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What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk scare can —and probably will —flare up again. If you see a "saucer," just do what Air Chief Vandenberg did. CONCLUSION T HE men who constitute the high command of the United States Air Force do not helieve in flying saucers, diska, space ships from Mars— or Russia—which citizens of the United States have been reporting with increasing frequency since the atomic age burst upon the world. But they are not surprised that people are seeing them. The Air Force generals have seen saucers themselves or, rather, what would have passed for saucers with less knowledgeahle observers. No one knows het- ter than an experienced airman what strange tricks the sun, stars and senses can play upon you in the wild blue. Less than a year ago, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenherg, the Air Chief of Staff, who was responsible for the decision to set up an Air Force project to sift the saucer reports, was piloting a B-17 homher on a night flight when a strange, disk-shaped, lighted object streaked hy somewhere over to his right. IE the gen- eral had rushed into print with his experience, it would have been another incident in the Great Flying Saucer Scare. Instead of getting rattled, he just ex- perimented a bit hy moving his head at different angles, and, sure enough, he could reproduce the saucer at will. It was merely a reflection of a ground light on his window. Lt. Gen. Lauris Norstad, who has served both the Air Force and Army as director of Plans and Opera- tions, was flying back from Maxwell Field one night when both he and his copilot noticed a strange large object pacing them above. It failed to answer (heir identification signals. A little calm reconnaissance, however, established that the aircraft was nothing but the reflection of a star on a cloud. Other generals have been bewildered but not for long —by highly realistic illusions from ground air beacons and searchlights. Even Col. H. M. McCoy, who heads up the intelligence division at Air Mate- riel Command headquarters at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton, Ohio, where saucer reports are screened, once thought he saw a disk while flying a P-51 fighter in broad daylight. It turned out to be a glint of sunlight from the canopy of another distant P-51. Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, now the tough-minded Strategic Air Command boss, was particularly rough on saucer reports when he headed up tbe Air Force s research-and-development program at the height of the scare. He put his weather expert on the trail, and substantial proof was uncovered that one out of six of the then current crop of reports cotJ" be traced to a certain type of aluminum-covered radar-target balloon then in wide use. LeMay said nothing for jmblication, but soon thereafter, wben a certain lieutenant colonel gave out a lulu of a story on how he, too, had seen Hying saucerSi the general rebuked him blisteringly by telegram . • • and sent, it collect. Gen. Carl Spaatz, the retired Air Chief, is a"' other who gets indignant when he tbuiks of saucer hysteria, "If the American people are capable ol getting BO excited over sometbing which doesn't ex- ist," Spaatz told me, "God help us if anyone ever plasters us with a real atomic bomb." He added, "1 can tell you unequivocally that the reported sight' ings of so-called saucers were completely uncon- nected with any form of (<:a,nuiiu-tl mi I'one lS*i Among the niuiiy lionv "saucers" \';i- ilii-- fraud found in a North Holly- ^vooct yard. It uas made uf galvanized iron, a radio tube, a piece of pipe. First to point out tlic plaiirt \'ciiiis illusion, .N<)I>el I'rizc scientist niuirsays no real proof of "saucers" cxiHts. His friendly advice: "Forgel

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Page 1: What You Can Believe - Official NICAP Web SiteWhat You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk

What You Can BelieveAbout Flying Saucers

By SIDNEY SHALETT

Science growls "Bunk!" But innervous times like these tlicair-borne disk scare can —andprobably will —flare up again.If you see a "saucer," just dowhat Air Chief Vandenberg did.

CONCLUSION

THE men who constitute the high command ofthe United States Air Force do not helieve inflying saucers, diska, space ships from Mars—

or Russia—which citizens of the United States havebeen reporting with increasing frequency since theatomic age burst upon the world. But they are notsurprised that people are seeing them. The AirForce generals have seen saucers themselves — or,rather, what would have passed for saucers withless knowledgeahle observers. No one knows het-ter than an experienced airman what strangetricks the sun, stars and senses can play upon youin the wild blue.

