Shortly before midnight, off to the north, appeared "a brilliantly lighted, teardrop shaped, blob of light." "p.r.o.ngs, or streams of bright light, sprayed downward from the blob toward the earth." It was big, about the size of a 200 watt light bulb.

As the group of men silently watched, the weird light continued to drift and for many minutes it moved vertically and horizontally over a wide area of the sky. Then it faded away.

As one of the men later told me, "I was glad to see it go; I was p.o.o.ped."

The next morning literally hundreds of people spent hours conjecturing and describing. After all these years of talk they"d actually seen one. Several photos, showing the big blob of light, were shown around, and two fishermen readily admitted they"d packed up their poles and tackle boxes and headed home when they saw it.

Editor Coyne summed up the feeling of hundreds of Kansans when he said: "I have tended to discount the stories about flying objects, but, brother, I am now a believer."

What was it? First of all it was confusion. Early the next morning Air Force investigators flooded the area asking _the_ questions: "What size was it in comparison to a key or a dime?" "Would it compare in size to a light bulb?" "Was there any noise?"

As soon as they left, the military tersely announced that no radar had picked up any target and no B-47"s had been sent out. Then they pulled the plugs on the incoming phone lines. The confusion mounted when newsmen tapped their private sources and learned that a B-47 _had_ been sent into the area.

A few days later the Air Force told the Kansans what they"d seen: The reflection from burning waste gas torches in a local oil field.

This was greeted with the Kansan version of the Bronx Cheer.

Nineteen hundred fifty-six was a big year for Project Blue Book.

According to an old friend, Captain George Gregory, who was then Chief of Blue Book, they received 778 reports. And through a lot of sleepless nights they were able to "solve" 97.8% of them. Only 17 remained "unknowns."

Digging through the reports for 1956, outside of the ones already mentioned, there were few real good ones.

In Banning, California, Ground Observer Corps spotters watched a "balloon-like object make three rectangular circuits around the town." In Plymouth, New Hampshire, two GOC spotters reported "a bright yellow object which left a trail, similar to a jet, moving slowly at a very high alt.i.tude." At Rosebury, Oregon, State Police received many reports of "funny green and red lights" moving slowly around a television transmitter tower. And in Hartford, Connecticut, two amateur astronomers, looking at Saturn through a 4-inch telescope, were distracted by a bright light. Turning their telescope on it they observed a "large, whitish yellow light, shaped like a ten gallon hat." Many other people evidently saw the same UFO because the local newspaper said, "reports have been pouring in."

In Miami, a Pan American Airlines radar operator tracked a UFO at speeds up to 4000 miles an hour. Five of his skeptical fellow radar operators watched and were confirmed.

At Moneymore, Northern Ireland, a "level-headed and G.o.d fearing"

citizen and his wife captured an 18-inch saucer by putting a headlock on it. They started to the local police station, but put the saucer down to climb over a hedge, and it went whirling off to the hinterlands of s.p.a.ce.

The 27th Air Defense Division that guards the vast aircraft and missile centers of Southern California was alerted on the night of September 9. In rapid succession, a Western Airlines pilot making an approach to Los Angeles International Airport, the Ground Observer Corps, and numerous Los Angeles citizens called in a white light moving slowly across the Los Angeles basin. When the big defense radars on San Clemente Island picked up an unknown target in the same area that the light was being reported two F-89 jet interceptors were scrambled but saw nothing.

A few days later investigators learned that a $27.65 weather balloon had caused the many thousand dollars" worth of excitement.

The matter of scrambling interceptors has been a sore point with the UFO business for a long time. Many people believe that the mere fact the Air Force will send up two, three, or even four aircraft that cost $2000 an hour to fly is proof positive that the Air Force doesn"t believe its own story that UFO"s don"t exist.

The official answer you"ll get, if you ask the Air Force, is that they scramble against _any_ unknown target as a matter of defense.

But over coffee you get a different answer. They write the UFO scrambles off as training cost. Each pilot has to get so much flying time and simulating intercepts against an unidentified light is more interesting than merely "burning holes in the air."

If appropriations are ever cut to the point where training must be curtailed, and Heaven forbid, there will be no more scrambles after flying saucers.

And the colonel who told me this was emphatic.

