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BEFORE my date with Redell, I went over all the material I had, hoping to find some clue to the space visitors' planet. It was possible, of course, that there was more than one planet involved.

Project "Saucer" had discussed the possibilities in it! report of April 27, 1949. I read over this section again:

Since flying saucers first hit the headlines almost two years ago, there has been wide speculation that the aerial phenomena might actually be some form of penetration from another planet.

Actually, astronomers are largely in agreement that only one member of the solar system beside Earth is capable of supporting life. That is Mars. Even Mars, however, appears to be relatively desolate and inhospitable, so that a Martian race would be more occupied with survival than we are on Earth.

On Mars, there exists an excessively slow loss of atmosphere, oxygen and water, against which intelligent beings, if they do exist there, may have protected themselves by scientific control of physical conditions. This might have been done, scientists speculate, by the construction of homes and cities underground where the atmospheric pressure would be greater and thus temperature extremes reduced. The other possibilities exist, of course, that evolution may have developed a being who can withstand the rigors of the Martian climate, or that the race--if it ever did exist--has perished.

In other words, the existence of intelligent life on Mars, where the rare atmosphere is nearly devoid of oxygen and water and where the nights are much colder than our Arctic winters, is not impossible but is completely unproven.

The possibility of intelligent life also existing on the planet Venus is not considered completely unreasonable

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by astronomers. The atmosphere of Venus apparently consists mostly of carbon dioxide with deep clouds of formaldehyde droplets, and there seems to be little or no water. Yet, scientists concede that living organisms might develop in chemical environments which are strange to us. Venus, however, has two handicaps. Her mass and gravity are nearly as large as the Earth (Mars is smaller) and her cloudy atmosphere would discourage astronomy, hence space travel.

The last argument, I thought, did not have too much weight. We were planning to escape the earth's gravity; Martians could do the same, with their planet. As for the cloudy atmosphere, they could have developed some system of radio or radar investigation of the universe. The Navy research units, I knew, were probing the far-off Crab nebula in the Milky Way with special radio devices. This same method, or something far superior, could have been developed on Venus, or other planets surrounded by constant clouds.

After the discussion of solar-system planets, the Project "Saucer" report went on to other star systems:

Outside the solar system other stars--22 in number--have satellite planets. Our sun has nine. One of these, the Earth, is ideal for existence of intelligent life. On two others there is a possibility of life.

Therefore, astronomers believe reasonable the thesis that there could be at least one ideally habitable planet for each of the 22 other eligible stars.

(After publication of our findings in True, several astronomers said that many planets may be inhabited. One of these was Dr. Carl F. von Weizacker, noted University of Chicago physicist. On January 10, 1950, Dr. von Weizacker stated: "Billions upon billions of stars found in the heavens may each have their own planets revolving about them. It is possible that these planets would have plant and animal life on them similar to the earth's.")

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After narrowing the eligible stars down to twenty-two the Project "Saucer" report goes on:

The theory is also employed that man represents the average in advancement and development. Therefore, one-half the other habitable planets would be behind man in development, and the other half ahead. It is also assumed that any visiting race could be expected to be far in advance of man. Thus, the chance of space travelers existing at planets attached to neighboring stars is very much greater than the chance of space-traveling Martians. The one can be viewed as almost a certainty (if you accept the thesis that the number of inhabited planets is equal to those that are suitable for life and that intelligent life is not peculiar to the Earth) ."

The most likely star was Wolf 359--eight light-years away. I thought for a minute about traveling that vast distance. It was almost appalling, considered in terms of man's life span. Of course, dwellers on other planets might live much longer.

If the speed of light was not an absolute limit, almost any space journey would then be possible. Since there would be no resistance in outer space, it would be simply a matter of using rocket power in the first stages to accelerate to the maximum speed desired. In the latter phase, the rocket's drive would have to be reversed, to decelerate for the landing.

The night before my appointment with Redell, I was checking a case report when the phone rang. It was John Steele.

"Are you still working on the saucers?" he asked. "If you are, I have a suggestion--something that might be a real lead."

"I could use a lead right now," I told him.

"I can't give you the source, but it's one I consider reliable," said Steele. "This man says the disks are British developments."

This was a new one. I hadn't considered the British. Steele talked for over half an hour, expanding the idea.

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The saucers, his informant said, were rotating disks with cambered surfaces--originally a Nazi device. Near the end of the war, the British had seized all the models, along with the German technicians and scientists who had worked on the project.

The first British types had been developed secretly in England, according to this account. But the first tests showed a dangerous lack of control; the disks streaked up to high altitudes, hurtling without direction. Some had been seen over the Atlantic, some in Turkey, Spain, and other parts of Europe.

The British then had shifted operations to Australia, where a guided-missile test range had been set up. (This part, I knew, could be true; there was such a range.) After improving their remote-control system, which used both radio and radar, they had built disks up to a hundred feet in diameter. These were launched out over the Pacific, the first ones straight eastward over open sea. British destroyers were stationed at 100-mile and later 500-mile intervals, to track the missiles by radar and correct their courses. At a set time, when their fuel was almost exhausted, the disks came down vertically and landed in the ocean. Since part of the device was sealed, the disks would float; then a special launching ship would hoist them abroad, refuel them, and launch them back toward a remote base in Australia, where they were landed by remote control.

Since then, Steele said, the disks' range and speed had been greatly increased. The first tests of the new disks was in the spring of 1947, his informant had told him. The British had rushed the project, because of Soviet Russia's menacing attitude. Their only defense in England, the British knew, would be some powerful guided missile that could destroy Soviet bases after the first attack.

In order to check the range and speeds accurately, it was necessary to have observers in the Western Hemisphere--the disks were now traversing the Pacific. The ideal test range, the British decided, was one extending over Canada, where the disks could be tracked and even landed,

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If the account was right, said Steele, a base had been set up in the desolate Hudson Bay country. Special radar-tracking stations had also been established, to guide the missiles toward Australia and vessels at sea. These stations also helped to bring in missiles from Australia.

Some of the disk missiles were supposed to have been launched from a British island in the South Pacific; others came all the way from Australia. Still others were believed to have been launched by a mother ship stationed between the Galapagos Islands and Pitcairn.

It was these new disks that had been seen in the United States, Alaska, Canada, and Latin America, Steele's informant had told him. At first, the sightings were due to imperfect controls; the disks sometimes failed to keep their altitude, partly because of conflicting radio and radar beams from the countries below. Responding to some of these mixed signals, Steele said, the disks had been known to reverse course, hover or descend over radar and radio stations, or circle around at high speeds until their own control system picked them up again.

For this reason, the British had arranged a simple detonator system, operated either by remote control or automatically under certain conditions. In this way, no disk would crash over land, with the danger of hitting a populated area. If it descended below a certain altitude, the disk would automatically speed up its rotation, then explode at a high altitude. When radar trackers saw that a disk was off course and could not be realigned, the nearest station then sent a special signal to activate the detonator system. This was always done, Steele had been told, when a disk headed toward Siberia; there had previously been a few cases when Australian-launched disks had got away from controllers and appeared over Europe.

I listened to Steele's account with mixed astonishment and suspicion. It sounded like a pipe dream; but if it was, it had been carefully thought out, especially the details that followed.

At first, Steele said, American defense officials had been completely baffled by the disk reports. Then the British, learning about the sightings, had hastily explained to top-level American officials. An agreement had been

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worked out. We were to have the benefit of their research and testing and working models, in return for helping to conceal the secret. We were also to aid in tracking and controlling the missiles when they passed over this country.

"And I gather we paid in other ways," Steele said. "My source says this played a big part in increasing our aid to Britain, including certain atomic secrets."

That could make sense. Sharing such a secret would be worth all the money and supplies we had poured into England. If America and Great Britain both had a superior long-range missile, it would be the biggest factor I knew for holding off war. But the long ranges involved in Steele's explanation made the thing incredible.

"How are they powered? What fuel do they use?" I asked him.

"That's the one thing I couldn't get," said Steele. "This man told me it was the most carefully guarded secret of all. They've tapped a new source of power."

"If he means atomic engines," I said, "I don't believe it. I don't think anyone is that far along."

"No, no," Steele said earnestly, "he said it wasn't that. And the rest of the story hangs together."

Privately, I thought of two or three holes, but I let that go.

"If it's British," I said, "do you think we should even hint at it?"

"I don't see any harm," Steele answered. "The Russians undoubtedly know the truth. They have agents everywhere. It might do a lot of good for American-British relations. Anyway, it would offset any fear that the saucers are Soviet weapons."

"Then you're not worried about that angle any more?"

Steele laughed. "No, but it had me going for a while. It was a big relief to find out the disks are British."

"What's the disks' ceiling?" I asked, abruptly.

"Oh--sixty thousand feet, at least," said Steele. After a moment he added quickly, "That's just a guess--they probably operate much higher. I didn't think to ask."

Before I hung up, he asked me what I thought, of the British explanation.

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"It's certainly more plausible than the Soviet idea," I said. I thanked him for calling me, and put down the phone. I was tempted to point out the flaws in his story. But I didn't.

If he was sincere, it would be poor thanks for what he had told me. If he was trying to plant a fake explanation, it wouldn't hurt to let him think I'd swallowed it. When I saw Redell, I told him about Steele.

"It does look like an attempt to steer you away from the interplanetary answer," Redell agreed, "though he may be passing on a tip he believes."

"You think there could be any truth in the British story?"

"Would the British risk a hundred-foot disk crashing in some American city?" said Redell. "No remote control is perfect, and neither is a detonator system. By some freak accident, a disk might come down in a place like Chicago, and then blow up. I just can't see the British--any more than ourselves--letting huge unpiloted missiles go barging around the world, flying along airways and over cities. Certainly, they could have automatic devices to make them veer away from airliners--but what if a circuit failed?"

"I go along with that," I said.

