distortions of fact. In its Cassandra-like warning of possible
visitors from other planets, _Life_ magazine included the Tombaugh
sighting as one of the key cases and in a ten-sentence description
managed to include at least six misstatements, some of which added to
the “uncanny” nature of the incident. According to this summary[XII-11]
the year was 1948 (it was 1949); the time was about 11:00 P.M. (it
was 10:45 P.M.); the lights were traveling south to north (they were
moving northwest to southeast); the object had an oval shape (Tombaugh
did not specify a shape); the lights exhibited a glare (they were of
low luminosity); their speed was too fast for a plane, too slow for
a meteor (no estimate of speed was given). On a nationwide TV show
broadcast in 1958 one of the speakers stated specifically that Tombaugh
had observed a cigar-shaped object with lighted portholes[XII-12]. An
“artist’s conception” of the UFO in one publication[XII-13] depicts a
long, tapered ship with a line of lighted windows, wholly unrelated to
Tombaugh’s own sketch, which shows no unifying structure, merely six
small rectangles arranged as though each one were at the corner of a
hexagon (see Figure 20).
[Illustration: _Figure 20._ Tombaugh’s rectangles. Top, when first seen
at zenith; bottom, a few seconds later at 50° above horizon. (Based on
sketch by C. W. Tombaugh.)]
While keeping an open mind on the possibility of interplanetary travel,
Tombaugh himself has never supported the spaceship interpretation so
often attributed to him in print but has considered various possible
explanations--insects or birds illuminated by ground lights, or
reflections of ground lights against the boundary of an inversion layer
in the air. Of these, the inversion theory seems the most probable. The
layer in such a case must have been extremely thin or extremely weak,
otherwise it would have dimmed the brightness of the faint stars he was
observing. As in the Chesapeake Bay case, the mysterious rectangles
were undoubtedly the special effect of some unique combination of
circumstances, unlikely to be repeated. Conditions were ideal for
the formation of small sharply localized inversions: the weather was
clear, the day had been hot. A small temperature inversion existing
at a relatively low elevation and smoke, haze, or dust collecting in
a very thin layer at a relatively low altitude were the prerequisites
that almost certainly existed. Some unknown cause--in the vicinity
of an airfield there are many possibilities--could have produced a
ripple in the thin haze layer. This ripple, tipping the haze layer at
a slight angle, could have reflected the lighted windows of a house;
as the ripple progressed in a wavelike motion along the layer, the
reflection would have moved as did the rectangles of light. Conditions
of refraction at the interface would have reflected the wave upward.
Tombaugh has recently summarized his convictions on the entire UFO
phenomenon as well as on his own sighting:
“From my own studies of the solar system I cannot entertain any serious
possibility for intelligent life on the other planets, not even for
Mars (the planet to which I have devoted considerable observation and
study over the past thirty-five years). The logistics of visitations
from planets revolving around the nearer stars is staggering. In
consideration of the hundreds of millions of years in the geologic
time scale when such visitations may possibly have occurred, the odds
of a single visit in a given century or millennium are overwhelmingly
against such an event.
“A much more likely source of explanation is some natural optical
phenomenon in our own atmosphere. In my 1949 sighting the faintness
of the object, together with the manner of fading in intensity as it
traveled away from zenith towards the southeastern horizon, is quite
suggestive of a reflection from an optical boundary or surface of
slight contrast in refractive index, as in an inversion layer.
“I have never seen anything like it before or since, and I have spent
a lot of time where the night sky could be seen well. This suggests
that the phenomenon involves a comparatively rare set of conditions
or circumstances to produce it, but nothing like the odds of an
interstellar visitation.”
[XII-1] Air Force Files.
[XII-1a] Menzel, D. H. “The Truth About Flying Saucers.” _Look_
magazine (June 17, 1952).
[XII-2] Johnson, C. L. Personal communication.
[XII-3] _UFO Investigator_, April-May 1961.
[XII-4] Coleman, W. T. Personal communication.
[XII-5] Nash, W. B. Personal communication.
[XII-6] Ruppelt, E. J. _The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects._
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1956.
