produced exactly the right conditions for viewing them. During June
and July an unprecedented heat wave lay over the entire East, driving
sweltering citizens out of doors to savor the relative coolness of the
night air. Furthermore, the nights were dark. The moon began to wane
on July 7, and until nearly the end of the month there was little
moonlight to dim the brilliance of the meteors flashing through the
heavens. No wonder that frightened people hunting for saucers should
have had so little trouble finding them, when the sky seemed to be
teeming with UFOs.
By the middle of July the nine-man investigating force at ATIC was all
but buried in saucer reports--more than forty a day, far too many to
handle either promptly or adequately. Only a very lengthy history of
the saucer era could describe and account for each one of the hundreds
of UFOs reported during those weeks. A few of the most publicized
incidents are listed here:
July 2. A group of UFOs photographed with a movie camera near
Tremonton, Utah (p. 130).
July 5. A UFO reported over an atomic plant at Hanford,
Washington. (A Skyhook balloon.)[VII-1, p. 203]
July 7. Flying saucer reported by hundreds of persons in
the Pacific Northwest. (This spectacular daytime meteor was
visible for a distance of 500 miles on either side of its path
and was reported from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon,
California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. It made no sound and
was so brilliant that observers called it the “Sunshine
Fireball.”)[VII-3]
July 12. A flying saucer, glowing blue-white, was reported over
Indiana. (Another fine meteor.)[VII-1, p. 203]
July 13–18. Flying saucers reported from all states in the
Union. (Observers for the American Meteor Society counted an
average of fifteen meteors per hour on those nights.)
July 14. A group of saucers over Chesapeake Bay and Norfolk,
Virginia (p. 256).
July 16. Saucers photographed by Coast Guardsman, Salem,
Massachusetts (p. 122).
The sighting hysteria was approaching the critical mass, and no special
wisdom was required to see that an explosion was inevitable. The only
question was: Where would it occur? The panic finally reached its
climax in the nation’s capital:
July 19. Flying saucers (invisible) invade Washington, D.C.
(See _Chapter_ VIII.)
July 26. Saucers again invade Washington (p. 155).
July 27. Saucers over Manhattan Beach, California (p. 49).
July 29. Saucers over Port Huron, Michigan (p. 160).
August 1. Saucer over Bellefontaine, Ohio (p. 162).
Most of these and hundreds of other UFOs were eventually identified as
meteors, stars, balloons, jet planes, birds, searchlights, and radar
angels. About the only aerial phenomenon that was not mistaken for a
flying saucer during these weeks of panic was the planet Venus. Until
the end of August it was too near the sun to be visible.
_The Scoutmaster’s UFO_
True to the pattern set during 1947, the first summer of the saucers,
the panic of 1952 did not end without an elaborate hoax and a good
monster story.
The famous “Scoutmaster” incident occurred at West Palm Beach, Florida,
on the night of August 19[VII-1, p. 229]. According to the report
given the Intelligence officer at the local air base, the scoutmaster
(an ex-Marine) had offered to drive four of the boys to their homes
at the close of the evening’s meeting. While traveling over a country
road bordered by scrub pine and palmetto thickets, he had noticed some
mysterious lights among the pines and decided he must investigate.
Leaving the frightened boys in the car with instructions to go for
help if he had not returned in fifteen minutes, he took his machete
and two flashlights and bravely set off into the dangerous woods. He
was found some time later by the boys, the constable, and the deputy
sheriff, and was apparently terrified. When he entered the woods, he
said, he noticed a peculiar odor and felt an oppressive sensation of
heat. On looking up, he saw hovering above him a dark circular object
with a turretlike dome in the middle, so large that it blotted out most
of the sky. When he went closer, a door opened, a ball of fire emerged
and drifted toward him, enveloped him, and rendered him unconscious. He
called on the boys to confirm the presence of the strange lights and
the huge machine, and as further proof he exhibited burns in his cap and
on his face and arms.