Less than a year ago, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenherg,the Air Chief of Staff, who was responsible for thedecision to set up an Air Force project to sift thesaucer reports, was piloting a B-17 homher on a nightflight when a strange, disk-shaped, lighted objectstreaked hy somewhere over to his right. IE the gen-eral had rushed into print with his experience, itwould have been another incident in the Great Flying

Saucer Scare. Instead of getting rattled, he just ex-perimented a bit hy moving his head at differentangles, and, sure enough, he could reproduce thesaucer at will. It was merely a reflection of a groundlight on his window.

Lt. Gen. Lauris Norstad, who has served both theAir Force and Army as director of Plans and Opera-tions, was flying back from Maxwell Field one nightwhen both he and his copilot noticed a strange largeobject pacing them above. It failed to answer (heiridentification signals. A little calm reconnaissance,however, established that the aircraft was nothingbut the reflection of a star on a cloud.

Other generals have been bewildered — but not forlong —by highly realistic illusions from ground airbeacons and searchlights. Even Col. H. M. McCoy,who heads up the intelligence division at Air Mate-riel Command headquarters at Wright-PattersonField, Dayton, Ohio, where saucer reports arescreened, once thought he saw a disk while flying aP-51 fighter in broad daylight. It turned out to be a

glint of sunlight from the canopy of another distantP-51.

Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, now the tough-mindedStrategic Air Command boss, was particularly roughon saucer reports when he headed up tbe Air Force sresearch-and-development program at the heightof the scare. He put his weather expert on the trail,and substantial proof was uncovered that one outof six of the then current crop of reports cotJ"be traced to a certain type of aluminum-coveredradar-target balloon then in wide use. LeMaysaid nothing for jmblication, but soon thereafter,wben a certain lieutenant colonel gave out a luluof a story on how he, too, had seen Hying saucerSithe general rebuked him blisteringly by telegram . • •and sent, it collect.

Gen. Carl Spaatz, the retired Air Chief, is a"'other who gets indignant when he tbuiks of saucerhysteria, "If the American people are capable olgetting BO excited over sometbing which doesn't ex-ist," Spaatz told me, "God help us if anyone everplasters us with a real atomic bomb." He added, "1can tell you unequivocally that the reported sight'ings of so-called saucers were completely uncon-nected with any form of (<:a,nuiiu-tl mi I'one lS*i

A m o n g t h e n iu i iy lionv " s a u c e r s " \ ' ; i - ilii-- f r a u d f o u n d in a N o r t h H o l l y -vooct yard. It uas made uf galvanized iron, a radio tube, a piece of pipe.

First to point out tlic plaiirt \'ciiiis illusion, .N<)I>el I'rizc scientistniuirsays no real proof of "saucers" cxiHts. His friendly advice: "Forgel

Page 2: What You Can Believe - Official NICAP Web SiteWhat You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk

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WHAT YOU CAN BELIEVE

ABOUT FLYING SAUCERS(Conlinunt Jroin /'««<• 36)

secret research that the Air Force wasconducting during my term as Chiefof Staff."

It IB no secret, of course, that theRussians are experimenting with super-sonic aircraft and guided missiles justas we are. But if any of the things whichhave popped up over America for afew seconds or minutes are Soviet gad-gets, the cold hrainof Airltitelligence—which painstakingly sifts reports-would like to know how they do it andthen return to home base without beingseen by more people. It also is reason-able to wonder why, out of more than250 reported saucers, not one hascrashed so we could lay hands on atangible bit of evidence; so far. AirIntelligence does not have so much asone loose nut off any unexplained ob-ject to examine.

The officers and technical expertsassigned to Project Saucer—a nick-name for tbe top-secret Air Force in-vestigative effort—sometimes get tofeeling they're living in a dream world,so utterly unfettered and mysteriousare some of the reports they are as-signed to evaluate. One of the most fan-ciful came from a Montana man whowrote in to tell of sighting a large, blue-wbite ball tbat bad beamed a brigbtlight at him." I am perfectly sincere anddo not drink," the Montanan said, "BOthe foregoing is abBolut«ly the trutb."

An Army pilot at Dayton, Ohio, hadthree or four teardrop-Bbajied objectscome so close to his plane that he hadto duck to avoid collision. Asked to de-scribe them, he replied, "Take alioutone half gallon of water and dump ittwo hundred yards in front of an ap-proaching aircraft about two hundredfeet above it, witb tbe water taking theBhape of a teardrop " In San Fran-cisco, an aviation student strolling inGolden Gate Park said he was attackedby a mysterious light "like an electricarc," which seemed to have the powerto "lower my hand like a sack of shot";be said he had delicate skin and that iteven left a bruise on him.