[XII-7] Nash, W. B., and Fortenberry, W. H. “We Flew Above Flying
Saucers,” _True_ magazine (October 1952).
[XII-8] Boston _Herald_, June 3, 1962.
[XII-9] “Radar Objects Over Washington,” _Air Weather Service Bulletin_
(September 1954), pp. 52–57.
[XII-10] Gifford, J. F. Personal communication.
[XII-11] “Have We Visitors from Outer Space?” _Life_ magazine, April 4,
1952.
[XII-12] “Flying Saucers, the Enigma of the Skies,” Armstrong Circle
Theatre TV Script, Jan. 22, 1958.
[XII-13] Michel, A. _The Truth about Flying Saucers._ New York:
Criterion Books, 1956.
[XII-14] Tombaugh, C. W. Personal communication.
_Chapter_ XIII
INVESTIGATORS: AIR FORCE AND CIVILIAN
Few government employees in recent times have been subjected to
more criticism than the men in the Aerial Phenomena Group at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. This agency (usually
referred to in this book as ATIC) has the responsibility of
investigating all official reports of unidentified objects in our
skies. Of the thousands of such incidents studied so far, none suggests
that the UFO in question came from outer space. In fact, the term UFO
has proven to be one of the worst misnomers of history. In the most
perplexing cases, the phenomena reported are seldom material Objects,
very few of them are Flying and, when fully analyzed, almost none
remain Unidentified.
Identifying strange objects in the air over the United States is
vital to the country’s security. That military officers should be
guilty of carelessness or casual guesswork in this serious business is
unthinkable. Yet ATIC investigators, and through them the United States
Air Force, of which they are members, for more than a decade have been
the target of vicious attacks by civilian enthusiasts devoted to the
cult of flying saucers.
Banded together in various “research” organizations and operating on
the premise that UFOs are interplanetary in origin, most of these
enthusiasts flatly reject the normal explanations--planets, meteors,
satellites, balloons, reflections, birds, radar phantoms, hoaxes,
or delusions. Flying saucers _obviously_ cruise in our skies, the
believers argue, and the Air Force failure to admit the obvious proves
that its investigators are incompetent or dishonest or both, and that
they are involved in a giant conspiracy to conceal the truth from the
American public[XIII-1].
In the view of the saucer groups, the Air Force can do no right. If,
after receiving a UFO report, the investigators require some time to
collect all the relevant facts and to reach a sound conclusion, they
are berated for the delay and accused of cover-up tactics, as in the
Killian case (p. 52). On the other hand, when the answer is found
quickly and released to the newspapers, UFO addicts deny its truth and
assert that the explanation was hurriedly rushed into print in order
to deceive the public, as in the Pacific sighting on July 11, 1959 (p.
106)[XIII-1a, p. 8]. Some of these peculiar beliefs may rest on an
imperfect understanding of the actual aims, methods, and resources of
Air Force investigators.
_Official Study of UFOs_
The report of an unidentified flying object, in about 90 per cent of
the cases, comes first from an ordinary private citizen, who often
notifies the local newspaper or radio station. Not until he reports the
incident to a military official, however, is ATIC empowered to start
investigation. The commanding officer at the Air Force base nearest the
place of the sighting then makes a preliminary investigation and, if
the facts seem to warrant further study, forwards the information to
Dayton for evaluation.
With years of experience to draw on, the Aerial Phenomena Group
can often identify the unknown after a brief study of the report.
If not, they try to determine whether the report contains all the
facts necessary for an explanation and whether the unknown may be of
interest to Intelligence officers. Does it represent a possible danger
to the nation? Does it have possible military significance? Does it
have possible scientific or technical significance? If, after this
review, the investigators conclude that the unknown might be of some
importance, they carry out an intensive study in which they may have
the help of an organization directly connected with the Assistant
Chief of Staff for Intelligence or of allied Intelligence agencies.
When all the relevant facts are collected, a survey usually shows
that the unknown fits a particular class of sighting. To complete the
identification, ATIC can call on the expert knowledge of a specialist
in the type of phenomenon involved.
Expert help is available from a large variety of sources:
1. Official consultant to the Air Force, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director
of the Dearborn Observatory and Professor of Astronomy at Northwestern
University, formerly Assistant Director, Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory.