"I don't say the British don't have some long-range missiles," Redell broke in. "Every big nation has a guided-missile project. But no guided missile on earth can explain the Mantell case and the others we've discussed."

I showed him the material I had on the Nazi disk experiments. Redell skimmed through it and nodded.

"I can tell you a little more," he said. "Some top Nazi scientists were convinced we were being observed by space visitors. They'd searched all the old reports. Some sighting over Germany set them off about 1940. That's what I was told. I think that's where they first got the idea of trying out oval and circular airfoils.

"Up to then, nobody was interested. The rotation idea uses the same principle as the helicopter, but nobody had even followed that through. The Nazis went to work on the disks. They also began to rush space-exploration plans--the orbiting satellite idea. I think they realized these

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space ships were using some great source of power we hadn't discovered on earth. I believe that's what they were after--that power secret. If they'd succeeded, they'd have owned the world. As it was, that space project caused them to leap ahead of everybody with rockets."

When I asked Redell how he thought the space ships were powered, he shrugged.

"Probably cosmic rays hold the answer. Their power would be even greater than atomic power. There's another source I've heard mentioned, but most people scoff at it. That's the use of electromagnetic fields in space. The earth has its magnetic field, of course, and so does the sun. Probably all planets do.

"There's a man named Fernand Roussel who wrote a book called The Unifying Principle of Physical Phenomena, about 1943. He goes into the electromagnetic-field theory. If he's right, then there must be some way to tap this force and go from one planet to another without using any fuel. You'd use your first planet's magnetic field to start you off and then coast through space until you got into the field of the next planet. At least, that's how I understand it. But you'd be safer sticking to atomic power. That's been proved."

Most of our conversations had been keyed to the technical side of the flying-saucer problem. But before I left this time, I asked Redell how the thought of space visitors affected him.

"Oh, at first I had a queer feeling about it," he answered. "But once you accept it, it's like anything else. You get used to the idea."

"One thing bothers me," I said. "When I try to picture them, I keep remembering the crazy-looking things in some of the comics. What do you suppose they're really like?"

"I've thought about it for months." Redell slowly shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea."

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THAT EVENING, after my talk with Redell, the question kept coming back in my mind.

What were they like? And what were they doing here?

From the long record of sightings, it was possible to get an answer to the second question. Observation of the earth followed a general pattern. According to the reports, Europe, the most populated area, had been more closely observed than the rest of the globe until about 1870. By this time, the United States, beginning to rival Europe in industrial progress, had evidently become of interest to the space-ship crews.

From then on, Europe and the Western Hemisphere, chiefly North America, shared the observers' attention. The few sightings reported at other points around the world indicate an occasional check-up on the earth in general. Apparently World War I had not greatly concerned the space observers. One reason might be that our aerial operations were still at a relatively low altitude.

But World War II had drawn more attention, and this had obviously increased from 1947 up to the present time. Our atomic-bomb explosions and the V-2 high-altitude experiments might be only coincidence, but I could think of no other development that might seriously concern dwellers on other planets.

It was a strange thing to think of some far-off race keeping track of the earth's progress. If Redell was right, it might even have started in prehistoric time; a brief survey, perhaps once a century or even further spaced, then gradually more frequent observation as cities appeared on the earth.

Somewhere on a distant planet there would be records of that long survey. I wondered how our development would appear to that far-advanced race. They would have seen the slow sailing ships, the first steamships, the lines of steel tracks that carried our first trains.

Watching for our first aircraft, they would see the drifting balloons that seemed an aerial miracle when the

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Montgolfiers first succeeded. More than a century later, they would have noted the slow, clumsy airplanes of the early 1900's. From our gradual progress to the big planes and bombers of today, they could probably chart our next steps toward the stratosphere--and then space.

During the last two centuries, they would have watched a dozen wars, each one fiercer than the last, spreading over the globe. Adding up all the things they had seen, they could draw an accurate picture of man, the earth creature, and the increasingly fierce struggle between the earth races.

The long survey held no sign of menace. If there had been a guiding purpose of attack and destruction, it could have been carried out years ago. It was almost certain that any planet race able to traverse space would have the means for attack.

More than once, during this investigation, I had been asked: "If the saucers are interplanetary, why haven't they landed here? Why haven't their crews tried to make contact with us?"

There was always the possibility that the planet race or races could not survive on earth, or that their communications did not include the methods that we used. But I found that hard to believe. Such a superior race would certainly be able to master our radio operations, or anything else that we had developed, in a fairly short time. And it should be equally simple to devise some means of survival on earth, just as we were already planning special suits and helmets for existence on the moon. During a talk with a former Intelligence officer, I got a key to the probable explanation.

"Why don't you just reverse it--list what we intend to do when we start exploring space? That'll give you the approximate picture of what visitors to the earth would be doing."

Naturally, all the details of space plans have not been worked out, but the general plan is clear. After the first successful earth satellites, we will either attempt a space base farther out or else launch a moon rocket. Probably many round trips to the moon will be made before going farther in space.

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Which planet will be explored first, after the moon?

According to Air Force reports, it is almost a certainty that planets outside the solar system are inhabited. But because of the vast distances involved, expeditions to our neighboring planets may be tried before the more formidable journeys. More than one prominent astronomer believes that life, entirely different from our own, may exist on some solar planets. Besides Mars, Jupiter, and Venus, there are five more that, like the earth, revolve around the sun.

One of the prominent authorities is Dr. H. Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal. In his book Life on Other Worlds, Dr. Jones points out that everything about us is the result of changing processes, begun millenniums ago and still going on. We cannot define life solely in our own terms; it can exist in unfamiliar forms.

"It is conceivable," Dr. Jones states in his book, "that we could have beings, the cells of whose bodies contained silicon instead of the carbon which is an essential constituent of our cells and of all other living cells on the earth. And that because of this essential difference between the constitution of those cells and the cells of which animal and plant life on the earth are built up, they might be able to exist at temperatures so high that no terrestrial types of life could survive."

According to Dr. Jones, then, life could be possible on worlds hotter and drier than ours; it could also exist on a very much colder one, such as Mars.

Even if a survey of the sun's planets proved fruitless, it would decide the question of their being populated. Also, it would provide valuable experience for the much longer journeys into space.

No one expects such a survey until we have a space vehicle able to make the round trip. One-way trips would tell us nothing, even if volunteers offered to make such suicidal journeys.

The most probable step will be to launch a space vehicle equipped with supplies for a long time, perhaps a year or two, within the solar system. Since Mars has been frequently mentioned as a source of the flying

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saucers, let's assume it would be the first solar-system planet to be explored from the earth.

As the space ship neared Mars, it could be turned to circle the planet in an orbit, just like our planned earth satellite vehicle. Once in this orbit, it could circle indefinitely without using fuel except to correct its course.

From this space base, unmanned remote-control "observer" units with television "eyes" or other transmitters would be sent down to survey the planet at close range. If it then seemed fairly safe, a manned unit could be released to make a more thorough check-up.

Such preliminary caution would be imperative. Our explorers would have no idea of what awaited them. The planet might be uninhabited. It might be peopled by a fiercely barbarous race unaware of civilization as we know it. Or it might have a civilization far in advance of ours.

The explorers would first try to get a general idea of the whole planet. Then they would attempt to examine the most densely populated areas, types of armature, any aircraft likely to attack them. Combing the radio spectrum, they would pick up and record sounds and signals in order to decipher the language.

As on earth, they might hear a hodgepodge of tongues. The next step would be to select the most technically advanced nation, listen in, and try to learn its language, or record it for deciphering afterward on earth.

Our astronomers already have analyzed Mars's atmosphere, but the explorers would have to confirm their reports, to find out whether the atmosphere at the surface would support their lungs if they landed. The easiest way would be to send down manned or unmanned units with special apparatus to scoop in atmosphere samples. Later analysis would tell whether earthlings would need oxygen-helmet suits such as we plan to use on the moon.

But before risking flight at such low altitudes, the explorers would first learn everything possible about the planet's aircraft, if any. They would try to determine their top ceiling, maximum speed, maneuverability, and if possible their weapons. Mitch of this could be done by sending down remote-control "observer" disks, or

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whatever type we decide to use. A manned unit might make a survey at night, or in daytime with clouds nearby to shield it. By hovering over the planet's aircraft bases, the explorers could get most of the picture, and also decide whether the bases were suitable for their own use later.

It might even be necessary to lure some Martian aircraft into pursuit of our units, to find out their performance. But our explorers would above all avoid any sign of hostility; they would hastily. withdraw to show they had no warlike intentions.

If the appearance of our observer units and manned craft caused too violent reactions on the planet, the explorers would withdraw to their orbiting space vehicle and either wait for a lull or else start the long trip back home. Another interplanetary craft from the earth might take its place later to resume periodic surveys.

In this way, a vast amount of information could be collected without once making contact with the strange race. If they seemed belligerent or uncivilized, we would probably end our survey and check on the next possibly inhabited planet. If we found they were highly civilized, we would undoubtedly attempt later contact. But it might take a long time, decades of observation and analysis, before we were ready for that final step.

We might find a civilization not quite so advanced as ours. It might not yet have developed radio and television. We would then have no way of getting a detailed picture, learning the languages, or communicating with. the Martians. Analysis of their atmosphere might show a great hazard to earthlings, one making it impossible to land or requiring years of research to overcome. There might be other obstacles beyond our present understanding.

This same procedure would apply to the rest of the solar-system planets and to more distant systems. Since Wolf 359 is the nearest star outside our system that is likely to have inhabited planets, one of these planets would probably be listed as the first to explore in far-distant space. It would be a tremendous undertaking, unless the speed of light can be exceeded in space. Since

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Wolf 359 is eight light-years from the earth, even if a space ship traveled at the theoretical maximum--just under 186,00 miles a second--it would take over sixteen years for the round trip. Detailed observation of the planet would add to this period.