One of the main solutions to the re-ported phenomena lies in the aero-medicai field. Both Air Force and Navyaero-medical experts have preparedvolumes of research findings, spellingout in detail how vertigo, hypnosis andother sensory illusions affect pilotstraveling at high altitudes and extremespeeds.

Vertigo is a loose term used to de-scribe a condition of dizziness and stu-por wbich pilots themselves call "theleans." Case histories set down by theNavy's School of Aviation Medicine atPensacola have establisbed ihat vertigoand self-hypnosis brought on by staringtoo long at a fixed light have causedpilots to dogfight with stars, to mistakeround lights for other aircraft, flying

saucers or what not, and to have out-right hallucinations about things whichweren't even there.

Wright Field aero-medical expertsconfirm these findings. In general, theyfeel that when a flier starts chasing anilluminated weather balloon or a star,and vertigo or bypnosis sets in, thepilot can come down and practicallytell you how many rivets were on thelose of that Martian space ship.

The trouble with ali the logical ex->lanations, however, is that the person

who has had, or thinks he has had, asufficiently vivid encounter with asaucer is absolutely certain none of

those explanations can apply to him.And in a number of tbe cases it ispretty hard to apply any of the logicalexplanations to the reported facts. Youhave to keep reminding yourself thateven an experienced pilot laboringunder strain and excitement finds itdifficult to judge distances, altitudesand speeds accurately.

One particularly baffling case wasihe encounter of twenty-five-year-oldGeoi^e F. Gorman, of Fargo, NorthDakota, a second lieutenant in theNorth Dakoia Air National Guard,with an apparently disembodied andsomidless white light that could climb,swoop and ouimaneuver any jet planenow operating. I flew to Fargo io inier-view Gorman.

Gorman, a native of Fargo, is anemployee of a farm-machinery com-pany. He bears a good reputation forveracity and personal habits. Duringthe war be instructed French flyingcadets. He is articulate and above aver-age intelligence. He has had severalyears of college education, and de-scribes himself as an amateur student ofFreud, physics and other subjects. Gor-man insists be was not particularly con-scious of the flying-saucer craze at ihetime of his reported experience, Oc-tober 1, 1948, though the saucer excite-ment had been bubbling since June ofthe previous year.

At nine o'clock that evening, Gor-man, who had been flying with his out-fit, the 178th Fighter Squadron, de-cided to take a turn over the localstadium and watch a night footballgame which was in progress. The otherplanes landed, leaving him alone in theair in a fast P-51 fighter. He had beenwatching the game for about five min-utes, which perhaps is significant. Theaero-medical people would hold thatconcentration on the floodlights forthat period might bring on vertigo orautohypnosis, but Gorman told meemphatically he was certain the lightshad not disturbed his vision.

He first saw the light pass over thefootball field. He was at 4500-feet alti-tude and ihe object, be said, was "a

May 7. IV W

litile below." It was "a small ball ofclear wbite light, wiih no physical formor shape attached." It was perhaps sixio eight inches in diameter, Gormanfigured. It seemed to be making about250 MPH ai an altitude of 1000 feet.The light varied in intensity; it neverwas extremely bright and it blinked onand off.

To bis surprise, be couldn't overtakeii. He pushed his speed up to ibe limit,but tbe tbing, wbich be tbougbt badbeen traveling relatively slowly, ex-ceeded him by at least 160 MPH. Itseemed io Gorman, he said, that tbelight could outmaneuver and outracehim, though several times during tbetwenty-seven minutes he "fought"with it, he thought he came fairly closeto the object. At one point be deter-mined io ram it. He made a head-onpass, but lost bis nerve and dived underit. During this pass, the object passednot more than 500 feet over his canopy,he estimated.

Laier, ihe object initiated a pass atGorman—"I had the distinct impres-sion ihat its maneuvers were controlledby thought or reason," he said—and hetried io ram it again. This time it pulledup and streaked to 14,000 feet, withGorman following. He said tbat heblacked oui several iimes during theviolent maneuvers, but not for long. Healso said be eventually climbed to 17,-000 feet without oxygen, but is certainit did not make him groggy. Vertigo,he stated, was "absolutely out of tbequestion."

