Are Flying
Saucers Real?
J. Allen Hynek, Saturday Evening Post, 12/17/66 For years the Air Force has dismissed them as hoaxes,
hallucinations or misidentifications. Now the Air Force's own
scientific consultant on unidentified flying objects declares that many
of the sightings cannot be so easily explained.
On August 25, 1966, an Air Force officer in charge of a
missile crew in North Dakota suddenly found that his radio
transmissions was being interrupted by static. At the time, he was
sheltered in a concrete capsule 60 feet below the ground. While he was
trying to clear up the problem, other Air Force personnel on the
surface reported seeing a UFO--an unidentified flying object high in
the sky. It had a bright red light, and it appeared to be alternately
climbing and descending. Simultaneously, a radar crew on the ground
picked up the UFO at 100,000 feet.
So begins a truly puzzling UFO report--one that is not
explainable as it now stands by such familiar causes as a balloon,
aircraft, satellite or meteor. "When the UFO climbed, the static
stopped," stated the report made by the base's director of operations.
"The UFO began to swoop and dive. It then appeared to land ten to
fifteen miles south of the area. Missile-site control sent a strike
team (well-armed Air Force guards) to check. When the team was about
ten miles from the landing site, static disrupted radio contact with
them. Five to eight minutes later the glow diminished, and the UFO took
off. Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed by radar. The one
that was first sighted passed beneath the second. Radar also confirmed
this. The first made for altitude toward the north, and the second
seemed to disappear with the glow of red."
This incident, which was not picked up by the press, is
typical of the puzzling cases that I have studied during the 18 years
that I have served as the Air Force's scientific consultant on the
problem of UFO's. What makes the report especially arresting is the
fact that another incident occurred near the base a few days earlier. A
police officer--a reliable man---saw in broad daylight what he called
"an object on its edge floating down the side of a hill, wobbling from
side to side about ten feet from the ground. When it reached the valley
floor, it climbed to about one hundred feet, still tipped on its edge,
and moved across the valley to a small reservoir."
The object which was about 30 feet in diameter, next
appeared to flatten out, and a small dome became visible on top. It
hovered over the water for about a minute, then moved to a small field,
where it appeared to be landing. It did not touch the ground, however,
but hovered at a height of about 10 feet some 250 feet away from the
witness, who was standing by his parked patrol car. The object then
tilted up and disappeared rapidly into the clouds. A fantastic story,
yet I interviewed the witness in this case and am personally satisfied
that he is above reproach.
During the years that I have been its consultant, the Air
Force has consistently argued that UFO's were either hoaxes,
hallucinations or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. For the most
part I would agree with the Air Force. As a professional astronomer--I
am chairman of the department of astronomy at Northwestern
University--I have had no trouble explaining the vast majority of the
reported sightings.
But I cannot explain them all. Of the 15,000 cases that have
come to my attention, several hundred are puzzling, and some of the
puzzling incidents, perhaps one in 25, are bewildering. I have wanted
to learn much more about these cases than I have been able to get from
either the reports or the witnesses.
These special cases have been reported by highly respected,
intelligent people who often had technical training -- astronomers,
airport -tower operators, anthropologists, Air Force officer, FBI
personnel, physicians, meteorologists, pilots, radar operators, test
pilots and university professors. I have argued for years within the
Air Force that these unusual cases needed much more study than they
were getting. Now, finally, the Air Force has begun a serious
scientific investigation of the UFO phenomena. (J.C. The Colorado,
Condon Committee)
The public, I am certain, wants to know what to
believe--what can be believed--about the "flying saucer" stories that
seem to be growing more sensational all the time. With all loyalty to
the Air Force, and with a deep appreciation of its problems, I now feel
it my duty to discuss the UFO mystery fully and frankly. I speak as a
scientist with unique experience. To the best of my knowledge, I am the
only scientist who has spent nearly 20 years monitoring the UFO
situation in this and other countries and who has also read many
thousands of reports and personally interviewed many sighters of UFO's.
Getting at the truth of "flying saucers" has been
extraordinarily difficult because the subject automatically engenders
such instantaneous reactions and passionate beliefs. Nearly all of my
scientific colleagues, I regret to say, have scoffed at the reports of
UFO's as so much balderdash, although this was a most unscientific
reaction since virtually none of them had ever studied the evidence.
