The Flying Saucers are Real Part 35

After this candid admission of his intentions, the Project consultant earnestly attempts to fit the two pilots' s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p description to a slow-moving meteor.

"It will have to be left to the psychologists," he goes on, "to tell us whether the immediate trail of a bright meteor could produce the subjective impression of a s.h.i.+p with lighted windows. Considering only the Chiles-Whitted sighting, the hypothesis seems very improbable."

As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, observers at Robbins Air Force Base, Macon, Georgia, saw the same mysterious object streak overhead, trailing varicolored

{p. 160}

flames. This was about one hour before Chiles and Whitted saw the onrus.h.i.+ng s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p.

To bolster up the meteor theory, the Project consultant suggests a one-hour error in time. The explanation: The airliner would be on daylight-saving time.

"If there is no time difference," he proceeds, "the. object must have been an extraordinary meteor. . . . in which case it would have covered the distance from Macon to Montgomery in a minute or two."

Having checked the time angle before, I knew this was incorrect. Both reports were given in eastern standard time. And in a later part of the Project report, the consultant admits this fact. But he has an alternate answer: "If the difference in time is real, the object was some form of known aircraft, regardless of its bizarre nature."

The "bizarre nature" is not specified. Nor does the Project "Saucer"

report try to fit the Robbins Field description to any earth-made aircraft. The air-base observers were struck by the object's huge size, its projectile-like shape, and the weird flames trailing behind.

Except for the double-deck windows, the air-base men's description tallied with the pilots'. With the s.h.i.+p at five thousand feet or higher, its windows would not have been visible from the ground. All the observers agreed on the object's very high speed.

Neither of the Project "Saucer" alternate answers will fit the facts.

1. The one-hour interval has been proved correct. Therefore, as the Project consultant admits, it could not be a meteor.

2. The Robbins Field witnesses have flatly denied it was a conventional plane. The Air Force screened 225 airplane schedules, and proved there was no such plane in the area. No ordinary aircraft would have caused the brilliant streak that startled the DC-3 pa.s.senger and both of the pilots.

Major Boggs's bolide answer had gone the way of his Venus explanation.

I wondered if the Gorman light-balloon solution would fade out the same way.

But the Project report on Gorman (Case 172) merely

{p. 161}

hinted at the balloon answer. In the Appendix, there was a brief comment: "Note that standard 30 inch and 65 inch weather balloons have vertical speeds of 600 and 1100 feet per minute, respectively."

In all the reports I have mentioned, and on through both the case books, one thing was immediately obvious. All the testimony, all the actual evidence was missing. These were only the declared conclusions of Project "Saucer." Whether they matched the actual conclusions in Wright Field secret files there was no way of knowing.

But even in these sketch reports, I found some odd hints, clues to what Project officials might really be thinking.

After an a.n.a.lysis of two Indianapolis cases, one investigator reports:

"Barring hallucination, these two incidents and 17, 75 and 84 seem the most tangible from the standpoint of description, of all those reported, and the most difficult to explain away as sheer nonsense."

Case 17, I found, was that of Kenneth Arnold. But in spite of the above admission that this case cannot be explained away, it is officially listed as answered.

Case 75 struck a familiar note. This was the strange occurrence at Twin Falls, Idaho, on which True had had a tip months before. A disk moving through a canyon at tremendous speed had whipped the treetops as if by a violent hurricane. The report was brief, but one sentence stood out with a startling effect:

"Twin Falls, Idaho, August 13, 1847," the report began. "There is clearly nothing astronomical in this incident. . . . Two points stand out, the sky-blue color, and the fact that the trees 'spun around on top as if they were in a vacuum.'"

Then came the sentence that made me sit up in my chair.

"Apparently it must be cla.s.sed with the other bona fide disk sightings."

The other bona fide sightings!

Was this a slip? Or had the Air Force deliberately left this report in the file? If they had, what was back of it

{p. 162}

--what was back of releasing all of these telltale case summaries?

I skimmed through the rest as quickly as possible looking for other clues. Here are a few of the things that. caught my eye:

Case 10. United Airlines report . . . despite conjectures, no logical explanation seems possible. . . .

Case 122. Holloman Air Force Base, April 6, 1948. [This was the Commander McLaughlin White Sands report.] No logical explanation. . .

Case 124. North Atlantic, April 18, 1948 . . . radar sighting . . . no astronomical explanation. . . .

Case 127. Yugoslav-Greek frontier, May 7, 1948 . . . information too limited. . . .

Case 168. Arnheim, The Hague, July 20, 1948 . . . object seen four times . . . had two decks and no wings . . . very high speed comparable to a V-2. . . .

Case 183. j.a.pan, October 15, 1948. Radar experts should determine acceleration rates. . . .

Case 188. Goose Bay, Labrador, October 29, 1948. Not astronomical . .

. picked up by radar . . . radar experts should evaluate the sightings . . . .

Case 189. Goose Bay, Labrador, October 31, 1948 . . . not astronomical . . . observed on radarscope. . . .

Case 196. Radarscope observation . . . object traveling directly into the wind. . . .

Case 198. Radar blimp moving at high speed and continuously changing direction. . . .

Case 222. Furstenfeldbruck, Germany, November 23, 1948 . . . object plotted by radar DF at 27,000 feet . . . short time later circling at 40,000 feet . . . speed estimated 200-500 m.p.h. . . .

Case 223 . . . seventeen individuals saw and reported object . . .

green flare . . . all commercial and government airfield questioned .

. . no success. . . .

Case 224. Las Vegas, New Mexico, December 8, 1948 . . . description exactly as in 223 . . . flare

{p. 163}

reported traveling very high speed . . . very accurate observation made by two F.B.I. agents. . . .

Case 231 . . . another glowing green flare just as described above. .