The object finally pulled away fromhim, climbing straight up until ii wasout of sight, Gorman said. Gorman wasin touch with the Fai^o airport towerduring ihe encounier, broadcasting anaccount of his dogfight with the light.His story has partial corroboration. Asixty-seven-year-old flying grandfather.Dr. A. D. Cannon, an oculist, was inihe air at the time in his plane. Cannonand a passenger, Einar Neilson, iilsohad flown over ihe floodlighted foot-ball field. Tbey saw a light in the air. I*waa "movingfaBt," Doctor Cannonsaid,and he thought it might be a Canadian

" Vm goiiif: tu have tlieiii throw the book at

Page 3: What You Can Believe - Official NICAP Web SiteWhat You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk

TIIK SATLKUAY KVENING TOST 185

Vampire jet plane from Stevensonrield near Winnipeg, some 200 milesfrom Far^o. After landing. Cannon saw^ "ght twice from the ground; it seemedt* him to keep a constant altitude, and

definitely changed its direction fromeast-west to north-south.

Also, Lloyd D. Jensen, the airporttraffic controller, and Manuel E. John-A!?' .^'^ assistant. Civil Aeronautics'Administration employees and bothextremely nonflighty citizens, each saw^ Btrange light once, movine over theairfield

* learned from the weather observerat the Fargo airport, George Sander-^n, who is a member of Gorman's Na-"onal Guard squadron, that a black

Gather balloon carrying a lighted can-'^ had been released shortly before

Y°rman*s strange encounter. But San-ei^on, Jensen and Johnson, all experi-

f ^ d hands, insisted it couldn't havey^n the balloon-horne candle that per-turbed the pilot. Sanderson said theballoon was being tracked by a theodo-/iT' .' observer's instrument, and that"6 wind direction and velocity were all

^?ng in relation to the course of thet'ject Gorman said he was chasing.anderson said bis assistant tracked

balloon until it disappeared, justre Gorman landed, at 12,000 feet.

Another solution suggests itself:argo is only about 200 miles away^n tbe Operation Skyhook base near

neapolis, wbere the Navy is releas-B§iant, light-bearing plastic balloons

^ part of a project to study cosmicy**. These balloons travel high and

ast, and have frightened the wits outjl observers wherever they have drifted.J ^vy scientists in Washington said it« entirely possible one of their balloons^^ftd over Fargo that night.

Xhe Air Force checked across the. rder to determine if any CanadianJ •* had been skylarking over Northm that evening, and were afwured"at such was not the case. None of the

Kfound witnesses heard the hansheetiuie typical of Canadian jeU, anyway.Vestigators even tested Gorman's

Enter with a Geiger counter, hut got a^gative reaction for atomic radiation.^ ^ it adds up to a sweet mystery,

as Gorman suffering from a comhina-on of vertigo and confusion with a

, ^ ^ n or ground light? If 8O, how is theof the ground witnesses, who

! didn't have vertigo, to be ex-rat ionally? Or did Gormanstumble onto something that

A. —-" kept secret successfully by the, {f force, or some other nation, or our

'ends up on Mars? Personally, after]"y investigation, I'll vote for the bal-^/i and vertigo./^n encounter similar to Gorman's

as recently as last Novemberat the Air Force's great

Field base on the outskirts of1, D. C. At 9:45 P.M., Henry

. . —^' twenty-five-year-old sec-d lieutenant in the Air Force reserve,

^™^ returning from a night missionh his squadron. Combs, a quiet, seri-

^ physical-culture enthusiast, is aJ, ^ig man who trained with the Air

orce during the war, but never got. ^.'^^as; he is so anxious to get back onp '\*^ duty that he even has written

can K* ' * Truman asking if anything" be done.^

preparing to land. Combs8D t ^ ' ^ preparing to land. Combs„[ ^fd something. It was a "dull grayt^ six feet thick and twelve to fif-froT '^•*' '^^°^- ^t gave off a sort ofUj {Of 'ight and had rough edges; no

'J'^ing, no exhaust flames,ch ^*' ^ Gorman did. Combs gaveth ^^^ "^^ "^^^ ** " minutes the

• 8 led him through astounding ma-

neuvers, changing its airspeed, Comhsrelated, from seventy-five to 600 MPHand varying its altitude from 2000 to7500 feet. In the back seat of bis T-6trainer was 2nd Lt. Kenwood W. Jack-son, who was unhappy about the wholebusiness. Jackson confirmed that alight was seen and chased, though hisdescription of what happened differssomewhat from Comhs'. He wanted toradio the control tower, but Combswouldn't let him.