Until recently my friends in the physical sciences wouldn't even
discuss UFO's with me. The subject, in fact, rarely came up. My friends
were obviously mystified as to how I, a scientist, could have gotten
mixed up with "flying saucers" in the first place. It was a little as
though I had been an opera singer who had suddenly taken it into his
head to perform in a cabaret. It was all too embarrassing to bring up
in polite conversation.
While the scientists were chuckling at UFO's, a number of
groups of zealous citizens were telling the public that "flying
saucers" did indeed exist. The believers in UFO's charged the Air Force
with concealing the existence of "flying saucers" to avoid a public
panic. Since I was the Air Force's consultant, these groups accused me
of selling out as a scientist, because I did not admit that UFO's
existed. I was the Air Force's stooge., its tame astronomer, a man more
concerned with preserving his consultant's fee than with disclosing the
truth to the public.
I received many letters attacking me for not attacking the
Air Force. One typical writer pointed out that as a scientist my first
allegiance was to "fact." he went on to state, "Any person who has
closely followed the UFO story knows that many reports have been
'explained away' in a manner that can only be called ludicrous."
Another typical letter declared: "In spite of the fact that
the [Air Force} claims (or is instructed to claim) that UFO's do not
exist, I think that common sense tells most of us that they do. There
have been too many responsible people through the years that have had
terrifying experiences involving UFO's. I think our Government insults
the intelligence of our people in keeping information regarding UFO's
from them."
The question of UFO's has developed into a battle of faiths.
One side, which is dedicated to the Air Force position and backed up by
the "scientific establishment," knows that UFO's do not exist; the
other side knows that UFO's represent something completely new in human
experience. And then we have the rest of the world, the great majority
of people who if they think about the subject at all, don't know what
to think.
The question of whether or not UFO's exist should not be a
battle of faiths. It must be a subject for calm, reasoned, scientific
analysis.
In 1948, when I first heard of the UFO's, I though they were
sheer nonsense, as any scientist would have. Most of the early reports
were quite vague: "I went into the bathroom for a drink of water and
looked out of the window and saw a bright light in the sky. It was
moving up and down and sideways. When I looked again, it was gone."
At the time, I was director of the observatory at Ohio State
University in Columbus. One day I had a visit from several men from the
technical center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, which was only 60
miles away in Dayton. With some obvious embarrassment, the men
eventually brought up the subject of "flying saucers" and asked me if I
would care to serve as consultant to the Air Force on the matter.
The job didn't seem as though it would take too much time,
so I agreed. When I began reviewing cases, I assumed that there was a
natural explanation for all of the sighting--or at least there would be
if we could find out enough data about the more puzzling incidents. I
generally subscribed to the Air Force view that the sightings were the
results of misidentification, hoaxes or hallucinations.
During the next few years I had no trouble explaining or
discarding most of the cases referred to me, but a few were baffling
enough to make me wonder--cases that the Air Force would later carry as
"unidentified." Let me emphasize the point that the Air Force made up
its own mind on each case; I merely submitted an opinion. I soon found
that the Air Force had a tendency to upgrade its preliminary
explanations while compiling its yearly summaries; a "possible"
aircraft often became a "probable" aircraft. I was reminded of the
Greek legend of Procrustes, who tried to fit all men to his single bed.
If they were too long, he chopped them off; if they were too short, he
stretched them out.
Public statements to the contrary, the Air Force has never
really devoted enough money or attention to the problem of UFO's to get
to the bottom of the puzzling cases. The Air Force's UFO evaluation
program, known as "Project Blue Book," is housed in one room at
Wright-Patterson. For most of its history Project Blue Book has been
headed by a captain. This fact alone will tell anyone familiar with
military procedures the relative position of Project Blue Book on the
Air Force's organization chart. The staff, which has usually consisted
of two officers and a sergeant, has had to try to decide, on the basis
of sketchy statements, the causes of all UFO sightings reported to the
Air Force. From 1947 through 1965, Project Blue Book reviewed 10,147
cases. Using the Air Force's criteria, the project identified 9,501,
leaving over 600 that were carried as unidentified.
By 1952 my feeling that the Air Force was not investigating
the reports seriously enough led me to write a paper suggesting that
the subject deserved much closer study. In 1953 the Air Force did give
UFO's more attention, although not nearly enough, to my mind. A panel
of some of the top scientists in the country was assembled under the
direction of Howard P. Robertson, a distinguished physicist from Cal
Tech. The Robertson panel discussed UFO's for four days. Most of the
cases, incidentally, were not as puzzling as some of the ones we have
now. What was more, the panel was given only 15 reports for detailed
study out of the several hundred that had been made up to that time,
although it did quickly review many others. This was akin to asking
Madame Curie to examine a small fraction of the pitchblende she
distilled and still expecting her to come out with radium.