Since scoutmasters are traditionally upright citizens, the story
seemed to merit attention. Investigators from ATIC visited the scene,
interviewed all persons concerned, and sent the cap and the machete to
Dayton for analysis. Very soon, however, the drama began to fall apart.
The scoutmaster, after being interviewed by Air Force investigators,
assumed an aura of mystery and stated publicly that he had been warned
not to talk. At the same time he hired a press agent and offered to
sell his story to the newspapers. A study of the landscape showed
that the boys could not have seen any “machine” from the road. The
townspeople did not consider the woods dangerous. Aircraft preparing to
land at the airport regularly flew over the area in question with their
landing lights on; to a person on the road, the lights might seem to be
flitting through the woods. Furthermore the study showed that the scene
had been set in advance for a frightening incident. As they drove along
the lonely road, the scoutmaster had been talking about flying saucers
and, after he stopped the car, had warned the boys that they might
need to go for help. The man’s reputation for veracity, too, began to
melt away, and one townsman remarked that if the scoutmaster claimed
that the sun was shining, he’d look up to see for himself before
accepting the statement. The knife and cap showed no radioactivity. The
laboratory report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed that
the burn on the cap was made by a cigarette, and the “burns” on the
hand and arm proved to be only superficial scorching of the hair and
could easily have been produced by the flame of a kitchen match.
This investigation cost the usual amount of time and money, but it was
unquestionably a hoax[VII-4].
_Monster in West Virginia_
The final incident in the summer’s panic occurred on the evening
of September 12 when a family group near the town of Sutton, West
Virginia, saw a flaming object flash across the sky and apparently
land on a nearby hill. Taking their flashlights, they set out to
investigate and, on reaching the hill, smelled an unpleasant odor. When
they turned on their flashlights, they stated, they saw two red eyes
glaring at them; a huge monster, ten feet tall, breathing fire, with a
bright-green body and a blood-red face, waddled toward them, and they
turned and ran[VII-5].
Air Force investigators concluded immediately that the flaming object
first seen was the meteor observed that night by thousands of persons
in Virginia and West Virginia and reported officially to various
observatories. What the frightened family saw when they reached the
hilltop and flashed the light was probably the glowing eyes or body of
some mundane creature of the woods. A local group of civilian saucer
investigators rejected this explanation, as usual, and after making its
own study concluded that the monster story could very well have been
true!
The monster is now enshrined in West Virginia history[VII-5], and forms
the subject of a new ballad written by Cindy Coy and set to the tune of
“Sweet Betsy from Pike.” One verse and the chorus will suffice:
The size of the phantom was a sight to behold,
Green eyes and red face, so the story was told.
It floated in air with fingers of flame.
It was gone with a hiss just as quick as it came.
Chorus:
Oh, Phantom of Flatwoods, from Moon or from Mars,
Maybe from God and not from the stars,
Please tell us why you fly o’er our trees
The end of the world or an omen of peace?
_The Panel of Civilian Scientists_
When after three months of constant threat no flying saucers had yet
tried to invade the country, the acute phase of the panic subsided.
Nevertheless, responsible officials in the Department of Defense
were uneasy, and Air Defense was particularly worried by the problem
of the radar phantoms, whose cause was not fully understood (see
_Chapter_ VIII). Even if UFOs proved to be normal phenomena, other
very real dangers existed in the situation. If the public believed
in the possibility of extraterrestrial antagonists, a clever enemy
on earth simply by fabricating a few incidents could easily induce a
mass hysteria that might paralyze the country. Also, if the number
of saucer reports should be greatly multiplied by some artificial
stimulus, their sheer numbers would clog communication channels,
interfere with the Early Warning System, and at a time of imminent
attack from another part of the globe might cause a disastrous three-
or four-hour delay in the activation of the Air Force network.
Government officials, uncertain of the facts, were reluctant to decide
or to state whether there was or was not convincing evidence of
extraterrestrial surveillance.
