The Flying Saucers are Real | Page 3

obviously greater than the Air Force had
expected. Within twenty-four hours the Pentagon was deluged with
telegrams, letters, and long-distance calls. Apparently fearing a panic,
the Air Force hastily stated that flying-saucer reports--even those made
by its own pilots and high-ranking officers--were mistakes or were
caused by hysteria.[1]
But three days later, when it was plain that many Americans calmly
accepted True's disclosures, the Air Force released a secret project
"Saucer" file containing this significant statement:
"It will never be possible to say with certainty that any individual did
not see a space ship, an enemy missile or other object."
In this same document there appears a confidential analysis of Air
intelligence reports.[2] It is this summary that contains the official
suggestion Of. space visitors' motives. After stating that such a
civilization would obviously be far ahead of our own, the report adds:
"Since the acts of mankind most easily observed from a distance are
A-bomb explosions, we should expect some relation to obtain between
the time of the A-bomb explosions, the time at which the space ships
are seen, and the time required for such ships to arrive from and return
to home base."
(In a previous report, which alternately warned and reassured the public,
the Air Force stated that space travel outside the solar system is almost
a certainty.[3])
Since 1949 there has been a steady increase in saucer sightings. Most of
them have been authentic reports, which Air Force denials cannot
disprove. In January, mystery
[1. Air Force press release 629-49, December 27, 1949.
2. Air Force Project "Saucer" December 30, 1949.

3. Air Force report M-26-49, Preliminary Studies on Flying saucers,
April 27, 1949.]
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disks were reported over Kentucky, Indiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, and
several other states. On the Seattle Anchorage route, an air freighter
was paced for five minutes by a night-flying saucer. When the pilots
tried to close in, the strange craft zoomed at terrific speed. Later, the
airline head reported that Intelligence officers had quizzed the pilots for
hours.
"From their questions," he said, "I could tell they had a good idea of
what the saucers are. One officer admitted they did, but he wouldn't say
any more."
Another peculiar incident occurred at Tucson, Arizona, on February 1.
Just at dusk, a weird, fiery object raced westward over the city,
astonishing hundreds in the streets below. The Tucson Daily Citizen
ran the story next day with a double-banner headline:
FLYING SAUCER OVER TUCSON?
B-29 FAILS TO CATCH OBJECT
Flying saucer? Secret experimental plane? Or perhaps a scout craft
from Mars? Certainly the strange aircraft that blazed a smoke trail over
Tucson at dusk last night defies logical explanation. It was as
mystifying to experienced pilots as to groundlings who have trouble in
identifying conventional planes. Cannonballing through the sky, some
30,000 feet aloft, was a fiery object shooting westward so fast it was
impossible to gain any clear impression of its shape or size. . . . At what
must have been top speed the object spewed out light colored smoke,
but almost directly over Tucson it appeared to hover for a few seconds.
The smoke puffed out an angry black and then be came lighter as the
strange missile appeared to gain speed"
The radio operator in the Davis-Monthan air force base control tower

contacted First Lt. Roy L. Jones, taking off for a cross-country flight in
a B-29, and asked him to investigate. Jones revved up his swift aerial
tanker and still the unknown aircraft steadily pulled away toward
California. Dr. Edwin F. Carpenter, head of the University of
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Arizona department of astronomy, said he was certain that the object
was not a meteor or other natural phenomenon. . . . Switchboards
Swamped Switchboards at the Pima county sheriff's office and Tucson
police station were jammed with inquiries. Hundreds saw the object.
Tom Bailey, 1411 E. 10th Street, thought it was a large airplane on fire.
[A later check showed no planes missing.] He said it wavered from left
to right as it passed over the mountains. Bailey also noticed that the
craft appeared to slow perceptibly over Tucson. He said the smoke
apparently came out in a thin, almost invisible stream, gaining
substance within a few seconds.
This incident had an odd sequel the following day. Its significance was
not lost on the Daily Citizen. It ran another front-page story, headlined:
WHAT DO YOU MEAN ONLY VAPOR TRAIL?
As though to prove itself blameless for tilting hundreds of Tucson
heads skyward, the U.S. Air Force yesterday afternoon spent hours
etching vapor trails through the skies over the city. The demonstration
proved conclusively to the satisfaction of most that the strange path of
dark smoke blazed across the evening sky at dusk Wednesday was no
vapor trail and did not