I was listed as an associate member of the panel, but my
role was really more that of an observer. After completing its brief
survey, the panel concluded that "the evidence presented on
unidentified flying objects showed no indication that these phenomena
constitute a direct physical threat to the national security," and that
"we firmly believe there is no residuum of cases which indicate
phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of
hostile acts, and that there is no evidence that the phenomena
indicated a need for revision of current scientific concepts." It is
interesting to note the phrase "we firmly believe," a phrase more
appropriate to the cloth than to the scientific fraternity.
The Robertson report immediately because the main
justification of the Air Force's position--there is nothing to worry
about--and it so remains to this day. I was not asked to sign the
report, but I would not have signed if I had been asked. I felt that
the question was more complicated than the panel believed and that
history might look back someday and say that the panel had acted
hastily. The men took just four days to make a judgment upon a
perplexing subject that I had studied for more than five years without
being able to solve to my satisfaction.
In 1953, the year of the Robertson report, there occurred
one of the most puzzling cases that I have studied. It was reported
first in Black Hawk, S. Dak., and then in Bismarck, N. Dak., during the
night of August 5 and the early morning of August 6. A number of
persons in Black Hawk reported seeing several strange objects in the
sky. What made these reports particularly significant was the fact that
these people were trained observers--they were part of the national
network of civilians who were keeping watch for enemy bombers.
At approximately the same time, unidentified blips showed up
on the radarscope at Ellsworth Air Force Base, which is near Black
Hawk. An airborne F-84 fighter was vectored into the area and reported
seeing the UFO's. The pilot radioed that one of the objects appeared to
be over Piedmont S. Dak., and was moving twice as fast as his jet
fighter. It was "brighter than the brightest star" he had ever seen.
When the pilot gave chase, the light "just disappeared." Five civilians
on the ground, who had watched the jet chase the light, confirmed the
pilot's report.
Later a second F-84 was sent aloft and directed toward the
UFO, which still showed on ground radar. After several minutes, the
pilot reported seeing an object with a light of varying intensity that
alternated from white to green. While the pilot was pursuing the UFO,
he noted that his gunsight light had flashed on, indicating that his
plane's radar was picking up a target. The object was directly ahead of
his aircraft but at a slightly greater altitude. It then climbed very
rapidly. When the pilot saw he was hopelessly losing ground, he broke
off the chase. Radar operators on the ground tracked the fighter coming
back from the chase, while the UFO continued on out of range of the
scope.
As the object sped off to the north, Ellsworth Air Force
Base notified the spotter's control center in Bismarck, 220 miles to
the north, where a sergeant then went out on the roof and saw a UFO.
The Air Force had no planes in Bismarck that could be sent after the
UFO, which finally disappeared later that night.
I investigated this reported sighting myself and was unable
to find a satisfactory explanation. In my report, I noted that "the
entire incident, in my opinion, has too much of an Alice in Wonderland
flavor for comfort."
It was about this time that some firm believers in UFO's
became disgusted with the Air Force and decided to take matters into
their own hands, much like the vigilantes of the Old West; they
organized "to do the job the Air Force was mishandling." These groups
composed of people with assorted backgrounds, were often the recipients
of intriguing reports that never came to the official attention of
Project Blue Book. The first group of this kind in the United States
was the APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), founded in 1952
and still going strong, as is NICAP (National Investigations Committee
on Aerial Phenomena) which was organized several years later.
As the years went by, I learned more and more about the
global nature of UFO sightings. At first I had assumed that it was a
purely American phenomenon, like swallowing goldfish. But reports of
sightings kept coming in from around the world until 70 countries were
on the list. As a scientist, I naturally was interested in correlating
all of the data; a zoologist studying red ants in Utah, say, wants to
find out about a new species found along the Amazon. But when I
suggested to the Air Force that the air attaches abroad be used to
gather reports on foreign sightings, I was turned down. No one in a
position of authority seemed to want to take up the time of the
officers with such an embarrassing subject.