Combs' encounter ended, he said,when he stood his T-6 practically on itstail and flashed his landing lightssquarely on the thing. At this point.Combs said, tbe thing streaked awaytoward the East Coast at 600 MPHand disappeared.

Here again it is a distinct possibilitythat a pilot was mixed up by a com-bination of vertigo and a balloon. How-ever, the continued testimony of pilotsthat these "things" could outmaneuverthem bothered me, as balloons are no-toriously nonmaneuverable. So, wbileat Wright Field, I asked a pilot logo upand make a few passes at a weatherballoon and see how it looked to him.He came down and told me, with somesurprise, that, when he turned aroundthe balloon, it definitely appeared to beturning at the same rate as his plane,and at times it even seemed to be turn-ing faster than his aircraft.

Another wide area through whichProject Saucer investigators have had(o plow is the rich, intangible field ofhallucinations, boaxes and mass hys-teria. For example, a man from Zelie-nople, Pennsylvania — who said he was"strictly scientific" in his thinking-wrote to the Air Force: "1 am preparedto state that careful study and researchhas absolutely CONVINCED me thatthese 'Objects X' are creations ofrealms above or beyond our sphere;are, if you please, GHOST objects orcraft, projjelled by paranormal tele-portion (the telekinesis of (he polter-geist manifestation). . . . They arccontrolled by intelligent, ghostlike, in-visible beings or animals bearing, I be-lieve, very little likeness to humanbeings."

As for hoaxes: Near Black RiverFalls, Wisconsin, at tbe height of theGreat Flying Saucer Scare, a "flyingdisk" was found at tbe county fair-grounds. The finder obligingly placedit on exhibition at fifty cents a look un-til the local chief of police confiscatedit. FBI agents Rew all the way up fromMilwaukee in a chartered plane to seeit. It was found to be a crude concoc-tion of plywood and cardboard, witbpieces of propellers and radio cellsmounted on it—strictly an opportunis-tic fake.

A "flying disk" fell in the street in aSouthern city. It was composed ofaluminum strips, fluorescent-lampstarters, condensers, rivets, screws andcopper wire. A little investigation re-sulted in a confession from the culprit,the superintendent of an electric-fanfactory, who said he concocted the de-vice and threw it from the roof of thefactory, hoping to scare his boss, whowas getting into bis car.

Mass hysteria is a phenomenon thathas fascinated philosophers and psy-chologists for ages; there is no limitationon what impressionable people willthink they've seen if someone starts asufFciently convincing rumor. Even anhopest rumor will do the trick.

It is a jittery age we live in, particu-lariy since our scientists and militaryspokesmen have started talking aboutsending rockets to tbe moon and aboutexperiments to by-pass the law of gravi-tation by creating a man-made planet

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Page 4: What You Can Believe - Official NICAP Web SiteWhat You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk

186

that will streak off the earth at 25,000miles per hour or so and start circlingin otir orbit. Though we have not yetproduced the rocket-to-the-moon and(he homemade Batellite, it is smallwonder that harassed humans, alreadysuffering from atomic psychosis, havestarted seeing saucers and Martians.

Perhaps the most outspoken foe ofthe flying saucer in the United States isDr. Irving Langmuir, the distinguishedscientist and Nobel Prize winner.Doctor Langmuir, associate director ofGeneral Electric's Research Labora-tory at Schenectady, has spent a life-time debunking what he calls "patho-logical science" —that ia, untruthfulscientific theories which were carelesslyaccepted as truthful until someonecame along to prick a hole in them —and he lumps saucers in this category.He also happens to he a member of theAir Force's Scientific Advisory Board.Though Doctor langmuir speaks onBaucers in his nonofficicJ capacity as ascientist, he has given the Air Force anearful on the—as it appears to him —absurdity of it all.

