All during the spring of 1948 good reports continued to come in.

Some were just run-of-the-mill but a large percentage of them were good, coming from people whose reliability couldn"t be questioned.

For example, three scientists reported that for thirty seconds they had watched a round object streak across the sky in a highly erratic flight path near the Army"s secret White Sands Proving Ground. And on May 28 the crew of an Air Force C-47 had three UFO"s barrel in from "twelve o"clock high" to buzz their transport.

On July 21 a curious report was received from the Netherlands. The day before several persons reported seeing a UFO through high broken clouds over The Hague. The object was rocket-shaped, with two rows of windows along the side. It was a poor report, very sketchy and incomplete, and it probably would have been forgotten except that four nights later a similar UFO almost collided with an Eastern Airlines DC-3. This near collision is Volume II of "The Cla.s.sics."

On the evening of July 24, 1948, an Eastern Airlines DC-3 took off from Houston, Texas. It was on a scheduled trip to Atlanta, with intermediate stops in between. The pilots were Clarence S. Chiles and John B. Whitted. At about 2:45 A.M., when the flight was 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, the captain, Chiles, saw a light dead ahead and closing fast. His first reaction, he later reported to an ATIC investigation team, was that it was a jet, but in an instant he realized that even a jet couldn"t close as fast as this light was closing. Chiles said he reached over, gave Whitted, the other pilot, a quick tap on the arm, and pointed. The UFO was now almost on top of them. Chiles racked the DC-3 into a tight left turn. Just as the UFO flashed by about 700 feet to the right, the DC-3 hit turbulent air.

Whitted looked back just as the UFO pulled up in a steep climb.

Both the pilots had gotten a good look at the UFO and were able to give a good description to the Air Force intelligence people. It was a B-29 fuselage. The underside had a "deep blue glow." There were "two rows of windows from which bright lights glowed," and a "50-foot trail of orange-red flame" shot out the back.

Only one pa.s.senger was looking out of the window at the time. The ATIC investigators talked to him. He said he saw a "strange, eerie streak of light, very intense," but that was all, no details. He said that it all happened before he could adjust his eyes to the darkness.

Minutes later a crew chief at Robins Air Force Base in Macon, Georgia, reported seeing an extremely bright light pa.s.s overhead, traveling at a high speed. A few days later another report from the night of July 24 came in. A pilot, flying near the Virginia-North Carolina state line, reported that he had seen a "bright shooting star" in the direction of Montgomery, Alabama, at about the exact time the Eastern Airlines DC-3 was "buzzed."

According to the old timers at ATIC, this report shook them worse than the Mantell Incident. This was the first time two reliable sources had been really close enough to anything resembling a UFO to get a good look and live to tell about it. A quick check on a map showed that the UFO that nearly collided with the airliner would have pa.s.sed almost over Macon, Georgia, after pa.s.sing the DC-3. It had been turning toward Macon when last seen. The story of the crew chief at Robins AFB, 200 miles away, seemed to confirm the sighting, not to mention the report from near the Virginia-North Carolina state line.

In intelligence, if you have something to say about some vital problem you write a report that is known as an "Estimate of the Situation." A few days after the DC-3 was buzzed, the people at ATIC decided that the time had arrived to make an Estimate of the Situation. The situation was the UFO"s; the estimate was that they were interplanetary!

It was a rather thick doc.u.ment with a black cover and it was printed on legal-sized paper. Stamped across the front were the words TOP SECRET.

It contained the Air Force"s a.n.a.lysis of many of the incidents I have told you about plus many similar ones. All of them had come from scientists, pilots, and other equally credible observers, and each one was an unknown.

The doc.u.ment pointed out that the reports hadn"t actually started with the Arnold Incident. Belated reports from a weather observer in Richmond, Virginia, who observed a "silver disk" through his theodolite telescope; an F-47 pilot and three pilots in his formation who saw a "silver flying wing," and the English "ghost airplanes"

that had been picked up on radar early in 1947 proved this point.

Although reports on them were not received until after the Arnold sighting, these incidents all had taken place earlier.

When the estimate was completed, typed, and approved, it started up through channels to higher-command echelons. It drew considerable comment but no one stopped it on its way up.

A matter of days after the Estimate of the Situation was signed, sealed, and sent on its way, the third big sighting of 1948, Volume III of "The Cla.s.sics," took place. The date was October 1, and the place was Fargo, North Dakota; it was the famous Gorman Incident, in which a pilot fought a "duel of death" with a UFO.

The pilot was George F. Gorman, a twenty-five-year-old second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard.

It was eight-thirty in the evening and Gorman was coming into Fargo from a cross-country flight. He flew around Fargo for a while and about nine o"clock decided to land. He called the control tower for landing instructions and was told that a Piper Cub was in the area.