If we assume half that speed--which would still be an incredible attainment with our present knowledge--our space explorers would have to dedicate at least thirty-two years to the hazardous, lonely round trip. However, there has never been a lack of volunteers for grand undertakings in the history of man.

It is quite possible that in our survey of the solar-system planets we would find some inhabited, but not advanced enough to be of interest to us. Periodically, we might make return visits to note their progress. Meantime, our astronomers would watch these planets, probably developing new, higher powered telescopes for the purpose, to detect any signs of unusual activity. Any tremendous explosion on a planet would immediately concern us.

Such an explosion, on Mars, was reported by astronomers on January 16, 1950. The cause and general effects are still being debated. Sadao Saeki, the Japanese astronomer who first reported it at Osaka, believes it was of volcanic nature.

The explosion created a cloud over an area about seven hundred miles in diameter and forty miles high. It was dull gray with a yellowish tinge and a different color from the atmospheric phenomena customarily seen near Mars. Saeki believes the blast might have destroyed any form of life existing on the planet, but even though the telescopic camera recorded a violent explosion, other authorities do not believe the planet was wrecked. The canals first discovered on Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli, about 1877, are still apparent on photographs.

Mars is now being carefully watched by astronomers. If there are more of the strange explosions, the planet will be scanned constantly for some clue to their nature.

If a mysterious explosion on Mars, or any other planet, were found of atomic origin, it would cause serious concern on earth. Suppose for a moment that it happened many years from now, when we will have succeeded in

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space explorations. At this time, let us assume our explorers have found that Mars is experimenting with high-altitude rockets; some of them have been seen, rising at tremendous speed, in the upper atmosphere of Mars.

Then comes this violent explosion. A scientific analysis of the cloud by astrophysicists here on earth proves it was of atomic origin.

The first reaction would undoubtedly be an immediate resurvey of Mars. As quickly as possible, we would establish an orbiting space base--out of range of Martian rockets--and try to find how far they had advanced with atomic bombs.

Samples of the Martian atmosphere would be collected and analyzed for telltale radiation. Observer units would be flown over the planet, with instruments to locate atom-bomb plants and possibly uranium deposits. The rocket-launching bases would also come under close observation. We would try to learn how close the scientists were to escaping the pull of gravity. Since Mars's gravity is much less than the earth's, the Martians would not have so far to progress before succeeding in space travel.

The detailed survey by our space-base observers would probably show that there was no immediate danger to the earth. It might take one hundred years--perhaps five hundred--before the Martians could be a problem. Eventually, the time would come when Mars would send out space-ship explorers. They would undoubtedly discover that the earth was populated with a technically advanced civilization. Any warlike ideas they had in mind could be quickly ended by a show of our superior space craft and our own atomic weapons--probably far superior to any on Mars. It might even be possible that by then we would have finally outlawed war; if so, a promise to share the peaceful benefits of our technical knowledge might be enough to bring Martian leaders into line.

Regardless of our final decision, we would certainly keep a lose watch on Mars--or any other planet that seemed a possible threat.

Now, if our space-exploration program is just reversed, it will give a reasonable picture of how visitors from

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space might go about investigating the earth. Such an investigation would tie in with the general pattern of authentic flying-saucer reports:

1. World-wide sightings at long intervals up to the middle of the nineteenth century.

2. Concentration on Europe, as the most advanced section of the globe, until late in the nineteenth century.

3. Frequent surveys of America in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as we began to develop industrially, with cities springing up across the land.

4. Periodic surveys of both America and Europe during the gradual development of aircraft, from the early 1900's up to World War II.

5. An increase of observation during World War II, after German V-2's were launched up into the stratosphere.

6. A steadily increasing survey after our atomic-bomb explosions in New Mexico, Japan, Bikini, and Eniwetok.

7. A second spurt of observations following atom-bomb explosions in Soviet Russia.

8. Continuing observations of the earth at regular intervals, with most attention concentrated on the United States, the present leader in atomic weapons. (Saucers have been reported seen over the Soviet Union, but the number is unknown. There is some evidence that Russia has an investigative unit similar to Project "Saucer.")

There are other points of similarity to the program of American space exploration that I have outlined. Most of the extremely large saucers have been at high altitudes, some of them many miles above the earth. At that height, a space ship would be in no danger from our planes and antiaircraft guns and rockets. The smaller disks and the mystery lights have been seen at low altitudes. Occasionally a larger saucer has been seen to approach the earth briefly, as at Lockbourne Air Force Base, at Bethel, Alabama, at Macon and Montgomery, and other places. It has been suggested that this was for the purpose of securing atmospheric samples. It could also be to afford personal observation by the crews.

The numerous small disks seen in the first part of

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the scare, in 1947, fit the pattern for preliminary and close observation by remote-controlled observer units. As the scare increased, the daytime sightings decreased for a while, and mystery lights began to be seen more often. This apparent desire to avoid unfavorable attention could have been caused by our pilots' repeated attempts to chase the strange flying objects.

Authentic reports have described sightings; over the following Air Force bases: Chanute, Newark, Andrews, Hickam, Robbins, Godman, Clark, Fairfield Suisan, Davis-Monthan, Harmon, Wright-Patterson, Holloman, Clinton County Air Force Base, and air bases in Alaska, Germany, and the Azores. Saucers have also been sighted over naval air stations at Dallas, Alameda, and Key West, and from the station at Seattle. They have been reported maneuvering over the White Sands Proving Ground, over areas containing atomic developments, above the Muroc Air Base testing area, and over the super-secret research base near Albuquerque.

Several times saucers have paced both military and civil aircraft; their actions strongly indicate deliberate encounters to learn our planes' speed and performance.

It seems obvious that both the planes and the bases were being observed, and in some cases photographed by remote-control units or manned space ships.

Although I thought it improbable that the location of our uranium deposits would be of interest to space men, a Washington official told me it would be relatively simple to detect the ore areas with airborne instruments.

"The Geological Survey has already developed special Geiger counters for planes," he told me. "They had a little trouble from cosmic-ray noise. They finally had to cover the Geigers with lead shields. Whenever an important amount of radiation is present in the ground, the plane crew gets a signal, and they spot the place on their map. It's a quick way of locating valuable deposits."

When I told him what I had in mind, he suggested an angle I had not considered.

"Mind you," he said, "I'm not completely sold on the interplanetary answer. But assuming it's correct that we're being observed, I can think of a stronger reason

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than fear of some distant attack. Some atomic scientists say that a super-atomic bomb, or several set off at once, could knock the earth out of its orbit. It sounds fantastic, but so is the A-bomb. It's just possible that some solar-planet race discovered the dangers long ago. They would have good reason to worry if they found we were on that same track. There may be some other atomic weapon we don't suspect, even worse than the A-bomb, one that could destroy the earth and seriously affect other planets."

At the time, I thought this was just idle speculation. But since then, several atomic scientists have confirmed this official's suggestion. One of these was Dr. Paul Elliott, a nuclear physicist who worked on the A-bomb during the war.

According to Dr. Elliott, if several hydrogen bombs were exploded simultaneously at a high altitude, it could speed up the earth's rotation or change its orbit. He based his statement on the rate of energy the earth receives from the sun, a rate equal to some four pounds of hydrogen exploded every second. Still other atomic scientists have said that H-bomb explosions might even knock a large chunk out of the earth, with unpredictable results.

A dramatic picture of what might happen if the earth were forced far out of its orbit is indicated in the much-discussed book Worlds in Collision, by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, recently published by Macmillan. After many years of research, Dr. Velikovsky presents strong evidence that the planet Venus, when still a comet resulting from eruption from a larger planet, moved erratically about the sky and violently disturbed both the earth and Mars.

When the comet approached the earth, our planet was forced out of its orbit, according to Worlds in Collision. For a time, the world was on the brink of destruction. Quoting many authentic ancient records, including the Quiché manuscript of the Mayas, the Ipuwer papyrus of the Egyptians, and the Visiddhi-Magga of the Buddhists, Dr. Velikovsky describes the cataclysm that took place. "The face of the earth changed," he writes in his book. The details, reinforced by the Zend-Avesta of the Persians, tell of tremendous hurricanes, of a major upheaval

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in the earth's surface, of oceans rushing over many parts of the land, while rivers were driven from their beds. Some of the events in this period are mentioned in the Bible.

Professor Horace M. Kallen, former dean of the New School of Social Research, strongly endorses Dr. Velikovsky's statements: "It is my belief that Velikovsky has supported his theses with substantial evidence and made an effective and persuasive argument."

Many other authorities endorse this work, which is documented with impressive references. But even if this particular account is not accepted, all astronomers agree that the effect of a comet passing near the earth would be appalling. Worlds in Collision states that Mars, like the earth, was pulled out of its orbit by the comet's erratic passage. It may be that this near disaster to the earth and Mars is known on other solar planets, or remembered on Mars itself, if the planet is inhabited.

The possibility of super-bomb explosions on the earth understandably disturb any dwellers on other solar-system planets.

This may be what was back of the Project "Saucer" statement on the probable motives of any visitors from space. I mentioned this Air Force statement in an earlier chapter, but it may be of interest to repeat it at this time. The comment appeared in a confidential analysis of Intelligence reports, in the formerly secret Project "Saucer" document, "Report on Unidentified Aerial and Celestial Objects." It reads as follows:

"Such a civilization might observe that on earth we now have atomic bombs and are fast developing rockets. In view of the past history of mankind, they should be alarmed. We should therefore expect at this time above all to behold such visitations.

"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."

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IT was early in October 1949 when I finished the reversal of our space-exploration plans. I spent the next two days running down a sighting report from a town in Pennsylvania. Like three or four other tips that had seemed important at first, it turned out to be a dud.

When I got back home, I found Ken Purdy had been trying to reach me. I phoned him at True, and he asked me to fly up to New York the next day.

"I've just heard there's another magazine working on the saucer story," he told me.