To clear up the potentially explosive atmosphere, the Office of
Scientific Intelligence (OSI), under the Central Intelligence Agency,
decided to consult outstanding civilian experts and invited certain
eminent scientists to study and evaluate the evidence. For this purpose
Air Force investigators assembled the complete data on the cases
they considered most significant. They also prepared, on their own
initiative, an unofficial report setting forth the evidence which, in
the opinion of several investigators, proved conclusively that UFOs
were interplanetary objects operating under intelligent control.
After a preliminary meeting late in November 1952, the panel met on
January 12, 1953, to begin their study. The chairman was the late
Dr. H. P. Robertson, mathematician and physicist, of the California
Institute of Technology at Pasadena. The other members were Dr. Luis
W. Alvarez, physicist, of the University of California at Berkeley;
Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, an expert on radio propagation; Dr. Samuel
A. Goudsmit, physicist, of Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Dr.
Thornton W. Page, astronomer, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Also present were several officers of the OSI. To avoid possible bias,
Air Force officers who had actively worked on UFO cases and civilians
who were closely identified with such studies were not asked to attend.
The cases studied included all the “classics,” such as the Tremonton
and other movies, the Mantell and Gorman affairs, the radar sightings
at Washington, D.C., as well as other less well-known reports.
One incident that particularly engaged the attention of the panel,
and would probably have become a famous classic except that Air
Force investigators had kept it a strict secret, was the sighting at
Presque Isle Air Force Base in northern Maine. On October 10, 1952,
at about 10 P.M. E.S.T., a group of weather observers had noticed a
bright-orange object hovering low on the eastern horizon and had set
up a theodolite to measure its altitude and bearing. As the glowing
unknown slowly rose higher above the horizon and seemed to come closer,
it appeared through the telescope of the theodolite as a circular disk
accompanied by four flickering green lights, two on each side. Alarmed
by this spectacular phenomenon, the observers called the Air Force
Base at Limestone, some twenty miles north and east, to ask whether
the object was visible there. It was. Setting up a theodolite, the
Limestone observers measured the height and bearing, and both groups of
observers sent the recorded data to ATIC.
[Illustration: _Figure 12a._ The Presque Isle sighting from two
stations; the erroneous determination of North at Limestone seems to
indicate a nearby UFO.]
Here was the kind of situation the investigators had been hoping for:
simultaneous observations of a single object, made from two different
stations a known distance apart. Calculations based on the altitudes
and bearings reported by the two stations yielded fantastic results. In
a plot of the data (shown schematically in Figure 12a) the prolonged
lines intersected, indicating a group of unknowns hovering 100 miles
above the earth and more than 50 miles off the Maine coast, of
tremendous size and moving at high speed. Concluding that the objects
must have come from outer space, or were possibly a new type of
orbiting vehicle of Russian origin, the Air Force had promptly clamped
down the security lid. When ATIC’s science consultant, Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, looked at the data, he just as promptly disagreed with these
ideas and clearly identified the unknown as the planet Jupiter, which
had risen at 6:03 P.M. E.S.T. and at 10:00 was the brightest object
in the eastern sky. The believers in the extraterrestrial theory were
then in the majority at ATIC, however. They had refused to accept the
identification, and submitted the Presque Isle sighting to the panel as
a prize example of UFO surveillance.
[Illustration: _Figure 12b._ The Presque Isle sighting from two
stations; the corrected determination of North indicates Jupiter at
infinity.]
The panel members quickly disposed of the case. The measurements
reported from Presque Isle obviously pointed directly to the planet
Jupiter, not a mere 100 but millions of miles beyond the earth. If a
constant correction was applied to the bearings from Limestone, they
also agreed with Jupiter’s position. Careless use of the theodolite had
produced an error in the data. To measure the angle of an object above
the horizon, the observer has only to make sure that the theodolite is
level, but to measure the bearing he must align it with true north,
a direction that cannot be determined by guesswork. The Limestone
observers had made a mistake in determining true north and had thus
obtained a wrong bearing for the unknown. When the corrected data were
plotted (shown schematically in Figure 12b) the prolonged lines were
parallel, and both pointed squarely to the planet Jupiter at infinity.