The year 1957 was heralded in by a startling announcement which ended a long dry spell of UFO news.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Retired Admiral Delmer S.

Fahrney made a statement. Newspapers across the country carried it complete, or in part, and people read the statement with interest because Admiral Fahrney is well known as a sensible and knowledgeable man. He had fought for and built up the Navy"s guided missile program back in the days when people who talked of ballistic missiles and satellites _had_ to fight for their beliefs.

First, Admiral Fahrney announced that a non-profit organization, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) had been established to investigate UFO reports. He would be chairman of the board of governors and his board would consist of such potent names as:

Retired Vice Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, for two years the director of the supersecret Central Intelligence Agency.

Retired Lieutenant General P. A. del Valle, ex-commanding general of the famous First Marine Division.

Retired Rear Admiral Herbert B. Knowles, noted submariner of World War II.

Then Admiral Fahrney read a statement regarding the policies of NICAP. It was as follows:

"Reliable reports indicate that there are objects coming into our atmosphere at very high speeds . . . No agency in this country or Russia is able to duplicate at this time the speeds and accelerations which radars and observers indicate these flying objects are able to achieve.

"There are signs that an intelligence directs these objects because of the way they fly. The way they change position in formations would indicate that their motion is directed. The Air Force is collecting factual data on which to base an opinion, but time is required to sift and correlate the material.

"As long as such unidentified objects continue to navigate through the earth"s atmosphere, there is an urgent need to know the facts.

Many observers have ceased to report their findings to the Air Force because of the seeming frustration--that is, all information going in, and none coming out. It is in this area that NICAP may find its greatest mission.

"We are in a position to screen independently all UFO information coming in from our filter groups.

"General Albert C. Wedemeyer will serve the Committee as Evaluations Adviser and complete a.n.a.lyses will be arranged through leading scientists. After careful evaluation, we shall release our findings to the public."

Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps Major, and author of three top seller UFO books, was appointed director. The mere fact that another civilian UFO investigative group was being born was neither news nor UFO history because since 1947 well over a hundred such organizations had been formed. Many still exist; many flopped. But none deserve the niche in UFO history that does NICAP. NICAP had power and it raised a storm that took months to calm down.

NICAP got off to a fast start. Dues were pegged at $7.50 a year, which included a subscription to the very interesting magazine _The_ _UFO_ _Investigator_, and the operation went into high gear.

With such names as Fahrney, Wedemeyer, Hillenkoetter, Del Valle and Knowles for prestige, and Keyhoe for intrigue, saucer fans all over the United States packaged up their seven-fifty and mailed it to headquarters. Each, in turn, became a "listening post" and an "investigator."

Keyhoe set up a Panel of Special Advisors, all saucer fans, to "impartially evaluate" the UFO reports ferreted out by the "listening posts," based on facts uncovered by the "investigators."

Even though the "leading scientists" Fahrney mentioned in his statement never materialized NICAP was c.o.c.ked, primed, and ready.

To get things off to a gala start Keyhoe, as director of NICAP, wrote to the Air Force and set out NICAP"s Eight Point Plan. In essence this plan suggested (some say demanded) that the Air Force let NICAP ride herd on Project Blue Book.

First of all, NICAP wanted its Panel of Special Advisors to review and concur with all of the conclusions on the thousands of UFO reports that the Air Force had in its files.

This went over like a worm in the punch bowl.

First of all, the Air Force didn"t feel it was necessary to review its files. Secondly, they knew NICAP. If every balloon, planet, airplane, and bird that caused a UFO report hadn"t been captured and a signed confession wrung out, the UFO would be a visitor from outer s.p.a.ce.

The Air Force decided to ignore NICAP.

But NICAP wouldn"t be ignored. They bombarded everyone from the Secretary of the Air Force on down with telephone calls, telegrams and letters.

Still the Air Force remained silent.

Then NICAP headquarters called in the troops and members from all corners of the nation cut loose. The barrage of mail broke the log jam and just enough information to const.i.tute an answer dribbled out of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.

But this didn"t satisfy Keyhoe or his UFO hungry NICAPions. They wanted blood and that blood had to taste like s.p.a.ceships or they wouldn"t be happy. The cudgel they picked up next was powerful.