Q. We"ve heard of one case where fighters chased a saucer to a high alt.i.tude. 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

{p. 152}

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 cla.s.smate 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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CHAPTER XVIII

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 G.o.dman 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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