Doctor Langmuir was one of thefirst to point out that Venus was closeto its peak brilliance the day an unfor-tunate National Guard pilot killedhimself chasing a saucer in Kentucky.When shown a picture that someonetook of a heel-shaped "saucer" flyingover Phoenix, Arizona, he acidly in-quired if anyone had taken the troubleto determine whether there was aviolent squall over Phoenix that day.

"To me," he said, "the picture hasall the scientific asjiects o£ a piece oftar paper, or a torn blanket, or a col-lapsed balloon, tossing in a high wind.

"One of the characteristics of athing that isn't so," Doctor Langmuircontinued, "is the impossibility ofbringing it out into the open. If a mantells me that two and two equal five^or that he has seen a flying saucer—Idon't feel I have to prove he is wrong.I feel the burden is on him to provethat he is right."

I asked Doctor Langmuir what hewould advise the Air Force to do aboutflying saucers. He snapped his answer,"Foi^et i t!" The Air Force, I suspect,would like lo forget it. But then some-thing new comes along like the strangeadventure of two Eastern Air Linespilots with what seemed to be a flame-shooting, double-decker space ship,and Wright Field has to send out an-other team of investigators.

Of all the so-called saucer stories, themost difficult to rationalize is the ac-count of what Eastern Air Lines pilotsClarence Shipe Chiles and John B.Whitted said they saw twenty mileswest of Montgomery, Alabama, on themorning of July 24,1948. At 2:45 A.M.,the two men were flying a DC-3 air-liner into Atlanta, Georgia. Chiles, athirty-one-year-old Tennessean, war-time lieutenant colonel and formercommanding officer of the Air Trans-port Command's Ascension Islandbase, was captain of the ship. He hashad 8500 hours in the air and has flownmore than 1,000,000 miles. Whitted, athirty-year-old North Carolinian, awartime pilot of B-29 Superfortresses,was his copilot.

Chiles and Whitted told me theirstory during an interview I had withthem in Atlanta. "We were flying atfive thousand feet on VFR —visualflight rules," said Chiles. "That meantwe were even more alert than normallyfor stray aircraft, for we were on ourown rather than at a specified altitudeassigned by the CAA.

" I saw the thing first. ' Here comes anew jet job!' I yelled to John. He saw

TIIE SATUKDAY EVENING POST

it tOo. Then we knew it waa like no jetjob we'd ever heard about. We had fiveto ten seconds to look at it. The moonwas full and the object came quiteclose —not more than a mile away, Ithought, and John here thought it waseven closer. It was traveling on asouthwesterly course—exactly oppo-site to our direction. Its velocity, al-lowing for our own air speed, couldhave been anywhere from five hundredto seven hundred miles per hour—I'msure it was faster than any jet I've everseen flown."

Despite the flashing speed withwhich the airliner and the reportedobject would have passed each other,both pilots noted a wealth of details.

protrusion from its snout that "lookedlike a swordfish," and that there werefour to six metallic-looking objects infront that resembled streamlined wind-shields, or louvers.

As soon as the thing had disappeared,by pulling up sharply and climbing.Chiles and Whitted said, they startedgaping at each other. They said theycouldn't believe it. Chiles went back inthe darkened interior of the plane andstarted asking the passengers if they'dseen anything. Apparently, the onlyone who had been looking out of ihewindow at that hour was Clarence L.McKelvie, of Columbus, Ohio. He hadseen a bright streak of light whiz bythe window, but had observed no form

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They agreed the object was at least100 feet long. Chiles thought the fuse-lage was somewhat more streamlinedthan that of a B-29. Whitted, on whoseside of the cockpit the object passed,thought it was nearly twice the diam-eter of a Superfortress. But the hair-raising thing to them, they said, wasthat the thing looked like a plane, flewlike a plane, but had no wings.

"We couldn't have been mistakenabout it —the illumination from boththe moon and the thing itself were toogood for that," Chiles continued ear-nestly. "There were two rows of win-dows, or 'breathers,' along the fuse-lage. A highly intense white light—itwas much too bright to be used for in-terior illumination, so it may have beenfrom a power plant —came throughthese windows. And a fluctuating hlueflame danced along the belly of thething. From an exhaust in the tail ofthe object came a trail of red-orangeflames that shot out for some fifty feet."