"Who is it?" I said.

"I don't know yet. It may be just a rumor, but we can't take a chance. We've got to get this in the January book."

That night I gathered up all the material. It looked hopeless to condense it into one article, and I knew that Purdy had even more investigators' reports waiting for me in New York. Flying up the next morning, I suddenly thought of a talk I'd had with an air transport official. It was in Washington; I had just told him about the investigation.

"If they are spacemen," he said, "they'd probably have a hard time figuring out this country by listening to our broadcasts. Imagine tuning in soap operas, 'The Lone Ranger,' and a couple of crime yarns, along with newscasts about strikes and murders and the cold war. They might pick up some of those kid programs about rocket ships. A few days of listening to that stuff--well, it would give them one hell of a picture."

Except for some hoax reports, this was the first funny suggestion I'd had about the spacemen. But now, thinking seriously about it, I realized he had an important point. It was possible that men from another planet might have to reorient even their way of thinking to understand the earth's ways. It would not be automatic, despite their superior technical progress. Evolution might have produced basic differences in their understanding of life. Humor, for instance, might be totally lacking in their make-up.

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What would they be like?

I'd tried to imagine how they might look, without getting anywhere. Dr. H. Spencer Jones hadn't helped much with his Life on Other Worlds. I couldn't begin to visualize beings with totally different cells, perhaps able to take terrific heat or bitter cold as merely normal weather.

There were all kinds of possibilities. If they lived on Mars, for instance, perhaps they couldn't take the heavier gravity of the earth. They might be easily subject to our diseases, especially if they had destroyed disease germs on their planet--a natural step for an advanced race.

It was possible, I knew, that the spacemen might look grotesque to us. But I clung to a Stubborn feeling that they would resemble man. That came, of course, from an inborn feeling of man's superiority over all living things. It carried over into a feeling that any thinking, intelligent being, whether on Mars or Wolf 359's planets, should have evolved in the same form.

I gave up trying to imagine how the spacemen might look. There was simply nothing to go on. But there were strong indications of how they thought and reacted. Certain qualities were plainly evident.

Intelligence.
No one could dispute that. It took a high order of mentality to construct and operate a space ship.

Courage.
It would take brave men to face the hazards of space.

Curiosity.
Without this quality, they would never have thought to explore far-distant planets.

There were other qualities that seemed almost equally certain. These spacemen apparently lacked belligerence; there had been no sign of hostility through all the years. They were seemingly painstaking and extremely methodical.

It was still not much of a picture. But somehow, it was encouraging.

Glancing down from the plane's window, I thought: How does this look to them? Our farms, our cities, the railroads there below; the highways, with the speeding cars and trucks; the winding river, and far off to the right, the broad stretch of the Atlantic.

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What would they think of America?

Manhattan came into sight, as the pilot let down for the landing. An odd thought popped into my mind. How would a spaceman react if he saw a Broadway show?

Not long before, I had seen South Pacific. I could still hear Ezio Pinza's magnificent voice as he sang "Some Enchanted Evening."

Was music a part of spacemen's lives, or would it be something new and strange, perhaps completely distasteful?

They might live and think on a coldly intelligent level, without a touch of what we know as emotion. To them, our lives might seem meaningless and dull. We ourselves might appear grotesque in form.

But in their progress, there must have been struggle, trial and error, some feeling of triumph at success. Surely these would be emotional forces, bound to reflect in the planet races. Perhaps, in spite of some differences, we would find a common bond--the bond of thinking, intelligent creatures trying to better themselves.

The airliner landed and taxied in to unload.

As I went down the gangway I suddenly realized something. My last vague fear was gone.

It had not been a personal fear of the visitors from space. It had been a selfish fear of the impact on my life. I realized that now.

It might be a long time before they would try to make contact. But I had a conviction that when it came, it would be a peaceful mission, not an ultimatum. It could even be the means of ending wars on earth.

But I had been conditioned to this thing. I had had six months of preparation, six months to go from complete skepticism to slow, final acceptance.

What if it had been thrown at me in black headlines?

Even a peaceful contact by beings from another planet would profoundly affect the world. The story in True might play an important part in that final effect. Carefully done, it could help prepare Americans for the official disclosure.

But if it weren't done right, we might be opening a Pandora's box.

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THAT MORNING, at True, we made the final decisions on how to handle the story. Using the evidence of the Mantell case, the Chiles-Whitted report, Gorman's mystery-light encounter, and other authentic cases, along with the records of early sightings, we would state our main conclusion: that the flying saucers were interplanetary.

In going over the mass of reports, Purdy and I both realized that a few sightings did not fit the space-observer pattern. Most of these reports came from the southwest states, where guided-missile experiments were going on.

Purdy agreed with Paul Redell that any long-range tests would be made over the sea or unpopulated areas, with every attempt at secrecy.

"They might make short-range tests down there in New Mexico and Arizona-maybe over Texas," he said. "But they'd never risk killing people by shooting the things all over the country."

"They've already set up a three-thousand-mile range for the longer runs," I added. "It runs from Florida into the South Atlantic. And the Navy missiles at Point Mugu are launched out over the Pacific. Any guided missiles coming down over settled areas would certainly be an accident. Besides all that, no missile on earth can explain these major cases."

Purdy was emphatic about speculating on our guided-missile research.

"Suppose you analyzed these minor cases that look like missile tests. You might accidentally give away something important, like their range and speeds. Look what the Russians did with the A-bomb hints Washington let out."

It was finally decided that we would briefly mention the guided missiles, along with the fact that the armed services had flatly denied any link with the saucers.

"After all, interplanetary travel is the main story," said Purdy. "And the Mantell case alone proves we've

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been observed from space ships, even without the old records."

The question of the story's impact worried both of us. public acceptance of intelligent life on other planets would affect almost every phase of our existence-business, defense planning, philosophy, even religion. Of course, the immediate effect was more important. Personally, I thought that most Americans could take even an official announcement without too much trouble. But I could be wrong.

"The only yardstick--and that's not much good--is that 'little men' story," said Purdy. "A lot of people have got excited about it, but they seem more interested than scared."

The story of the "little men from Venus" had been circulating for some time. In the usual version, two flying saucers had come down near our southwest border. In the space craft were several oddly dressed men, three feet high. All of them were dead; the cause was usually given as inability to stand our atmosphere. The Air Force was said to have hushed up the story, so that the public could be educated gradually to the truth. Though it had all the earmarks of a well-thought-out hoax, many newspapers had repeated the story. It had even been broadcast as fact on several radio newscasts. But there had been no signs of public alarm.

"It looks as if people have come a long way since that Orson Welles scare," I said to Purdy.

"But there isn't any menace in this story," he objected. "The crews were reported dead, so everybody got the idea that spacemen couldn't live if they landed. What if a space ship should suddenly come down over a big city--say New York--low enough for millions of people to see it?"

"it might cause a stampede," I said,

Purdy snorted. "it would be a miracle if it didn't, unless people had been fully prepared. if we do a straight fact piece, just giving the evidence, it will start the ball rolling. People at least will be thinking about it."

Before I left for Washington, I told Purdy of my last visit to the Pentagon. I had informed Air Force press

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relations officials of True's intention to publish the space-travel answer. There had been no attempt to dissuade me. And I had been told once again that there was no security involved; that Project "Saucer" had found nothing threatening the safety of America.

At this time I had also asked if Project "Saucer" files were now available. The Wright Field unit, I was told, still was a classified project, both its files and its photographs secret. This had been the first week in October.

When I asked if there was any other information on published cases, the answer again was negative. The April 27th report, according to Press Branch officials, was still an accurate statement of Air Force opinions and policies. So far as they knew, no other explanations had be n found for the unidentified saucers.

'I in absolutely convinced now," I told Purdy, "that here's an official policy to let the thing leak out. It explains why Forrestal announced our Earth Satellite Vehicle program, years before we could even start to build it. It also would explain those Project 'Saucer' hints in the April report."

"I think we're being used as a trial balloon," Purdy said thoughtfully. "We've let them know what we're doing. If they'd wanted to stop us, the Air Force could easily have done it. All they'd have to do would be call us in, give us the dope off the record, and tell us it was a patriotic duty to keep still. Just the way they did about uranium and atomic experiments during the war."

He still did not have the name of the other magazine supposed to be working on the saucers. But it seemed a reliable tip (it later proved to be true), and from then on we worked under high pressure.

In writing the article, I used only the most authentic recent sightings; all of the cases were in the Air Force reports. When it came to the Mantell case, I stuck to published estimates of the strange object's size; a mysterious ship 250 to 300 feet in diameter was startling enough. At first, I chose Mars to illustrate our space explorations. But Mars had been associated with the Orson Welles stampede. Most discussions of the planet had a menacing note, perhaps because of its warlike name.

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In the end, I switched to a planet of Wolf 359. The thought of those eight light-years would have a comforting effect on any nervous readers. The chance of any mass visitation would seem remote, if not impossible. But it would still put across the space-travel story.

As finally revised, the article, written under my byline, stated the following points as the conclusions reached by True:

1. For the past 175 years, the earth has been under systematic close-range examination by living, intelligent observers from another planet.

2. The intensity of this observation, and the frequency of the visits to the earth's atmosphere, have increased markedly during the past two years.

3. The vehicles used for this observation and for interplanetary transport by the explorers have been classed as follows: Type I, a small, nonpilot-carrying disk-shaped craft equipped with some form of television or impulse transmitter; Type II, a very large, metallic, disk-shaped aircraft operating on the helicopter principle; Type III, a dirigible-shaped, wingless aircraft that, in the Earth's atmosphere, operates in conformance with the Prandtl theory of lift.

4. The discernible patterns of observation and exploration shown by the so-called flying disks varies in no important particular from well-developed American plans for the exploration of space, expected to come to fruition within the next fifty years. There is reason to believe, however, that some other race of thinking beings is a matter of two and a quarter centuries ahead of us.