2. Members of the Air Force with special scientific and technical
training, whose full duty is the study, investigation, and analysis of
UFO reports.
3. A panel of military and civilian experts in all branches of science
and technology.
4. The scientific and technical laboratories (photographic, ballistic,
chemical, etc.) of all branches of the Air Force and of other
government agencies.
5. The meteorological records of the United States Weather Bureau, the
United States Coast Guard, and other government agencies.
6. Commercial laboratories under contract to carry out special work.
With the best scientific resources of the nation available, the Air
Force can make sure that a puzzling UFO phenomenon will undergo study
by an expert. Reports involving radar sightings are analyzed by the
research scientists who know most about the behavior of radar. If
satellites or astronomical objects might be involved, astronomers study
the evidence. If the report includes photographs or physical evidence,
experts provide the appropriate laboratory analysis. If a UFO still
proves difficult to explain, the complete facts are laid before a
panel of experts for discussion. When a sighting has been completely
analyzed, the conclusions--known or unknown--are filed with the record
of the case. If the newspapers have publicized the incident, a summary
of the analysis is given to SAFIS (Office of Information Services,
Office of the Secretary of the Air Force) for release to the press.
In the early years of the flying-saucer saga, almost none of the men
assigned to investigate UFOs had any special training in the optical
and astronomical sciences or in investigative techniques. Since the
specific facts of so many cases were classified, civilian scientists
who might have helped explain the UFO puzzles were not able to get the
necessary information. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of unexplained
cases sometimes reached as high as 5 to 10 per cent, and once reached
the staggering peak of 20 per cent! In recent years the techniques
of collection, investigation, and analysis of the facts have greatly
improved. Air Force investigators not only have excellent training,
they also have a solid body of experience behind them. In later reviews
they have found the answers to many, but not to all, of the backlog
of “Unknown” cases which, if reported today, would probably cause no
problem. Some of the old cases will probably never be solved because
the men in charge at the time did not always know what questions to
ask. Essential information was not obtained and can never be obtained
now.
The Air Force never closes an unsolved case. Reports that have been
listed as Unidentified or Insufficient Evidence are reanalyzed when new
evidence becomes available. Occasionally new evidence produces a more
complete or even a different explanation for a case that was previously
considered probably solved.
Statistical summaries of the UFO sightings for each month and for
each period of six months are forwarded to SAFIS for release. In
recent years ATIC has been receiving fewer than 600 reports per year
and solving about 98 per cent. In 1961, 578 UFOs were reported. Of
those in which all the necessary information was available, all but
thirteen--about two per cent--were completely explained.
Believers in flying saucers tend to ignore the 98 per cent of cases
fully explained by the Air Force, and to focus attention on the 2 per
cent that remain puzzling. Yet no distinguishable difference exists
between the types of observation described in solved and in unsolved
cases. From considering the original reports, the competence of the
witnesses, and the appearance and movements of the various UFOs, no
analyst could predict in advance which will be fully accounted for and
which will not. The witnesses (often technically trained observers or
experienced airmen) in the cases that are solved are just as reliable
as--and no less so than--the witnesses in the unexplained cases. They
report the same classes of phenomena--glowing UFOs, hovering UFOs, UFOs
moving at high velocities, making incredible maneuvers, and behaving as
though under intelligent control.
The Air Force has accounted for nearly all of these flying saucers.
The various causes included aircraft, balloons, satellites, mirages,
inversions, hoaxes, delusions, reflections, birds, lenticular clouds,
ball lightning, radar anomalies, sundogs, meteors, planets, stars,
the Aurora, and other astronomical phenomena. The few remaining
cases report similar observations and undoubtedly have one of these
causes--which cannot be proved because some essential fact is
missing. No data in these unsolved cases suggest that the UFOs had an
interplanetary origin or that they constituted a threat to the security
of the United States.
When Air Force investigators have determined that a UFO report does
not represent anything of interest to Intelligence, their primary duty
ends. However, since many UFO puzzles are of interest for scientific
or technical reasons, the investigators try to find the specific
explanation of each case and, if it has attracted public attention,
give the final solution to the press.