Gradually, I began to accumulate cases that I really
couldn't explain, cases reported by reliable, sincere people whom I
often interviewed in person. I found that the persons making these
reports were often not acquainted with UFO's before their experience,
which baffled and thoroughly frightened them. Fearing ridicule, they
were often reluctant to report the sighting and did so only out of a
sense of duty and a tremendous desire to get a rational explanation for
their irrational experience. One typical letter to me concluded with
the sentence: "Hoping you don't think I'm nuts but not caring if you
do, Sincerely," . . .
Continued in "Hynek 12/17/66 Sat. Eve. Post article.2" Hynek
12/17/66 Sat. Eve. Post article - Pt. 2
ARE FLYING SAUCERS REAL? - continued By J. Allen Hynek
We had many reports from people of good repute, yet we had
no scientifically incontrovertible evidence--authenticated movies,
spectrograms of reported lights, "hardware"--on which to make a
judgment. There are no properly authenticated photographs to match any
of the vivid prose descriptions of visual sightings. Some of the
purported "photographs" are patent hoaxes. Others show little detail;
they could be anything. Some show a considerable amount of detail, but
cannot be substantiated.
The evidence for UFO's, then, was entirely without physical
proof. But were all of the responsible citizens who made reports
mistaken or victims of hallucinations? It was an intriguing scientific
question, yet I couldn't find any scientists to discuss it with.
The general view of the scientists was that UFO's couldn't
exist, therefore they didn't exist, therefore let's laugh off the idea.
This, of course, is a violation of scientific principles, but the
history of science is filled with such instances. Some scientists
refused to look through Galileo's telescope at sunspots, explaining
that "since the sun was perfect, it couldn't have spots, and therefore
it was no use looking for them." Other scientists refused to believe in
the existence of meteorites; who would be foolish enough to think that
a stone could fall from the sky?
>From time to time I would urge the Air Force to make a
more thorough study of the phenomenon, but nothing ever came of it. I
began to feel a very real sense of frustration. As the years went by, I
continued to find cases that puzzled me while I examined reports for
Project Blue Book. People who were afraid that the Air Force would
scoff at their reports began sending me letters that were often
detailed and well written about their experiences. The Air Force never
attempted to influence my view on any case, but occasionally the
service would disregard my evaluations. What was more, I was not
consulted on some key cases. (One of the most recent was the
well-publicized incident involving two policemen in Ravenna, Ohio, last
spring.)
Then, from 1958 through 1963, the UFO reports began to
diminish in quality as well as quantity, and I felt that perhaps the
"flying-saucer" era was at last on the wane and would soon vanish. But
since 1964 there has been a sharp rally in the number of puzzling
sightings. The more impressive cases seem to fit into a pattern. The
UFO's had a bright red glow. They hovered a few feet off the ground,
emitting a high-pitched whine. Animals in the vicinity were terrified,
often before the UFO's became visible to the people who later reported
the incident. When the objects at last began to disappear, they
vanished in a matter of seconds.
A very real paradox was now beginning to develop. As the Air
Force's consultant, I was acquiring a reputation in the public eye of
being a debunker of UFO's. Yet, privately, I was becoming more and more
concerned over the fact that people with good reputations, who had no
possible hope of gain from reporting a UFO, continued to describe
"out-of-this-world" incidents.
In July, 1965, I wrote a letter to the Air Force calling
again for a systematic study of the phenomenon. "I feel it is my
responsibility to point out," I said, "that enough puzzling sightings
have been reported by intelligent and often technically competent
people to warrant closer attention than Project Blue Book can possible
encompass at the present time."
Then, in March of this year, came the reports of the
now-celebrated "swamp-gas" sightings in Michigan. On two separate
nights, at spots separated by 63 miles, nearly 100 people reported
seeing red, yellow, and green lights glowing over swampy areas. When I
received the first accounts of the UFO's, I recognized at once that my
files held far better, more coherent and more articulate reports than
these. Even so, the incident was receiving such great attention in the
press that I went to Michigan with the hope that here was a case that I
could use to focus scientific attention on the UFO problem. I wanted
the scientists to consider the phenomenon.
But when I arrived in Michigan, I soon discovered that the
situation was so charged with emotion that it was impossible for me to
do any really serious investigation. The Air Force left me almost
completely on my own, which meant that I sometimes had to fight my way
through the clusters of reporters who were surrounding the key
witnesses whom I had to interview.
The entire region was gripped with near-hysteria. One night
at midnight I found myself in a police car racing toward a reported
sighting. We had radio contact with other squad cars in the area. "I
see it" from one car, "there it is" from another, "it's east of the
river near Dexter" from a third. Occasionally even I thought I glimpsed
"it."