Following these points, I added a brief comment on the possibility of guided missiles, adding that the Air Force had convincingly denied this as an explanation of any sightings. As Purdy had suggested, I carefully omitted ten minor cases that I thought might be linked with guided-missile research. If disclosing the facts about space travel helped to divert attention from any secret tests, so much the better.

"True accepts the official denial of any secret device," I stated, "because the weight of the evidence, especially the world-wide sightings, does not support such a belief."

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Most readers, of course, would know that some guided-missile experiments were going on, and that True was fully aware of it. But our main purpose would be achieved.

The fact that the earth had been observed by beings from another planet would be fully presented. Some readers, of course, would reject even the fact that the saucers existed. Others would cling to the idea that they were of earthly origin. But the mass of evidence would make most readers think. At the very least, it would plant one strong suggestion: that we, men and women of the earth, are not the only intelligent species in the universe. When the article was finished, it was tried out on True's staff, then on a picked group that had not known about the investigation. One editor summed up the average opinion:

"It will cause a lot of discussion, but the way it's written, it shouldn't start any panic."

The January issue, in which the story ran, was due on the stands shortly after Christmas. With my family, I had gone to Ottumwa, Iowa, to spend the holidays with my mother and sister. While I was there, the story broke unexpectedly on radio networks.

Frank Edwards, Mutual network newscaster, led off the radio comment. He was followed by Walter Winchell, Lowell Thomas, Morgan Beatty, and most of the other radio commentators. The wire services quickly picked it up; some papers ran front-page stories.

The publicity was far more than I had expected. I phoned a reporter in Washington whose beat includes the Pentagon.

"The Air Force is running around in circles," he told me. "They knew your story was due, but nobody thought it would raise such a fuss. I think they're scared of hysteria. They're getting a barrage of wires and telephone calls."

That night, as I was packing to rush back east, he called with the latest news.

"They're going to deny the whole thing," he said. "But' I heard one Press Branch guy say it might not be enough

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--they're trying to figure some way to knock it down fast."

Next day, while changing trains at Chicago, I saw the Air Force statement. The press release was dated December 27, 1949. Without mentioning True, the Air Force flatly denied having any evidence that flying saucers exist. After examining 375 reports, the release said, Project "Saucer" had found that they were caused by:

1. Misinterpretation of various conventional objects.

2. A mild form of mass hysteria or "war nerves."

3. Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or to seek publicity.

Evaluation of the reports of unidentified flying objects, said the Air Force, demonstrates that they constitute no direct threat to the national security of the United States.

Then came the clincher: Project "Saucer," said the Air Force, had been discontinued, now that all the reports had been explained.

It was plain that the release had been hastily prepared. It completely contradicted the detailed Project "Saucer" report, issued eight months before, that had called for constant vigilance, after admitting that most important cases were unsolved. Anyone familiar with the situation would see the discrepancy at once.

From Washington I flew to New York, where I found True in a turmoil. Long-distance calls were pouring in. Letters on flying saucers had swamped the mail room. Reporters were hounding Purdy for more information.

A hurried analysis of the first hundred letters showed a trend that later mail confirmed. Less than 5 per cent of the readers ridiculed the article. Between 15 and 20 per cent said they were not convinced; a few of these admitted they could not refute the evidence. About half the readers accepted the possibility; most of these said they saw no reason why other planets should not be inhabited. The remainder, between 25 and 30 per cent, said they were completely convinced.

Even the disbelievers asked for more information. The intelligence level of the average letter was gratifyingly high. Comments came from scientists, engineers, airline and private pilots, college professors, officers of the armed

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services, and a wide variety of others--including far more women than True's readership usually includes.

Several confidential tips had come in when I arrived. Most of them were from usually reputable sources. We were given evidence that Project "Saucer" was still in operation; since its true code name was not "Saucer," it could be continued without violating the Air Force press release. This same information was received from a dozen sources within the next two weeks. We were also told that there had been 722 cases, instead of 375.

Meantime, a number of astronomers had come out with statements, pro and con. One of these was Dr. Dean B. McLaughlin, of the University of Michigan.

"No one knows what the saucers are as yet," Dr. McLaughlin said. "They could be anything, and I'm willing to be convinced once the evidence is presented."

Dr. Bart J. Bok of Harvard was on the fence: "After all," he said, "all sort of things float around in space. But I'm not convinced the saucers are anything apart from the earth."

Another Harvard astronomer, Dr. Armin J. Deutsch, took an oblique poke at True and me. "I don't think anyone--and that includes astronomers--knows enough about them to reach any conclusions."

After this came the comment of Dr. Carl F. von Weizacker--that billions of stars may have planets, and many could be inhabited.

Within a few days we had a huge stack of clippings, some supporting True, some deriding us. In the midst of all this, I read scientists' comments on Einstein's new unified-field theory, which had been printed about the time True appeared on the stands. A discussion by Lincoln Barnett, author of The Universe and Dr. Einstein, explained the basic premise--that gravitation and electromagnetic force are inseparable. As I read it, I thought of what Redell had said. If gravitation were a manifestation of electromagnetic force, was it possible that an advanced race had found a way--as unique as splitting the atom--to offset gravity and utilize that force?

It was during these first tense days that we ran down the White Sands story. This also ended another puzzle--

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the identity of the magazine that we had feared might scoop us.

The race had been closer than we knew. The editors of a national magazine had learned of Commander McLaughlin and the sightings at White Sands. Two of the staff had carefully investigated the details. Convinced that the report was accurate, they had planned to run the story in an early issue.

Since True had appeared first with the space-travel story, the editors agreed to release the McLaughlin report for use in our March issue. The basic facts were in close agreement with what Redell had told me.

The ellipsoid-shaped saucer had been tracked at a height of 56 miles, its speed 5 miles per second. This was 18,000 miles per hour, even faster than Redell had said. The strange craft, 105 feet in length, had climbed as swiftly as Marvin Miles had described it--an increase in altitude of about 25 miles in 10 seconds.

Commander McLaughlin stated in his article that he was convinced the object was a space ship from another planet, operated by animate, intelligent beings. He also described two small circular objects, about twenty inches in diameter, that streaked up beside a Navy high-altitude missile. After maneuvering around it for a moment, both disks accelerated, passed the fast-moving Navy missile, and disappeared.

It is Commander McLaughlin's opinion that the saucers come from Mars. Pointing out that Mars was in a good position to see our surface on July 16, 1945, he believes that the flash of the first A-bomb, at Alamogordo Base, a point not far from White Sands, was caught by powerful telescopes.

During the first week of January, I appeared on "We, the People," with Lieutenant George Gorman. When I saw Gorman, before rehearsals, he seemed oddly constrained. I had a feeling that he had been warned about talking freely. During rehearsals, he changed his lines in the script. When the writers argued over a point, Gorman told them:

"I can say only what was in my published report--nothing else."

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The day before the broadcast, a program official told me they had been told to include the Air Force denial in the script. That afternoon I learned that the Air Force planned to monitor the broadcast.

Meantime, an A.P. story carried a new Air Force announcement. Formerly secret Project "Saucer" files would be opened to newsmen at the Pentagon, giving the answers to all the saucer reports.

Just after my return to Washington, I saw an I.N.S. story that was widely printed. It was an interview with Major Jerry Boggs, a Project "Saucer" Intelligence officer who served as liaison man between Wright Field and the Pentagon. Major Boggs had been asked for specific answers to the Mantell, Chiles-Whitted, and Gorman cases.

The answers he gave amazed me. I picked up the phone and called the Air Force Press Branch. After some delay, I was told that Major Boggs was being briefed for assignment to Germany. An interview would be almost impossible.

"He wasn't too busy to talk with I.N.S.," I said. "All I want is thirty minutes."

Later, Jack Shea, a civilian press official I had known for some time, arranged for the meeting. I was also to talk with General Sory Smith, Deputy Director for Air Information.

Major Jesse Stay, a Press Branch officer, took me to General Smith's office for the interview. Both Jesse and Jack Shea, pleasant, obliging chaps who had helped me in the past, tried earnestly to convince me the saucers didn't exist. Jesse was still trying when Major Boggs came in.

Boggs looked to be in his twenties, younger than I had expected. He was trim, well built, with a quietly alert face. Two rows of ribbons testified to his wartime service. When Jesse Stay introduced me, Boggs gave me a curiously searching look. It could have been merely his usual way of appraising people he met. But all through our talk, I had a strong feeling that he was on his guard.

I had written out some questions, but first I mentioned the I.N.S. story.

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"Were you quoted correctly on the Mantell case?" I asked.

"Yes, I was." Major Boggs looked me squarely in the eye. "Captain Mantell was chasing the planet Venus."

It was so incredible that I shook my head. "Major, Venus; was practically invisible that day. We've checked with astronomers. Is that the official Air Force answer?"

"Yes, it is," Boggs said. His eyes never left my face. I glanced across at General Sory Smith, then back at the intelligence major.

"That's a flat contradiction of Project 'Saucer's' report. Last April, after they had checked for fifteen months, they said positively it was not Venus. It was still unidentified."

Boggs said, in a slow, unruffled voice, "They rechecked after that report."

"Why did they recheck, after fifteen months?" I asked him. "'They must have gone over those figures long before that, for errors."

If my question annoyed him, Boggs gave no sign.

There's no other possible answer," he said. "Mantell was chasing Venus."

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FOR A MOMENT after Boggs's last answer, I had an impulse to end the interview. I had a feeling I was facing a sphinx--a quiet, courteous sphinx in an Air Force uniform.

I was sure now why Major Jerry Boggs had been chosen for his job, the all-important connecting link with the project at Wright Field. No one would ever catch this man off guard, no matter what secret was given him to conceal. And it was more than the result of Air Force Intelligence training. His manner, his voice carried conviction. He would have convinced anyone who had not carefully analyzed the Godman Field tragedy.