He saw the Cub below him. All of a sudden what appeared to be the taillight of another airplane pa.s.sed him on his right. He called the tower and complained but they a.s.sured him that no other aircraft except the Cub were in the area. Gorman could still see the light so he decided to find out what it was. He pushed the F-51 over into a turn and cut in toward the light. He could plainly see the Cub outlined against the city lights below, but he could see no outline of a body near the mysterious light. He gave the "51 more power and closed to within a 1,000 yards, close enough to estimate that the light was 6 to 8 inches in diameter, was sharply outlined, and was blinking on and off. Suddenly the light became steady as it apparently put on power; it pulled into a sharp left bank and made a pa.s.s at the tower. The light zoomed up with the F-51 in hot pursuit.

At 7,000 feet it made a turn. Gorman followed and tried to cut inside the light"s turn to get closer to it but he couldn"t do it. The light made another turn, and this time the "51 closed on a collision course. The UFO appeared to try to ram the "51, and Gorman had to dive to get out of the way. The UFO pa.s.sed over the "51"s canopy with only a few feet to spare. Again both the F-51 and the object turned and closed on each other head on, and again the pilot had to dive out to prevent a collision. All of a sudden the light began to climb and disappeared.

"I had the distinct impression that its maneuvers were controlled by thought or reason," Gorman later told ATIC investigators.

Four other observers at Fargo partially corroborated his story, an oculist, Dr. A. D. Cannon, the Cub"s pilot, and his pa.s.senger, Einar Neilson. They saw a light "moving fast," but did not witness all the maneuvers that Gorman reported. Two CAA employees on the ground saw a light move over the field once.

Project Sign investigators rushed to Fargo. They had wired ahead to ground the plane. They wanted to check it over before it flew again.

When they arrived, only a matter of hours after the incident, they went over the airplane, from the prop spinner to the rudder trim tab, with a Geiger counter. A chart in the official report shows where every Geiger counter reading was taken. For comparison they took readings on a similar airplane that hadn"t been flown for several days. Gorman"s airplane was more radioactive. They rushed around, got sworn statements from the tower operators and oculist, and flew back to Dayton.

In the file on the Gorman Incident I found an old memo reporting the meeting that was held upon the ATIC team"s return from Fargo. The memo concluded that some weird things were taking place.

The historians of the UFO agree. Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major and a professional writer, author of _The_ _Flying_ _Saucers_ _Are_ _Real_ and _Flying_ _Saucers_ _from_ _Outer_ _s.p.a.ce_, needles the Air Force about the Gorman Incident, pointing out how, after feebly hinting that the light could have been a lighted weather balloon, they dropped it like a hot UFO. Some person by the name of Wilkins, in an equally authoritative book, says that the Gorman Incident "stumped" the Air Force. Other a.s.sorted historians point out that normally the UFO"s are peaceful, Gorman and Mantell just got too inquisitive, "they" just weren"t ready to be observed closely. If the Air Force hadn"t slapped down the security lid, these writers might not have reached this conclusion. There have been other and more lurid "duels of death."

On June 21, 1952, at 10:58P.M., a Ground Observer Corps spotter reported that a slow-moving craft was nearing the AEC"s Oak Ridge Laboratory, an area so secret that it is prohibited to aircraft. The spotter called the light into his filter center and the filter center relayed the message to the ground control intercept radar. They had a target. But before they could do more than confirm the GOC spotter"s report, the target faded from the radarscope.

An F-47 aircraft on combat air patrol in the area was vectored in visually, spotted a light, and closed on it. They "fought" from 10,000 to 27,000 feet, and several times the object made what seemed to be ramming attacks. The light was described as white, 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and blinking until it put on power. The pilot could see no silhouette around the light. The similarity to the Fargo case was striking.

On the night of December 10, 1952, near another atomic installation, the Hanford plant in Washington, the pilot and radar observer of a patrolling F-94 spotted a light while flying at 26,000 feet. The crew called their ground control station and were told that no planes were known to be in the area. They closed on the object and saw a large, round, white "thing" with a dim reddish light coming from two "windows." They lost visual contact, but got a radar lock-on. They reported that when they attempted to close on it again it would reverse direction and dive away. Several times the plane altered course itself because collision seemed imminent.

In each of these instances, as well as in the case narrated next, the sources of the stories were trained airmen with excellent reputations. They were sincerely baffled by what they had seen. They had no conceivable motive for falsifying or "dressing up" their reports.

The other dogfight occurred September 24, 1952, between a Navy pilot of a TBM and a light over Cuba.

The pilot had just finished making some practice pa.s.ses for night fighters when he spotted an orange light to the east of his plane. He checked on aircraft in the area, learned that the object was unidentified, and started after it. Here is his report, written immediately after he landed:

As it [the light] approached the city from the east it started a left turn. I started to intercept. During the first part of the chase the closest I got to the light was 8 to 10 miles. At this time it appeared to be as large as an SNJ and had a greenish tail that looked to be five to six times as long as the light"s diameter. This tail was seen several times in the next 10 minutes in periods of from 5 to 30 seconds each. As I reached 10,000 feet it appeared to be at 15,000 feet and in a left turn. It took 40 degrees of bank to keep the nose of my plane on the light. At this time I estimated the light to be in a 10-to-15-mile orbit.

