The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects | Page 2

the one word, _proof_; so the UFO investigations continue.
The hassle over the word "proof" boils down to one question: What
constitutes proof? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the
Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a
ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet
pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak
away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO
and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does this
constitute proof?
The at times hotly debated answer to this question may be the answer
to the question, "Do the UFO's really exist?"
I'll give you the facts--all of the facts--you decide.
July _1955_, E. J. RUPPELT
CHAPTER ONE
Project Blue Book and the UFO Story
In the summer of 1952 a United States Air Force F-86 jet interceptor
shot at a flying saucer.
This fact, like so many others that make up the full flying saucer story,
has never before been told.
I know the full story about flying saucers and I know that it has never
before been told because I organized and was chief of the Air Force's
Project Blue Book, the special project set up to investigate and analyze
unidentified flying object, or UFO, reports. (UFO is the official term

that I created to replace the words "flying saucers.")
There is a fighter base in the United States which I used to visit
frequently because, during 1951, 1952, and 1953, it got more than its
share of good UFO reports.
The commanding officer of the fighter group, a full colonel and
command pilot, believed that UFO's were real. The colonel believed in
UFO's because he had a lot of faith in his pilots--and they had chased
UFO's in their F-86's. He had seen UFO's on the scopes of his radar sets,
and he knew radar.
The colonel's intelligence officer, a captain, didn't exactly believe that
UFO's were real, but he did think that they warranted careful
investigation. The logic the intelligence officer used in investigating
UFO reports--and in getting answers to many of them-- made me wish
many times that he worked for me on Project Blue Book.
One day the intelligence officer called me at my base in Dayton, Ohio.
He wanted to know if I was planning to make a trip his way soon.
When I told him I expected to be in his area in about a week, he asked
me to be sure to look him up. There was no special hurry, he added, but
he had something very interesting to show me.
When we got wind of a good story, Project Blue Book liked to start
working on it at once, so I asked the intelligence officer to tell me what
he had. But nothing doing. He didn't want to discuss it over the phone.
He even vetoed the idea of putting it into a secret wire. Such extreme
caution really stopped me, because anything can be coded and put in a
wire.
When I left Dayton about a week later I decided to go straight to the
fighter base, planning to arrive there in midmorning. But while I was
changing airlines my reservations got fouled up, and I was faced with
waiting until evening to get to the base. I called the intelligence officer
and told him about the mix-up. He told me to hang on right there and
he would fly over and pick me up in a T-33 jet.

As soon as we were in the air, on the return trip, I called the
intelligence officer on the interphone and asked him what was going on.
What did he have? Why all the mystery? He tried to tell me, but the
interphone wasn't working too well and I couldn't understand what he
was saying. Finally he told me to wait until we returned to his office
and I could read the report myself.
Report! If he had a UFO report why hadn't he sent it in to Project Blue
Book as he usually did?
We landed at the fighter base, checked in our parachutes, Mae Wests,
and helmets, and drove over to his office. There were several other
people in the office, and they greeted me with the usual question,
"What's new on the flying saucer front?" I talked with them for a while,
but was getting impatient to find out what was on the intelligence
officer's mind. I was just about to ask him about the mysterious report
when he took me to one side and quietly asked me not to mention it
until everybody had gone.
Once we were alone, the