The orange light was unquestionably Jupiter, and the accompanying green
lights were its four bright satellites twinkling through the layers of
the earth’s atmosphere. Amazed that this uncomplicated case, already
explained by Dr. Hynek, should have been offered as evidence for the
extraterrestrial origin of UFOs, the panel extended its investigation
to the original observers at Presque Isle. The witnesses there were
bewildered by the inquiry; they had checked the object when it appeared
again on the night of October 11, they said, and had then identified it
as the planet Jupiter, but they had not thought it necessary to notify
the Air Force![VII-4]
For five long days the panel worked, analyzing every available bit
of evidence as it related to four alternative theories: 1) that UFOs
were a supersecret device of some sort being developed by the United
States; 2) that UFOs were a supersecret device being developed by some
foreign power; 3) that UFOs were normal phenomena wrongly interpreted;
and 4) that UFOs came from other planets. As the panel succeeded in
explaining one after another of the fifty or so submitted cases, or was
able to suggest a highly probable solution in terms of normal physical
phenomena, the members reached their conclusion. Theory number one they
rejected with complete certainty; they were 98 per cent certain that
theory number two was wrong, and 99 per cent sure that number four was
also incorrect (scientists are reluctant to accept any negative belief
with absolute certainty). The document submitted unofficially by ATIC
investigators they also rejected for lack of evidence. All the facts,
they decided, supported theory number three, that the reported UFOs
were merely natural phenomena, wrongly interpreted[VII-6].
The panel delivered this evaluation to the Office of Scientific
Intelligence, together with a recommendation that government agencies
should immediately abandon the policy of secrecy regarding UFO reports
and should make public all the facts in every case. Unfortunately this
recommendation was not followed. The report included some rather
caustic comments on the general inadequacy of the investigative
techniques that had been used. As one of the members remarked
unofficially, trying to get to the bottom of some of the sightings was
like cutting treacle. The panel report with its blunt criticisms was of
course not intended for public release and, understandably, was kept
classified.
Although the OSI had asked for an expert opinion, some Air Force
and government officials were unwilling to accept the verdict when
they got it, and flatly refused to believe that UFOs were normal
phenomena[VII-7]. When echoes of their disagreement escaped the
security screen, civilian saucer enthusiasts concluded with some
justification that Air Force officials were “covering up.” They were.
They were not hiding any proof that flying saucers came from outer
space, however, as the saucer addicts charged, but were merely trying
to conceal their own confusion and the panel’s criticisms.
As one member of the panel later stated to a correspondent, the
explanation of UFO beliefs “lies in a logical defect. It is this: UFOs
form a class of all celestial observations that cannot be immediately
explained. There is no other truly common feature; some manifestations
are optical, others are detected by radar; some are points, others
circular, others patterned; some are seen by night, others by day,
etc. The implication that they are somehow related is a false one, as
we know from the large proportion positively identified after the fact
(what relation is there between Venus and a meteorological balloon?).
Calling all unidentified objects in the sky ‘flying saucers’ or even
UFOs (Venus doesn’t ‘fly’ in any proper sense of the word) is like
calling any word I cannot understand ‘Greek.’ The class of all words I
cannot understand would scarcely form a single language. Therefore, the
explanation of UFOs as a class is simply that they are not a uniform
class but a hodge-podge of widely disparate, partly described phenomena
that were seen in the sky.”[VII-8]
Not until April 9, 1958, did the Air Force make public the internal
recommendation made by the panel some five years earlier. If the entire
study had been released earlier, with a full statement of the facts and
the analyses made by the panel, it might have ended the saucer scare at
once. Instead the UFO hysteria continued, with periods of remission,
and is still dying a slow and lingering death.
[VII-1] Ruppelt, E. J. _The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects._
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1956.
[VII-2] Olivier, C. P. “Tables of Hourly Rates Based upon American
Meteor Society Data.” Interim Report No. 28, Harvard University Radio
Meteor Research Program (May 1958).
[VII-3] _Sky and Telescope_, Vol. XI (1952), p. 312.
[VII-4] Air Force Files.