_Civilian Saucer Groups_
Since the first flying saucers were reported in 1947, dozens of
civilian clubs have been organized throughout the world to collect UFO
reports and publish “the truth” allegedly suppressed by government
sources. During the last decade the roster in the United States has
included such groups as the Borderland Sciences Research Associates
(California), Interplanetary Intelligence of Unidentified Flying
Objects (Oklahoma), Intercontinental Aerial Research Foundation
(Nebraska), UFO Research Committee (Ohio), Civilian Saucer Intelligence
(New York), Waukegan Contact Group (Illinois), Saucer Investigative
Research Organization (Georgia), World Society of the Flying Saucer
(Idaho), Civilian Research on Interplanetary Flying Objects (Ohio), and
the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Washington,
D.C.). The oldest of these saucer clubs, the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization (Arizona) was founded in 1952 and issues a bimonthly news
sheet, the _APRO Bulletin_. More or less regular publications (some
now defunct) of these groups have included the _Cosmic Researcher_,
_Interplanetary News Service_, _CRIFO Orbit_, _Saucerian Bulletin_,
and _UFO Critical Bulletin_. In recent years some of the best factual
accounts of UFO incidents (as well as some of the weirdest speculation)
have appeared in the magazine _Flying Saucers_, which is not connected
with any club.
A few clubs, chiefly in California, are semireligious in character,
claiming repeated communication with ethereal beings in space. Some
clubs accept “contact” stories as valid, others do not. Certain
articles of faith are apparently common to all such groups: that UFOs
are actually vehicles from outer space; that they sometimes land on
earth and occasionally leave physical traces in the form of metallic
or organic substances; that scientists who cannot accept these beliefs
are hypocrites, archfiends, anti-Galileo reactionaries, stooges for
the Army or the Air Force, and members of the conspiracy to delude the
public.
_NICAP_
The largest and probably the most influential saucer group is the
National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), with
affiliated subcommittees in various parts of the country. Many
members of local organizations such as the UFO Research Committee of
Akron, Ohio, also belong to NICAP and help maintain close liaison.
The bimonthly news sheet, the _UFO Investigator_, is distributed to
members of NICAP and to prominent persons in the government and other
fields; it regularly lists recent UFO sightings reported by members,
and occasionally prints a detailed report of a specific case. Few of
the sightings reported can be independently evaluated because the
accounts often omit such essential facts as exact times, dates, places,
direction of motion, etc.
With headquarters in Washington, D.C., NICAP strongly reflects the
views of its director, Major Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC (Ret.), that UFOs
may be interplanetary in origin, sometimes land on earth, but rarely
if ever make contact with human beings. Like most saucer believers,
many members of NICAP tend to assume without adequate investigation
that many unusual sky phenomena reported in the newspapers may be
extraterrestrial objects, and they often maintain this attitude in
the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When the BOAC
Comet exploded near Calcutta on May 2, 1953, Major Keyhoe theorized
that a UFO might accidentally or deliberately have collided with the
plane. He continued such speculation even after British aviation
officials announced, after months of study, that the crash was caused
by metal fatigue[XIII-1]. Many of the items printed in the _UFO
Investigator_ are based on incomplete evidence. Under the headline
“Strange Series of Fireballs Reported,” NICAP listed a UFO observed on
March 7, 1960, at about 8:10 P.M., visible from the Canadian border
to Florida, and described by some observers as three or four UFOs
flying in formation[XIII-3]. This phenomenon was actually the satellite
Discoverer VIII making its final descent to earth.
NICAP membership is theoretically open to any non-Communist
citizen[XIII-4], but applicants from the “contactee” fringe are not
encouraged. The committee once canceled the membership of a space
evangelist when he claimed publicly to be a spokesman for NICAP, and in
1958 it canceled the membership of seven famous contactees who had been
admitted without the knowledge of the director[XIII-5].
Investigations are carried out as spare-time projects of the
members themselves, some of whom constitute an advisory panel
of experts. Although many are highly respected in their own
professions--television, journalism, military science, religion,
government, aviation, engineering, medicine, psychology, and teaching
in the physical sciences--few are recognized specialists in the fields
required for the analysis of most UFO cases--radar propagation, the
physics of optics, meteorology, and astronomy.