Chiles and Whitted agree on theabove details. Chiles also paid particu-lar attention to the nose of the thing,and observed that it had a radarlike

or details. He told Air Force investi-gators that Chiles seemed genuinelyexcited when he came back into thecabin.

Chiles and Whitted still say they donot know what to think; they say theyare certain that they were not sufferingfrom hallucinations and that what theysaw was a manufactured object — not ameteor—and unlike any aircraft ormissile known to them. They immedi-ately checked with the nearest controltower to ascertain if there were anycommercial or Army aircraft in theirvicinity, and were told there were not.The Air Force has confirmed it hadnothing flying in the area at the time.

Both men are married and fathers.They had nothing to gain by theirstory, for it was bad publicity. Neitherhas tried to profit by the incident, norwere they responsible, so far as I couldlearn, for the story being given out tothe newspapers. Chiles told me hedidn't even report the incident to hissuperiors until the middle of the nextday, and that he did so then only be-cause he was worried that if the Armyhad any experimental craft flying in

May 7. l^C

those lanes it might collide with someairliner.

The high command and the research-and-development chiefs of the AirForce gave me unequivocal assurancethat nothing tested at Eglin Field,which is 130 miles to the south, pos-sibly could answer the description ofthe Chiles-Whitted object. Not eventhe slow V-1 buzz homb has beenlaunched from there within the pasttwo years, they said. They also pointedout that a guided missile does not per-form in the manner described by thetwo pilots, and that a V-2 rocket wouldtravel so fast they couldn't have seenit from their cockpit. As for aircraft,they said, maybe a wingless fuselagecould fly, but it would have to havenothing short of atomic power to lift itfrom the ground.

While the Air Force finds it difficultto believe that the heavens are popu-lated with inexplicable skimmingsaucers, diving disks, bounding balls orspooky space ships, even when the tes-timony comes from such excellent wit-nesses as pilots Chiles and Whitted, itdoes want to know about such things.

So, if you're standing out in yourback yard or flying your plane someafternoon or evening, and see one ofthese things in the sky, here is whatthe Air Force would like to have youdo: Before running for the telephoneto call your favorite newspaper, takesome mental notes on what and wherethe object is, and what it is doing. Ifpossible, try to estimate how far it isfrom you by making comparisons withsome fixed object, such as a town ormountain. If there is a mountain handy,you may be able to make some guessas to the object's altitude. Try to esti-mate its apparent angle above thehorizon; if you're viewing it from theground, hold your arm straight up —that's ninety degrees —and guess theangle of the object in relation to theninety-degree mark. Try to estimateits size; if you have a rough idea howfar you are from it, you can get a "fix"on ita size by holding up a dime —orany small object, such as the blunt endof a pencil or the tip of your thumb—and seeing how much of the object isobliterated by the dime.

Take a photograph or make a sketchif you can; if not, remember all you canabout \i& appearance and whether ithas any protuberances. Carefully noteits color and whether or not it reflectsor projects any lights. Note what ma-neuvers it engages in and what it ap-pears to be made of; whether it makesany sound, spurts flames, sparks orsmoke or gives out an odor. If it is inhorizontal flight, try to estimate it*speed by timing how long it takesto travel between two points. Noteweather and cloud conditions, and ob-serve how it disappears—whether itexplodes, fades or vanishes behindclouds. And, of course, if it is obligingenough to crash or shower down anyfragments in front of you, by all meanssecure the pieces—if they seem harm-less.

Then sit down and write a lettercontaining all this information toTechnical Intelligence Division, AirMateriel Command Headquarters,Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Day-ton, Ohio. At the same time, maybeyou'd better buttress yourself with anaflidavit from your clergyman, doctoror banker.

If you've really seen somethingand can prove it, you may scare thewits out of the United States Air Force,but it will be grateful to you.

Editors' Note—This ii the Mcond of two •rticle*by Mr. Shaictt.

Page 5: What You Can Believe - Official NICAP Web SiteWhat You Can Believe About Flying Saucers By SIDNEY SHALETT Science growls "Bunk!" But in nervous times like these tlic air-borne disk