[VII-5] Barker, G. _They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers._ New York:
University Books, Inc., 1956.
[VII-6] Robertson, H. P. Personal files.
[VII-7] Chop, A. M. Personal communication.
[VII-8] Page, T. W. Personal files.
_Chapter_ VIII
PHANTOMS ON RADAR
The evidence of radar, according to the saucer enthusiasts, provides
final proof that alien spaceships indeed patrol our skies. Because
radar is an electronic device, it allegedly cannot be fooled by
mirages, reflections, or peculiar weather conditions. If radar records
an echo from an unidentified object and, at about the same time, a
human witness reports a puzzling light in the sky, the believers
proclaim that the unprejudiced testimony of science has confirmed the
presence of a solid flying saucer. Sometimes a radarscope reports
unidentified objects at a time when observers on the ground and in
search planes cannot see anything unusual in the sky. The believers
then conclude not that radar evidence can be misinterpreted, but that
the operators of the flying saucers may somehow be able to make both
themselves and their ships invisible![VIII-1]
_Radar as a Reporter_
Any UFO investigator who presumes to evaluate electronic evidence
should have much more than an amateur’s knowledge of the nature and
behavior of radar. Correct interpretation of the signals requires
training, experience, skill, and an expert’s acquaintance with the
peculiarities of the set under varying conditions. But even the
expert does not yet understand the causes of all the phenomena that
can appear. He is limited by our still incomplete knowledge of
dynamic meteorology--precise information about the composition of
the atmosphere and how it interacts with microwaves. With proper
instrumentation and first-rate operators, radar can correctly report
the approximate direction, distance, altitude, and rate of motion of
objects within its range. If the returns are misinterpreted, however,
radar can seem to give false reports.
[Illustration: _Figure 13._ Schematic view of radar targets on
successive sweeps of the antenna.]
Radar is not a TV camera or a photographic lens. It does not, at least
at present, produce a picture of the physical appearance, shape, size,
or color of the thing it detects. The scope shows only tiny spots of
light on the flat surface of a screen. A pointer something like a clock
hand continually sweeps around the dial at a given speed. A complete
rotation may take from two to fifteen seconds, depending on the type
of the set. This sweep hand keeps pace with the rotation of the radar
antenna as it scans the sky by sending out radio pulses. When they
encounter a solid object, they bounce off and return to the set as
echoes which show as “blips,” or spots of light, on the radarscope.
The operator must interpret these spots and try to identify them as
planes, helicopters, balloons, ships, mountains, clouds, birds, storms,
hurricanes, or phantom echoes of various kinds. Safe commercial flying
depends on the accuracy of these identifications, as does the security
of the country in periods of international tension.
Radar only reports. It does not interpret. If the sweep hand on
successive rotations shows a spot of light apparently moving from
position _A_ to position _B_, to _C_, to _D_, the operator generally
concludes that the blips represent a single object that is moving at
a certain speed in a certain direction (see Figure 13). If successive
sweeps show a spot of light that remains at position _A_, he usually
concludes that it represents a stationary object. If the blip moves a
very great distance in the interval between two sweeps or seems to jump
erratically from one position to another, an amateur might interpret
it as a spacecraft flying at incredible velocity--a flying saucer. But
an expert would probably conclude, especially under certain weather
conditions, that the scope was picking up echoes from two or more
separate objects, one reflecting briefly at position _A_, another at
position _B_, and so on.
_The Principle of Radar_
Radar is an electronic assembly far too complex for detailed
description here, but its basic principle is simple. It is merely an
echo machine that reflects radio waves instead of sound waves. To
illustrate by a rough analogy, let us imagine that a man is standing
in the middle of an open field on a very dark night. He wants to find
out something of the contours of the surrounding country but his only
tools are a compass, a watch with luminous dial and hands, and a large
megaphone. He raises the megaphone to his lips, points it directly
north, and gives a sharp and piercing call: “Hi!” He now cups his hand
to his ear and listens for an echo. Hearing no reply, he deduces that
in the north there are no hills, tall buildings, or other obstructions
that might have produced an echo.