of the tower operators at Patterson
Field.
The tower operators at Lockbourne AFB in Columbus, Ohio, 60 miles
east of Dayton, had spotted "three fiery spheres flying in a V-
formation" over their base. Two F-84's had been scrambled to
intercept and they were in the air right now. So far, the tower
operator told me, the intercept had been unsuccessful because the
objects were traveling "two to three thousand miles an hour" and were
too high for the old F-84's.
He was monitoring the two jets' radio conversation and he put his
telephone near the speaker.