Since 1957 a major goal of NICAP has been a Congressional inquiry that
supposedly would reveal an Air Force conspiracy to deny the reality of
flying saucers[XIII-7]. In 1957 the director lodged a formal complaint
with a member of the United States Senate charging that the Air Force
continually made false statements on UFOs to the press, the public,
and members of Congress. In support of this accusation Major Keyhoe
submitted summaries of more than two hundred incidents[XIII-7].
The list cited a number of UFO reports that had never been submitted
to the Air Force for analysis. These included reports from foreign
countries (one in Sumatra in 1944 and one Holland in 1952) and from
NICAP’s private files. Others, such as the Kinross case (p. 154), had
not been within ATIC jurisdiction. Many others, such as the Mantell
(p. 33) and the Chiles-Whitted (p. 108) cases, had long ago been fully
explained. Still other cases, dating from the early days of the saucer
era, remain unsolved only because vital facts, not determined at the
time of the sighting, are necessary to a full explanation but cannot
now be ascertained. The request for a Congressional inquiry was denied
but has been repeated at intervals.
_The “Conspiracy” Fantasy_
Most UFO organizations cling to the belief that a conspiracy exists to
conceal the existence of extraterrestrial vehicles, but they disagree
on its precise composition. To NICAP and its affiliates, the chief
culprit is the Air Force, helped occasionally by other government
agencies and by well-known civilian scientists. APRO (Aerial Phenomena
Research Organization), however, considers that the Air Force is
involved only as the tool of still more powerful forces. The director
of APRO has published her conviction that nobody in the Air Force,
the Navy, or the Marines “has the brains” to contrive so successful a
scheme and that the alleged plot “could only be borne [_sic_] of minds
schooled in deception and contraception [_sic_]--the elite corps of the
Central Intelligence Agency.”[XIII-8] In still another version (which
makes the plots of E. Phillips Oppenheim seem amateurish) NICAP itself
is a pawn in a superconspiracy so vast that thousands of American
citizens have been made its unknowing tools[XIII-9]. The hundreds of
strange phenomena observed in the skies, the controversial photographs
of UFOs, the “spacemen” who visited Adamski and others, the “contact”
and little-green-men stories, the analyses made by the Air Force, the
formation of the various saucer clubs, NICAP and its war against the
Air Force--all these phenomena, events, and persons are allegedly parts
of a colossal drama planned, supported, and staged as a deliberate hoax
on the American public. The prime mover is supposed to be the Central
Intelligence Agency, whose motive is to conceal--something; just what
is not clear[XIII-10].
In comparison with this fantasy, NICAP’s charges of simple Air Force
cover-up seem tame.
_UFO at Sheffield Lake, Ohio_
One of the most notorious accusations of Air Force skulduggery, made
in attempts to procure a Congressional inquiry, was that embodied in
a saucerian study of the Fitzgerald sighting[XIII-11], published by
the UFO Research Committee of Akron, Ohio, which maintains a close
relationship with NICAP. Although the case was unimportant and was
completely explained, we shall discuss it in detail to illustrate the
peculiar views and methods of the flying-saucer groups.
In summary, a strange light observed on a dark night for roughly half a
minute by a drowsy housewife was converted into a weapon to attack the
Air Force. The incident inspired thousands of words of argument, caused
the publication and distribution of a lengthy document, used the time
of busy investigators, required an otherwise unnecessary expenditure of
public funds, and evoked an exchange of letters among angry citizens,
harassed Congressmen, and equally harassed Air Force officials. In all
UFO history, no larger mountain has ever been made from so small a
molehill.
On September 30, 1958, the Air Technical Intelligence Center at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base received a letter from Mrs. William
Fitzgerald of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, reporting that on September 21
she had sighted a UFO which she would like to have investigated. She
enclosed a three-page summary prepared by members of the UFO Research
Committee of Akron, and added, “I assure you that I will contact my
congressman about this matter if some action is not taken soon to
explain it.”[XIII-12]