Finally several squad cars met at an intersection. Men
spilled out and pointed excitedly at the sky. "See--there it is! It's
moving!"
But it wasn't moving. "It" was the star Arcturus, undeniably
identified by its position in relation to the handle of the Big Dipper.
A sobering demonstration for me.
In the midst of this confusion, I got a message from the Air
Force: There would be a press conference, and I would issue a statement
about the cause of the sightings. It did me no good to protest, to say
that as yet I had no real idea what had caused the reported sightings
in the swamps. I was to have a press conference, ready or not.
Searching for a justifiable explanation of the sightings, I
remembered a phone call from a botanist at the University of Michigan,
who called to my attention the phenomenon of burning "swamp gas." This
gas, caused by decaying vegetation, has been known to ignite
spontaneously and to cast a flickering light. The glow is well-known in
song and story as "jack-o'-lantern," "fox fire," and "wil-o'-the-wisp."
After learning more about swamp gas from other Michigan scientists, I
decided that it was a "possible" explanation that I would offer to the
reporters.
The press conference, however, turned out to be no place for
scholarly discussion: it was a circus. The TV cameramen wanted me in
one spot, the newspaper men wanted me in another, and for a while both
groups were actually tugging at me. Everyone was clamoring for a
single, spectacular explanation of the sightings. They wanted little
green men. When I handed out a statement that discussed swamp gas, many
of the men simply ignored the fact that I said it was a "possible"
reason. I watched with horror as one reported scanned the page, found
the phrase "swamp gas," underlined it, and rushed for a telephone.
Too many of the stories the next day not only said that
swamp gas was definitely the cause of the Michigan lights but implied
that it was the cause of other UFO sightings as well. I got out of town
as quickly and as quietly as I could.
I supposed that the swamp-gas incident, which has become a
subject fro cartoons that I greatly enjoy, was the low point of my
association with UFO's. The experience was very obvious proof that
public excitement had mounted to the point that it was ridiculous to
expect one professor, working alone in the field, to conduct a
scholarly investigation. We had quite clearly reached a new state in
the UFO problem.
Three weeks after the Michigan incident I appeared before a
hearing into UFO's that was conducted by the House Committee on Armed
Services. I pointed out to the committee that I had a dossier of
"twenty particularly well-reported UFO cases which, despite the
character, technical competence and number of witnesses, I have not
been able to explain. Ten of these reports were made by scientists or
by highly trained individuals, five were made by members of the armed
services or police, and five were made by other reliable people. The
committee urged the Air Force to give continued attention to the
subject and was assured by Air Secretary Dr. Harold Brown that it would.
A serious inquiry into the nature of UFO's would be
justified, in my opinion, just on the basis of the puzzling cases that
have been reported during the last two years. It seems to me that there
are now four possible explanations for the phenomena:
First, they are utter nonsense, the result of hoaxes or
hallucinations. This, of course, is the view that a number of my
scientific colleagues have taken. I think that enough evidence has
piled up to shift the burden of proof to the critics who cry fraud. And
if the UFO's are merely hallucinations, they still deserve intensive
study; we need to learn how the minds of so many men so widely
separated can be so deluded over so many years.
Second, the UFO's are some kind of military weapon being
tested in secret. This theory is easily dispensed with. Secret devices
are usually tested in very limited geographical areas. Why should the
United States, or any other country, test them in scores of nations?
The problem of preventing a security leak would be impossible.
Third, the UFO's are really from outer space. I agree with
the Air Force. There is no incontrovertible evidence, as far as I can
see, to say that we have strange visitors. But it would be foolish to
rule out the possibility absolutely.
Solely for the sake of argument, let me state the case in
its most favorable light. We all suffer from cosmic provincialism--the
notion that we on this earth are somehow unique. Why should our sun be
the only star in the universe to support intelligent life, when the
number of stars is a 1 followed by twenty zeros?
Stars are born, grow old and die, and it now seems that the
formation of planetary systems is part of this evolutionary process.
You would expect to find planets around a star just as you find kittens
around a cat or acorns around an oak. Suppose that only one star in 10
is circled by a planetary system that has life; that means that the
number of life-supporting stars in the universe would be a 1 followed
by 19 zeros.
