Part 1 (2/2)
We landed at the fighter base, checked in our parachutes, Mae Wests, and helmets, and drove over to his office There were several other people in the office, and they greetedsaucer front?” I talked with the ience officer's mind I was just about to ask him about the mysterious report when he took me to one side and quietly asked one
Once ere alone, the intelligence officer shut the door, went over to his safe, and dug out a big, thick report It was the standard Air Force reporting for UFO reports The intelligence officer toldcopy He said that he had been told to destroy all copies, but had saved one for reat curiosity, I took the report and started to read What _had_ happened at this fighter base?
About ten o'clock in the , one day a feeeks before, a radar near the base had picked up an unidentified target It was an odd target in that it came in very fast--about 700 miles per hour-- and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour The radar showed that it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area
Unfortunately the radar station didn't have any height-finding equipet and its distance from the station but they didn't know its altitude They reported the target, and two F-86's were scrambled
The radar picked up the F-86's soon after they were airborne, and had begun to direct theet started to fade on the radarscope At the tiht that this fade was caused by the target's losing altitude rapidly and getting below the radar's beah-flying target and that it was fading just because it was so high
In the debate which followed, the proponents of the high-flying theory won out, and the F-86's were told to go up to 40,000 feet But before the aircraft could get to that altitude, the target had been completely lost on the radarscope
The F-86's continued to search the area at 40,000 feet, but could see nothing After a few round controller called the F-86's and told one to come down to 20,000 feet, the other to 5,000 feet, and continue the search The two jetsat 20,000 feet and the other heading for the deck
The second pilot, as going down to 5,000 feet, was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him
He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen the light As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought was a weather balloon A few seconds later he realized that it couldn't be a balloon because it was staying ahead of him Quite an achievement for a balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and noas flying al ”at the Mach”
Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after the object He closed fairly fast, until he caood look at the object
Although it had looked like a balloon from above, a closer vieed that it was definitely round and flat--saucer-shaped The pilot described it as being ”like a doughnut without a hole”
As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew that the object was picking up speed But he pulled in behind it and started to folloas right on the deck
About this tiet a little worried What should he do? He tried to call his buddy, as flying above him somewhere in the area at 20,000 feet He called two or three tiround controller but he was too low for his radio to carry that far Once ain no luck
By now he had been following the object for about two ap between them to approximately 500 yards But this was only an to pull away, slowly at first, then faster The pilot, realizing that he couldn't catch _it_, wondered what to do next
When the object traveled out about 1,000 yards, the pilot suddenlythat he could do to stop the UFO It was like a David about to do battle with a Goliath, but he had to take a chance Quickly charging his guns, he started shooting
A moment later the object pulled up into a clione The pilot climbed to 10,000 feet, called the other F-86, and noas able to contact his buddy They joined up and went back to their base
As soon as he had landed and parked, the F-86 pilot went into operations to tell his story to his squadron coh to require a detailed report, as a uns actually were fired created a hter base that day
After the squadron coroup coence officer They heard the pilot's story
For some obscure reason there was a ”personality clash,” the intelligence officer's term, between the pilot and the squadron co to the report I was reading, because the squadron coan to tear the story apart and accuse the pilot of ”cracking up,” or of just ”shooting his guns for the hell of it and using the wild story as a cover-up”
Other pilots in the squadron, friends of the accused pilot-- including the intelligence officer and a flight surgeon--were called in to ”testify” All of these men were aware of the fact that in certain instances a pilot can ”flip” for no good reason, but none of them said that he had noticed any symptoms of mental crack-up in the unhappy pilot
None, except the squadron co home his idea-- that the pilot was ”psycho”--and used a few examples of what the report called ”minor incidents” to justify his stand
Finally the pilot who had been flying with the ”accused”the tactical radio channel but that he hadn't heard any calls fro F-86 The squadron commander triumphantly jumped on this point, but the accused pilot tended to refute it by adht channel But when he was asked if he had checked or changed channels after he had lost the object and before he had finally contacted the other F-86, he couldn't remember