About this time a C-54 transport taxied up and stopped. It was the
"Kittyhawk Flight" from Washington and I knew several people who got
off.
One passenger, an officer from ATIC, ran up to me and handed me a
roll of film.
"Here's some pictures of them," he said breathlessly. "I never
thought I'd see one."
The next passengers I recognized were two other officers, Ph.D.
psychologists from the Aero Medical Laboratory. I knew them because
they had visited Blue Book many times collecting data for a paper
they were writing on UFO's.
The title of the paper was to be: _The_ _Psychological_ _Aspects_
_of_ _UFO_ _Sightings_.
Almost climbing over each other in their effort to tell their story
they told me how they had watched the UFO's from the C-54. Both had
seen them "dogfighting" between themselves.
"How fast were they going?" I asked.
"Like hell," was their only answer but the way they said it and the
looks on their faces emphasized their statement.
The crowd on the ramp had increased by now and some of the newcomers
had binoculars. The men with the binoculars were the focal point of
several individual groups as they watched and gave blow-by-blow
accounts.
Some of the crowd were talking about jet fighters and it suddenly
dawned on me that just across the parking lot was the operations
office of the local ADC jet outfit, the 97th Fighter Interceptor
Squadron.
I ran over to interceptor operations and went in. I knew the duty
officer because several times before the 97th people had chased
balloons over Dayton. When I told him about the UFO's all I received
was a rather uninterested stare. When I said they were over the base
he did me the courtesy of going out to look.
He came running back in and hit the scramble button. Three minutes
later two F-86's were headed UFOward. They soon disappeared but their
vapor trails kept the tense crowd informed of their progress.
And believe me there was tension.
As the vapor trails spiraled up, first as two distinct plumes, and
later only one--as they blended at altitude--more than one pilot
standing on the ramp expressed his thankfulness for his unenviable
position--on the ground watching.
The vapor trails thinned out and disappeared right under the three
UFO's and it was obvious that the two jets had closed in.
Here were three that didn't escape.
That night the 97th Fighter Interceptor Squadron added three more
balloons to their record. The F-86's had been able to climb higher
than the F-84's.
The next morning photos confirmed the balloons. They had been
tethered together and carried an instrument package.
I had been fooled. Two Ph.D psychologists who had studied UFO's had
been fooled. A C-54 load of "experienced observers" (many pilots) had
been fooled. The tower operators had been fooled and so had a hundred
others.
This was an interesting sighting and we used to discuss it a lot.
All of the observers later agreed that what made them so excited was
the tower operator's announcement: "F-84's from Lockbourne are chasing
three high speed objects." This set the stage and from then on no one
even considered the fact that if the objects had been traveling 2000
or 3000 miles an hour they would have been long gone in the fifteen
minutes we watched them.
Secondly, I found out that the C-54, a slow airplane, had actually
overtaken and passed the balloons between Columbus and Dayton but
none of the passengers I talked to had stopped to think of this.
And I'm positive that in our minds the balloons, which were about 40
feet in diameter and at 40,000 feet, looked a lot larger than they
actually were.
I know the power of suggestion plays an important role in UFO
sightings. Once you're convinced you're looking at a UFO you can see
a lot of things.