I made one more attempt. "Do the Godman Field witnesses--Colonel Hix and the rest--believe the Venus answer?"

"I haven't asked them," said Boggs, "so I couldn't say."

"What about the Chiles-Whitted case?" I asked. "You were quoted as saying they saw a meteor--a bolide that exploded in a shower of sparks."

"That's right," said Boggs.

"And Gorman was chasing a lighted balloon?"

Again the Intelligence major nodded. I pointed, out that all three of the cases mentioned had been listed as unidentified in the April report.

"They'd had those cases for months," I said. "What new facts did they learn?"

Boggs said calmly, "They just made a final analysis, and those were the answers."

We looked at each other a moment. Major Boggs patiently waited. I began to realize how a lawyer must feel with an imperturbable witness. And Boggs's unfailing courtesy began to make me embarrassed.

"Major," I said, "I hope you'll realize this is not a personal matter. As an Intelligence officer, if you're told to give certain answers--"

He smiled for the first time. "That's all right--but I'm

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not hiding a thing. There's just no such thing as a flying saucer, so far as we've found out."

"We've been told," I said, "that Project 'Saucer' isn't closed--that you just changed its code name."

"That's not so," Boggs said emphatically. "The contracts are ended, and all personnel transferred to other duty."

"Then the announcement wasn't caused by True's article?"

Both General Smith and Major Jesse Stay shook their heads quickly. Boggs leaned forward, eyeing me earnestly.

"As a matter of fact, we'd finished the investigation months ago--around the end of August, or early in September. We just hadn't got around to announcing it."

"Last October," I said, "I was told the investigation was still going on. They said there were no new answers to the cases just mentioned."

"The Press Branch hadn't been informed yet," Boggs explained simply.

"It seems very strange to me," I said. "In April, the Air Force called for vigilance by the civilian population. It said the project was young, much of its work still under way."

Jesse Stay interrupted before Boggs could reply.

"Don, the Press Branch will have to take the blame for that. The report wasn't carefully checked. There were several loose statements in it."

This was an incredible statement. I was sure Jesse knew it.

"But the case reports you quoted came from Wright Field. As of April twenty-seventh, 1949, all the major cases were officially unsolved. Then in August or early September, the whole thing's cleaned up, from what Major Boggs says. That's pretty hard to believe."

No one answered that one. Major Boggs was waiting politely for the next question. I picked up my list. The rest of the interview was in straight question-and-answer style:

Q. Do you know about the White Sands sightings in April 1948? The ones Commander R. B. McLaughlin has written up?

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A. Yes, we checked the reports. We just don't believe them.

Q. One of the witnesses was Charles B. Moore, the director of the Navy cosmic-ray project at Minneapolis, He's considered a very reputable engineer. Did you know he confirms the first report--the one about the saucer 56 miles up, at a speed of eighteen thousand miles per hour.

A. Yes, I knew about him. We think he was mistaken, like the others.

Q. Mr. Moore says it was absolutely sure it was not hallucination. He says it should be carefully investigated.

A. We did investigate. We just don't believe they saw anything.

Q. Could I see the complete file on that case? Also on Mantell, Gorman, and the Eastern Airlines cases?

A. That's out of my province.

Q. If Project "Saucer" is ended, then all the files should be opened.

A. Well, the summaries have been cleared, and you can see them.

Q. No, I mean the actual files. Is there any reason I shouldn't see them?

A. There'd be a lot of material to search through. Each case has a separate book, and some of them are pretty bulky.

Q. There were 722 cases in all, weren't there?

A. No, nowhere near that.

Q. Then 375 is the total figure--I mean the number of cases Project "Saucer" listed?

A. There were a few more--something over four hundred. I don't know the exact figure.

Q. I've been told that Project "Saucer" had the Air Force put out a special order for pilots to chase flying saucers. Is that right?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Did that include National Guard pilots?

A. Yes, it did. When the project first started checking on saucers we were naturally anxious to get hold of one of the things. We told the pilots to do practically anything in reason, even if they had to grab one by the tail.

Q. Were any of those planes armed?

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A. Only if they happened to have guns for some other mission, like gunnery practice.

Q. We've heard of one case where fighters chased a saucer to a high altitude. One of them emptied his guns at it.

A. You must mean that New Jersey affair. The plane was armed for another reason.

Q. No, I meant a case reported out at Luke Field. Three fighters took off, if the story sent us is correct. Apparently it made quite a commotion. That was back in 1945.

A. It might have happened. I don't know.

Q. What was this New Jersey case?

A. I'd rather not discuss any more cases without having the books here.

Q. Has Project "Saucer" released its secret pictures?

A. What pictures? There weren't any that amounted to anything. Maybe half a dozen. They didn't show anything, just spots on film or weather balloons at a distance.

Q. In the Kenneth Arnold case, didn't some forest rangers verify his report?

A. Well, there were some people who claimed they saw the same disks. But we found out later they'd heard about it on the radio.

Q. Didn't they draw some sketches that matched Arnold's?

A. I never heard about it.

Q. I'd like to go back to the Mantell case a second. If Venus was so bright--remember Mantell thought it was a huge metallic object--why didn't the pilot who made the search later on--

A. Well, it was Venus, that's positive. But I can't remember all the details without the case books.

Q. One more question, Major. Have any reports been received at Wright Field since Project "Saucer" closed? There was a case after that date, an airliner crew--

At this point, Major Jesse Stay broke in.

"It's all up to the local commanders now. If they want to receive reports of anything unusual, all right. And if they want to investigate them, that's up to each

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commander. But no Project 'Saucer' teams will check on reports. That's all ended."

There at the last, it had been a little. like a courtroom scene, and I was glad the interview was over. Major Boggs was unruffled as ever. I apologized for the barrage of questions, and thanked him for being so decent about it.

"It was interesting, getting your viewpoint," he said. He smiled, still the courteous sphinx, and went on out.

After Bogs had left, I talked with General Smith alone. I told him I was not convinced,

"I'd like to see the complete files on these cases I mentioned," I explained. "Also, I'd like to talk with the last commanding officer or senior Intelligence officer attached to Project 'Saucer.'"

"I'm not sure about the senior officer," General Smith answered. "He may have been detached already. But I don't see any reason why you can't see those files. I'll phone Wright Field and call you."

I was about to leave, but he motioned for me to sit down.

"I can understand how you feel about the Mantell report," General Smith said earnestly. "I knew Tommy Mantell very well. And Colonel Hix is a classmate of mine. I knew neither one was the kind to have hallucinations. That case got me, at first."

"You believe Venus is the true answer?" I asked him.

He seemed surprised. "It must be, if Wright Field says so."

When I went back to the Press Branch, I asked Jack Shea for the case-report summaries that Boggs had mentioned, He got them for me--two collections of loose-leaf mimeographed sheets enclosed in black binders. So these were the "secret files"!

Across the hall, in the press room, I opened one book at random. The first thing I saw was this:

"A meteorologist should compute the approximate energy required to evaporate as much cloud as shown in the incident 26 photographs."

Photographs.

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Major Boggs had said there were no important pictures.

I tucked the binders under my arm and went out to my car. Perhaps these books hinted at more than Boggs had realized. But that didn't seem likely. As liaison man, he should know all the answers. I was almost positive that he did.

But I was equally sure they weren't the answers he had given me.

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THAT NIGHT I went through the Project "Saucer" summary of cases. It was a strange experience.

The first report I checked was the Mantell case. Nothing that Boggs had said had changed my firm opinion. I knew the answer was not Venus, and I was certain Boggs knew it, too.

The Godman Field incident was listed as Case 33. The report also touches on the Lockbourne Air Base sighting. As already described, the same mysterious object, or a similar one, was seen moving at five hundred miles an hour over Lockbourne Field. It was also sighted at other points in Ohio.

The very first sentence in Case 33 showed a determined attempt to explain away the object that Mantell chased:

"Detailed attention should be given to any possible astronomical body or phenomenon which might serve to identify the object or objects."

(Some of the final Project report on Mantell has been given in an earlier chapter. I am repeating a few paragraphs below, to help in weighing Major Boggs's answer.)

These are official statements of the Project astronomer:

"On January 7, 1948, Venus was less than half its full brilliance. However, under exceptionally good atmospheric conditions, and with the eye shielded from the direct rays of the sun, Venus might be seen as an exceedingly tiny bright point of light. It is possible to see it in daytime when one knows exactly where to look. Of course, the chances of looking at the right spot are very few.

"It has been unofficially reported that the object was a Navy cosmic ray balloon. If this can be established it is to be preferred as an explanation. However, if reports from other localities refer to the same object, any such device must have been a good many miles high--25 to 50--in order to have been seen clearly, almost simultaneously, from places 175 miles apart."

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This absolutely ruled out the balloon possibility, as the investigator fully realized. That he must have considered the space-ship answer at this point is strongly indicated in the following sentence:

"If all reports were of a single object, in the knowledge of this investigator no man-made object could have been large enough and far enough away for the approximate simultaneous sightings."

The next paragraph of this Project "Saucer" report practically nullified Major Boggs's statement that Venus was the sole explanation:

"It is most unlikely, however, that so many separate persons should at that time have chanced on Venus in the daylight sky. It seems therefore much more probable that more than one object was involved. The sighting might have included two or more balloons (or aircraft) or they might have included Venus (in the fatal chase) and balloons. . . . Such a hypothesis, however, does still necessitate the inclusion of at least two other objects than Venus, and it certainly is coincidental that so many people would have chosen this one day to be confused (to the extent of reporting the matter) by normal airborne objects. . . ."

Farther on in the summaries, I found a report that has an extremely significant bearing on the Mantell case. This was Case 175, in which the same consultant attempts to explain a strange daylight sighting at Santa Fe, New Mexico.