We also know that some stars are many millions of year older
than our sun, which means that life elsewhere in the universe may have
evolved many millions of years beyond our present state. That could
mean that other planets in other solar systems may have solved the
problem of aging, which we are beginning to grapple with even now. If a
life span reached 10,000 years, let us say, a space journey of 200 to
300 years would be relatively short. In that time it would be possible
to get from some distant planetary systems to ours.
A highly advanced civilization, such as the one I am
postulating, would naturally keep an eye on the progress of life
elsewhere in its galaxy. Any signs of unusual scientific progress might
be reason enough to send a reconnaissance vehicle to find out what was
going on. It so happens that in recent years we have made a very
important advance of this kind; the development of the use of nuclear
energy.
This is still "science fiction," of course, but let me take
the story a step further. Some skeptics who scoff at reported UFO
sightings often ask why the "flying saucers" don't try to communicate
with us. One answer might be; Why should they? We wouldn't try to
communicate with a new species of kangaroo we might find in Australia;
we would just observe the animals.
Is there any connection between the reported UFO sightings
and the scientific probability of life elsewhere in our galaxy? I don't
know. I find no compelling evidence for it, but I don't rule it out
automatically.
The fourth possible explanation of UFO's is that we are
dealing with some kind of natural phenomenon that we as yet cannot
explain or even conceive of. Think how our knowledge of the universe
has changed in 100 years. In 1866 we not only knew nothing about
nuclear energy, we didn't even know that the atom had a nucleus. Who
would have dreamed 100 years ago that television would be invented? Who
can say what startling facts we will learn about our world in the next
100 years?
All of these possibilities deserve serious consideration and
now, at long last, they will get it. In October the Air Force announced
that a thorough investigation of UFO's will be conducted at the
University of Colorado by a team of distinguished scientists, headed by
Dr. Edward Condon, the former director of the National Bureau of
Standards.
I cannot help but feel a small sense of personal triumph and
vindication. The night the appointment was announced, my wife and I
went out and had a few drinks to celebrate.
I am particularly pleased that the Condon committee will
have time to work into the problem because I cannot consider anyone
qualified to speak authoritatively on the total UFO phenomenon unless
he has read at least a few thousand original (not summarized) reports,
and is thoroughly acquainted with the global nature of reported UFO
sightings. The truly puzzling and outstanding UFO reports are few in
number compared to the welter of poor reports.
Recently I had dinner with several members of the Condon
committee. What a pleasure it was to sit down with men who were
open-minded about UFO's, who did not look at me as though I were a
Martian myself. For the first time other scientists, who apparently
have been wondering all along, have openly talked about the reports.
One leading scientist wrote me the other day: "For some time now I have
been convinced of the reality of this phenomenon based on reports in
the general news media. It has seemed to me that even with a heavy
discount there is a core of reliable observations which we cannot shrug
off. Twice in recent weeks I have stated my views on the subject in
small conversational groups of respectable, scholarly friends, and
found that they were amazed that I should take these matters seriously.
So I know that it took some courage for you to speak out."
I would like to suggest two more steps to help solve the UFO
problem:
First of all the valuable data that we have
accumulated--good reports from all over the world--must be computerized
so that we can rapidly compare new sightings with old and trace
patterns of UFO behavior.
Second, we need good photographs of UFO's. Although the Air
Force has probably spent less on UFO's so far than it has on
wastebaskets. I realize that it is impractical to expect the service to
set up a costly "flying-saucer" surveillance system across the country.
When a UFO is spotted, the terrified witness usually picks up the phone
at once and calls the local police, who have missed dozens of
opportunities in the past to record the phenomena on film. I recommend
that every police chief in the country make sure that at least one of
his squad cars carries in its glove compartment a camera loaded with
color film. The cameras, which could also be used for regular police
work, might be furnished by civic or service groups. (I carry a camera
in my briefcase at all times.)
Finally, I would like to emphasize my views on a
controversial subject. During all of my years of association with the
Air Force, I have never seen any evidence for the charge about UFO's
most often leveled against the service: that there is deliberate
cover-up of knowledge of space visitors to prevent the public from
panicking. The entire history of the Air Force and the UFO's can be
understood only if we realize that the Pentagon has never believed that
UFO's could be anything novel, and it still doesn't. The working
hypothesis of the Air Force has been that the stimulus behind every UFO
report (apart from out and out hoaxes and a few hallucinations) is a
misidentification of a conventional object or a natural phenomenon. It
is just as simple as that.
<>Now after a delay of 18 years, the Air Force and American science are about to try for the first time, really, to discover what, if anything we can believe about "flying saucers." > |