At 12,000 feet I stopped climbing, but the light was still climbing faster than I was. I then reversed my turn from left to right and the light also reversed. As I was not gaining distance, I held a steady course south trying to estimate a perpendicular between the light and myself. The light was moving north, so I turned north. As I turned, the light appeared to move west, then south over the base. I again tried to intercept but the light appeared to climb rapidly at a 60- degree angle. It climbed to 35,000 feet, then started a rapid descent.

Prior to this, while the light was still at approximately 15,000 feet, I deliberately placed it between the moon and myself three times to try to identify a solid body. I and my two crewmen all had a good view of the light as it pa.s.sed the moon. We could see no solid body. We considered the fact that it might be an aerologist"s balloon, but we did not see a silhouette. Also, we would have rapidly caught up with and pa.s.sed a balloon.

During its descent, the light appeared to slow down at about 10,000 feet, at which time I made three runs on it. Two were on a 90-degree collision course, and the light traveled at tremendous speed across my bow. On the third run I was so close that the light blanked out the airfield below me. Suddenly it started a dive and I followed, losing it at 1,500 feet.

In _this_ incident the UFO _was_ a balloon.

The following night a lighted balloon was sent up and the pilot was ordered up to compare his experiences. He duplicated his dogfight-- illusions and all. The Navy furnished us with a long a.n.a.lysis of the affair, explaining how the pilot had been fooled.

In the case involving the ground observer and the F-47 near the atomic installation, we plotted the winds and calculated that a lighted balloon was right at the spot where the pilot encountered the light.

In the other instance, the "white object with two windows," we found that a skyhook balloon had been plotted at the exact site of the "battle."

Gorman fought a lighted balloon too. An a.n.a.lysis of the sighting by the Air Weather Service sent to ATIC in a letter dated January 24, 1949, proved it. The radioactive F-51 was decontaminated by a memo from a Wright Field laboratory explaining that a recently flown airplane will be more radioactive than one that has been on the ground for several days. An airplane at 20,000 to 30,000 feet picks up more cosmic rays than one shielded by the earth"s ever present haze.

Why can"t experienced pilots recognize a balloon when they see one?

If they are flying at night, odd things can happen to their vision.

There is the problem of vertigo as well as disorientation brought on by flying without points of reference. Night fighters have told dozens of stories of being fooled by lights.

One night during World War II we had just dumped a load of bombs on a target when a "night fighter" started to make a pa.s.s at us.

Everyone in the c.o.c.kpit saw the fighter"s red-hot exhaust stack as he bore down on us. I cut loose with six caliber-.50 machine guns.

Fortunately I missed the "night fighter"--if I"d have shot it I"d have fouled up the astronomers but good because the "night fighter"

was Venus.

While the people on Project Sign were pondering over Lieutenant Gorman"s dogfight with the UFO--at the time they weren"t even considering the balloon angle--the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was working its way up into the higher echelons of the Air Force. It got to the late General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then Chief of Staff, before it was batted back down. The general wouldn"t buy interplanetary vehicles. The report lacked proof. A group from ATIC went to the Pentagon to bolster their position but had no luck, the Chief of Staff just couldn"t be convinced.

The estimate died a quick death. Some months later it was completely decla.s.sified and relegated to the incinerator. A few copies, one of which I saw, were kept as mementos of the golden days of the UFO"s.

The top Air Force command"s refusal to buy the interplanetary theory didn"t have any immediate effect upon the morale of Project Sign because the reports were getting better.

A belated report that is more of a collectors" item than a good UFO sighting came into ATIC in the fall of 1948. It was from Moscow.

Someone, I could never find out exactly who, reported a huge "smudge- like" object in the sky.

Then radar came into the picture. For months the anti-saucer factions had been pointing their fingers at the lack of radar reports, saying, "If they exist, why don"t they show up on radarscopes?" When they showed up on radarscopes, the UFO won some converts.

On October 15 an F-61, a World War II "Black Widow" night fighter, was on patrol over j.a.pan when it picked up an unidentified target on its radar. The target was flying between 5,000 and 6,000 feet and traveling about 200 miles per hour. When the F-61 tried to intercept it would get to within 12,000 feet of the UFO only to have it accelerate to an estimated 1,200 miles per hour, leaving the F-61 far behind before slowing down again. The F-61 crew made six attempts to close on the UFO. On one pa.s.s, the crew said, they did get close enough to see its silhouette. It was 20 to 30 feet long and looked "like a rifle bullet."