One of the Santa Fe observers described the mysterious aerial object as round and extremely bright, "like a dime in the sky." Here is what the Project "Saucer" investigator had to say:

"The magnitude of Venus was -3.8 (approximately the same as on January 7, 1948). it could have been visible in the daylight sky. It would have appeared, however, more like a pinpoint of brilliant light than 'like a dime in the sky.' It seems unlikely that it would be noticed at all. . . . Considering discrepancies in the two reports, I suggest the moon in a gibbous phase; in daytime this is unusual and most people are not used to it, so that they fail to identify it. While this hypothesis

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has little to correspond to either report, it is worth mentioning.

"It seems far more probable that some type of balloon was the object in this case."

Both the Godman Field and the Santa Fe cases were almost identical, so far as the visibility of Venus was concerned. In the Santa Fe case, which had very little publicity, Project "Saucer" dropped the Venus explanation as a practically impossible answer. But in Case 33, it had tried desperately to make Venus loom up as a huge gleaming object during Mantell's fatal chase.

There was only one explanation: Project "Saucer" must have known the truth from the start-that Mantell had pursued a tremendous space ship. That fact alone, if it had exploded in the headlines at that time, might have caused dangerous panic. To make it worse, Captain Mantell had been killed. Even if he had actually died from blacking out while trying to follow the swiftly ascending space ship, few would have believed it. The story would spread like wildfire: Spacemen kill an American Air Force Pilot!

This explained the tight lid that had been clamped down at once on the Mantell case. It was more than a year before that policy had been changed; then the first official discussions of possible space visitors had begun to appear.

True's plans to announce the interplanetary answer would have fitted a program of preparing the people. But the Air Force had not expected such nation-wide reaction from True's article; that much I knew. Evidently, they had not suspected such a detailed analysis of the Godman Field case, in particular. I could see now why Boggs, Jesse Stay, and the others had tried so hard to convince me that we had made a mistake.

It was quite possible that we had revived that first Air Force fear of dangerous publicity. But Mantell had been dead for two years. News stories would not have the same impact now, even if they did report that spacemen had downed the pilot. And I doubted that there would be headlines. Unless the Air Force supplied some

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convincing details, the manner of his death would still be speculation.

Apparently I had been right; this case was the key to the riddle. It had been the first major sighting in 1948. Project "Saucer" had been started immediately afterward. In searching for a plausible answer, which could be published if needed, officials had probably set the pattern for handling all other reports, "Explaining away" would be a logical program, until the public could be prepared for an official announcement.

As I went through other case reports, I found increasing evidence to back up this belief.

Case 1, the Muroc Air Base sightings, had plainly baffled Project men seeking a plausible answer. Because of the Air Force witnesses, they could not ignore the reports. Highly trained Air Force test pilots and ground officers had seen two fast-moving silver-colored disks circling over the base.

Flying at speeds of from three to four hundred miles an hour, the disks whirled in amazingly tight maneuvers. Since they were only eight thousand feet above the field, these turns could be clearly seen.

"It is tempting to explain the object as ordinary aircraft observed under unusual light conditions," the case report reads. "But the evidence of tight circles, if maintained, is strongly contradictory."

Although Case 1 was technically in the "unexplained" group, Wright Field had made a final effort to explain away the reports. Said the Air Materiel Command:

"The sightings were the result of misinterpretation of real stimuli, probably research balloons."

In all the world's history, there is no record of a three-hundred-mile-an-hour wind. To cover the distance involved, the drifting balloons would have had to move at this speed, or faster. If a three-hundred-mile wind had been blowing at eight thousand feet, nothing on earth could have stood it, Muroc Air Base would have been blown off the map.

What did the Muroc test pilots really see that day?

While searching for the Chiles-Whitted report, ran across the Fairfield Suisan mystery-light case, which I

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had learned about in Seattle. This was Case 215. The Project "Saucer" comment reads:

"If the observations were exactly as stated by the witnesses, the ball of light could not be a fireball. . . . A fireball would not have come into view at 1,000 feet and risen to 20,000. If correct, there is no astronomical explanation. Under unusual conditions, a fireball might appear to rise somewhat as a result of perspective. The absence of trail and sound definitely does not favor the meteor hypothesis, but . . . does not rule it out finally. It does not seem likely any meteor or auroral phenomenon could be as bright as this."

Then came one of the most revealing lines in all the case reports:

"In the almost hopeless absence of any other natural explanation, one must consider the possibility of the object's having been a meteor, even though the description does not fit very well."

One air-base officer, I recalled, had insisted that the object had been a lighted balloon. Checking the secret report from the Air Weather Service, I found this:

"Case 2 15. Very high winds, 60-70 miles per hour from southwest, all levels. Definitely prohibits any balloon from southerly motion."

This case is officially listed as answered.

In Case 19, where a cigar-shaped object was seen at Dayton, Ohio, the Project investigator made a valiant attempt to fit an answer:

"Possibly a close pair of fireballs, but it seems unlikely. If one were to stretch the description to its very limits and make allowances for untrained observers, he could say that the cigar-like shape might have been illusion caused by rapid motion, and that the bright sunlight might have made both the objects and the trails nearly invisible.

"This investigator does not prefer that interpolation, and it should he resorted to only if all other possible explanations fail."

This case, too, is officially listed as answered.

Case 24, which occurred June 12, 1947, twelve days before the Arnold sighting, shows the same determined

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attempt to find an explanation, no matter how farfetched.

In this case, two fast-moving objects were seen at Weiser, Idaho, Twice they approached the earth, then swiftly circled upward. The Project investigator tried hard to prove that these might have been parts of a double fireball. But at the end, he said, "In spite of all this, this investigator would prefer a terrestrial explanation for the incident."

It was plain that this report had not been planned originally for release to the public. No Project investigator would have been so frank. With each new report, I was more and more convinced that these had been confidential discussions of various possible answers, circulated between Project "Saucer" officials. Why they had been released now was still a puzzle, though I began to see a glimmer of the answer.

The Chiles-Whitted sighting was listed as Case 144. As I started on the report, I wondered if Major Boggs's "bolide" answer would have any more foundation than these other "astronomical" cases.

The report began with these words:

"There is no astronomical explanation, if we accept the report at face value. But the sheer improbability of the facts as stated, particularly in the absence of any known aircraft in the vicinity, makes it necessary to see whether any other explanation, even though farfetched, can be considered."

After this candid admission of his intentions, the Project consultant earnestly attempts to fit the two pilots' space ship 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 ship 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

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flames. This was about one hour before Chiles and Whitted saw the onrushing space ship.

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 ship 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 passenger 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

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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 analysis 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 classed 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

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--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. . . .

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FOR TWO WEEKS after my return to Washington, General Sory Smith held off a final answer about my trip to Wright Field. Meantime, Ken Purdy had called him backing my request to see the Project files.

It was obvious to me that Wright Field was determined not to open the files. But the General was trying to avoid making it official.

"Why can't you accept my word there's nothing to the saucers?" he asked me one day. "You're impeaching my personal veracity."

But finally he saw there was no other way out. He told me I had been officially refused permission to see the Wright Field files. Some time later, Ken Purdy phoned General Smith.

"General, if the Air Force wants to talk to us off the record, we'll play ball. True will either handle it from then on whatever way you think best or we'll keep still."

Whether this offer was relayed higher up, I don't know. But nothing came of it.

Meantime, saucer reports had begun to come in from all over the country. Some even came from abroad. Some of these 1950 sightings have already been mentioned in early chapters. Besides the strange affair at Tucson on February 1, there were several other cases in February. Three of these were in South America. One saucer was reported near the naval air station at Alameda, California. Some were sighted in Texas, New Mexico, and other parts of the Southwest.

In March, the wave of sightings reached such a height that the Air Force again denied the saucers' existence. This followed a report that a flying disk had crashed near Mexico City and that the wreckage had been viewed by U. S. Air Force officials.

Scores of Orangeburg, South Carolina, residents watched a disk that hovered over that city on March 10. It was described as silver-bright, turning slowly in the air before it disappeared. The day before this, residents

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of Van Nuys, California, saw a bright disk moving swiftly four hundred feet in the air. Seen through a telescope, it appeared to be fifty feet in diameter.

Disks were reported at numerous places in Mexico, including Guadalajara, Juárez, Mazatlán, and Durango. On the twelfth of March, the crew and passengers of an American Airlines ship saw a large gleaming disk high above Monterrey airport in Mexico.

Captain W. R. Hunt, the senior airline pilot, watched the disk through a theodolite at the airport. This disk and most of the others seen in Mexico were similar in description to the one sighted at Dayton, Ohio, on March 8. This was the large metallic saucer that hovered high over Vandalia Airport, until Air Force and National Guard fighters raced up after it. The disk rose vertically into the sky at incredible speed, hovered a while longer, and then vanished.

Within twenty-four hours this mystery disk had been "identified" as the planet Venus. (It was broad daylight.) Newspapers quoted "trained astronomical officials in Dayton" as the source for this explanation.

Meanwhile the Mexican government newspaper, El Nacional, quoted "a famous and reputable astronomer" as saying the numerous disks reported over Mexico "carry visitors from Mars."

One of the strangest reports came from the naval air station at Dallas, Texas. It was about 11:30 A.M. on March 16 when CPO Charles Lewis saw a disk streak up at a B-36 bomber. The disk appeared about twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, Lewis reported. Racing at incredible speed, it shot up under the bomber, hung there for a second, then broke away at a 45-degree angle. Following this, it shot straight up into the air and disappeared.

Captain M. A. Nation, C. O. of the station, said it was "I the second report in ten days. On March 7, said Captain Nation, a tower control operator named C. E. Edmundson saw a similar disk flying so fast it was almost a blur.

"He estimated its speed at three thousand to four thousand miles per hour," Captain Nation stated. "Of

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course, he had no instruments to compute the speed, so that's a pure estimate."

It was some time before this when I heard the first crazy rumor about the guided-missile display. This story, which had new details every time I heard it described the Air Force as refusing to let the Navy announce a new type of missile. According to the rumors, the Air Force was trying to prove its own missile far superior, to keep the Navy from invading its long-range bombing domain. Then the Army joined the pitched battle with still a third guided missile, according to the rumors.

And the flying disks? Army, Navy, and Air Force missiles, launched in droves all over the country to prove whose was the best? A public missile race, with the joint Chiefs of Staff to decide the winner!

It seems fantastic that this theory would be believed by any intelligent person. In effect, it accuses the armed services of deliberate, criminal negligence, of endangering millions in the cities below.

I am convinced that some of these rumors led to at least one of the published guesses about our missile program. One widely publicized story stated that the flying saucers seen hurtling through our skies are actually two types of secret weapons. One, according to radio and newspaper accounts, is a disk that whizzes through space, halts suspended in the air, soars to thirty thousand feet, drops to one thousand feet, and then usually disintegrates in the air.

These saucers, it was said, ranged from 20 inches to 250 feet in diameter. They were supposed to be pilotless--and harmless.

The second type was said to be a jet version of the Navy's circular airfoil "Flying Flapjack." It was credited with fantastic speed.

The "true disks," however, were mainly Air Force devices, according to the report.

"Some are guided, others are not," said the radio commentator who released this story. "They can stay stationary, dash off to right or left, and move like lightning. But they are utterly harmless."

In these "harmless" disks there was supposed to be an

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explosive charge that destroyed them in mid-air at a predetermined time.

Within a few days after this story was broadcast, the United States News and World Report declared that the saucers are real, and identified them as jet models of Navy "Flying Flapjacks." This magazine, which is not an official publication despite its name, mentioned the variable-direction jet principle that I had previously described in the True article.

These two flying-saucer "explanations" brought denials from the White House, the Navy, and the Air Force.

The Air Force flatly declared that:

1. None of the armed forces is conducting secret experiments with disk-shaped flying objects that could be a basis for the reported phenomena.

2. There is no evidence that the latter stem from the activities of any foreign nation.

Before this, President Truman stated he knew nothing of any such objects being developed by the United States or any other nation.

The Navy denial came immediately after the first broadcast story. It ran:

"The Navy is not engaged in research or in flying any jet-powered, circular-shaped aircraft."

The Navy added that one model of a pancake-shaped aircraft, called the Zimmerman Skimmer, was built but was never flown. However, a small, three-thousand-pound scale model did fly and was under radio control during flight. This last device is now being rumored as the Navy's unpiloted "missile," said to have been launched over the country like the so-called "harmless" disks.

Even though all these accounts have been officially denied, many Americans may still believe they are true. I have no desire to criticize the authors of these stories; I believe that in following up certain guided-missile leads they were misled into accepting the conclusions they gave.

But these stories, particularly the accounts of huge unpiloted disks, may have planted certain fears in the public mind-fears that are completely unwarranted. For

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this reason, I have personally checked at Washington in regard to the dangers of unpiloted missiles. Here aye the facts I learned:

1. Neither the Army, Navy, nor Air Force has at any time staged any guided-missile competition as rumored.

2. No unpiloted missiles or remote-controlled experimental craft have been tested over American cities or heavily populated areas.

3. No unpiloted missile carrying dangerous explosives, whether for destruction of the device or other purposes, has been deliberately launched or tested over heavily populated areas.

In regard to the so-called jet-propelled "Flying Flapjack," I have been assured by Admiral Calvin Bolster, of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, that this type of plane has never been produced. I concede that he might make this statement to conceal a secret development, but there is one fact of which every American can be certain: Neither this type, nor the radio-controlled smaller model, has been or will be flown or launched over areas where people would be endangered.

The three armed services are working on guided missiles. They are not risking American lives by launching such missiles at random across the United States,

Although most of our guided-missile projects are secret, it is possible to give certain facts about guided-missile developments in general.

The first successful long-range missiles were produced by the Germans. These were the buzz-bomb and. the V-2 rocket. But research in various other types was carried on during the war. Some of this was with oval and round types of airfoils. As already stated by Paul Redell, there is strong evidence that the disk-shaped foil resulted from German observations of either space ships or remote-control disk-shaped "observer units." All the Nazi space-exploration plans followed this discovery that we were being observed by a race from another planet.

After the end of World War II, the international guided-missile race began, with the British, Russians, and ourselves as the chief contenders. Numerous types have been developed-winged bombs, small radar-guided

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projectiles launched from planes, and ground-to-plane plane-to-ground, and plane-to-plane missiles, equipped with target homing devices.

In certain recent types, the range can be stated as several hundred miles. So far as I have learned, after weeks of rechecking this point, not a single long-range missile has been identified as Russian.

Since this country is working closely with Great Britain on global defense problems, it is no violation of security to say that we have probably exchanged certain guided-missile information. In regard to the British long-range missile picture outlined to me by John Steele, I can state two major facts:

1. The British have categorically denied testing such long-range missiles over American territory, where they might endanger American citizens. There is convincing evidence that they are telling the truth.

2. There is no British missile now built, or planned, that could explain the objects seen by Captain Mantell, Chiles and Whitted, and witnesses in most of the major sightings.

The preceding statement applies equally to American-built missiles. There is no experimental craft or guided missile even remotely considered in this country that would begin to approach the dimensions and performance of the space ships seen in these cases.

There is concrete evidence that the United States is as well advanced as any other nation in guided-missile development. Certain recent advances should place us in the lead, unless confidential reports on Soviet progress are completely wrong.

If American scientists and engineers can learn the source of the space ships' power and adapt it to our use, it may well be the means for ending the threat of war. The Soviet scientists are well aware of this; their research into cosmic rays and other natural forces has been redoubled since the flying-saucer reports of 1947.

The secret of the space ships' power is more important than even the hydrogen bomb. It may someday be the key to the fate of the world.

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AFTER one year's investigation of the flying saucers and Air Force operations, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. The Air Force was puzzled, and badly worried when the disks first were sighted in 1947.

2. The Air Force began to suspect the truth soon after Mantell's death--perhaps even before.

3. Project "Saucer" was set up to investigate and at the same time conceal from the public the truth about the saucers.

4. During the spring of 1949 this policy, which had been strictly maintained by Forrestal, underwent an abrupt change. On top-level orders, it was decided to let the facts gradually leak out, in order to prepare the American people.

5. This was the reason for the April 27, 1949, report, with its suggestions about space visitors.

6. While I was preparing the article for the January 1950 issue of True, it had been considered in line with the general education program. But the unexpected public reaction was mistaken by the Air Force for hysteria, resulting in their hasty denial that the saucers existed.

7. Because the Air Force feared any closer analysis of the Mantell case, Major Boggs was instructed to publicize the Venus explanation. Although it had been denied, the Air Force knew that most people had forgotten this or had never known it.

8. Major Boggs, having stated this answer publicly (along with the other Chiles-Whitted and Gorman answers), was forced to stick to it, though he knew it was wrong and that the case summaries would prove it.

9. The case summaries were released to a small number of Washington newsmen, to continue planting the space-travel thought; this decision being made after True's reception proved to the Air Force that the public was better prepared than had been thought.

In regard to the flying saucers themselves, I believe

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that in the majority of cases, space ships are the answer:

1. The earth has been under periodic observation from another planet, or other planets, for at least two centuries.

2. This observation suddenly increased in 1947, following, the series of A-bomb explosions begun in 1945.

3. The observation, now intermittent, is part of a long-range survey and will continue indefinitely. No immediate attempt to contact the earth seems evident. There may be some unknown block to making contact, but it is more probable that the spacemen's plans are not complete.

I believe that the Air Force is still investigating the saucer sightings, either through the Air Materiel Command or some other headquarters. It is possible that some Air Force officials still fear a panic when the truth is officially revealed. In that case, we may continue for a long time to see routine denials alternating with new suggestions of interplanetary travel.

The education problem is complicated by two imperative needs. We must try to learn as much as we can about the space ships' source of power, and at the same time try to prevent clues to this information from reaching an enemy on earth,

If censorship is suddenly imposed on all flying-saucer reports, this will be the chief reason. This would also help solve a minor problem where partial censorship now exists. A few test missiles launched from a southwest base have been seen by citizens at a distance from the proving grounds. In some cases, their reports have got into local papers, though the wire services did not carry them.

These missile tests are peculiarly different from the general run of flying-saucer reports. Contrasted with the Chiles-Whitted, Mantell, and other space-ship sightings, they stand out with a certain pattern, easy to recognize. News or radio reports of these tests might accidentally give an enemy clues to the type, speed, and range of this particular missile, once he learned the pattern. Periodic censorship, or even a complete blackout of sighting reports, may be enforced during the next year or so.

For the purposes mentioned, such action would be

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justified. But whenever such censorship is lifted, the complete truth about space visitors should be told at the same time: the full details of all the major cases, the size of the Godman Field space ship, any attempted landings or other efforts at contact by interplanetary visitors, and all other details that now are official secrets.

I also believe that a certain group of disk sightings in this country is linked with our guided missiles. Official announcements, of course, may be delayed a long time. With this exception, I believe that Americans should be told the truth, now.

When the announcement of our guided missiles is made, some Americans not familiar with the facts may accept it as a full answer. If officials are not yet ready to reveal the space-travel facts, the Mantell evidence and other key cases may be deliberately glossed over.

But even if all the evidence--the world-wide sightings, the old records, the Chiles-Whitted and other cases--should be completely ignored, Americans cannot escape eventual contact with dwellers on other planets. Even though space visitors never attempt contact with us, sooner or later earthlings will be traveling to distant planets--planets that scientists have said are almost surely inhabited.

The American people have proved their ability to take incredible things. We have survived the stunning impact of the Atomic Age. We should be able to take the Interplanetary Age, when it comes, without hysteria.