Part 11 (1/2)

The case was closed

I had read the report of this sighting but I hadn't paid too much attention to it because it had been ”solved” But one day alot a telephone call at eant, thethe radar at the lab He'd just heard that the Air Force was again seriously investigating UFO's and he wanted to see what had been said about the Dayton Incident He careed hat had been decided upon as the answer He said that he'd been working with radar before World War II; he'd helped with the operational tests on the first roup headed by Dr Luis Alvarez He said that what he saw on that radarscope was no ice cloud; it was some type of aircraft He'd seen every conceivable type of weather target on radar, he told ets caused by temperature inversions, and the works They all had siet was ”fuzzy” and varied in intensity But in this case the target was a good, solid return and he was convinced that it was caused by a good, solid object And besides, he said, when the target began to fade on his scope he had raised the tilt of the antenna and the target ca Ice-laden clouds don't climb, he commented rather bitterly

Nor did the pilot of one of the F-51's agree with the ATIC analysis

The pilot who had been leading the two-shi+p flight of F-51's on that day told, and before the clouds obscured it, they both got a good look at the UFO, and it was getting bigger and an to take on a shape; it was definitely round And if it had been Venus it should have been in the same part of the sky the next day, but the pilot said that he'd looked and it wasn't there The ATIC report doesn'thie and metallic”--shades of the Mantell Incident

The Dayton Incident didn't get much of a play from the press because officially it wasn't an unknown and there's nothing intriguing about an ice cloud and Venus There were UFO reports in the newspapers, however

One story that idely printed was about a sighting at the naval air station at Dallas, Texas Just before noon on March 16, Chief Petty Officer Charles Lewis saw a disk-shaped UFO co B-36 Lewis first saw the UFO co in from the north, lower than the B-36; then he saw it pull up to the big boot closer It hovered under the B-36 for an instant, then it went speeding off and disappeared When the press inquired about the incident, Captain M A Nation, commander of the air station, vouched for his chief and added that the base tower operators had seen and reported a UFO to hi because the next day a bigger one broke when the sky over the little town of Farton, New Mexico, about 170 miles northwest of Albuquerque, was literally invaded by UFO's

Every major newspaper carried the story The UFO's had apparently been congregating over the four corners area for two days because several people had reported seeing UFO's on March 15 and 16 But the seventeenth was the big day, every saucer this side of Polaris ton, because on that day most of the town's 3,600 citizens saw the mass fly-by The first reports weresaucers Estimates of the number varied from a conservative 500 to ”thousands” Most all the observers said the UFO's were saucer- shaped, traveled at alht path They would dart in and out and seemed to avoid collisions only by inches There was no doubt that they weren't hallucinations because the hway patrol, and every type of person who makes up a community of 3,600 saw theton and saw this now famous UFO display of St Patrick's Day, 1950 I've heard dozens of explanations--cotton blowing in the wind, bugs' wings reflecting sunlight, a hoax to put Far saucers One explanation was never publicized, however, and if there is an explanation, it is the best Under certain conditions of extre of a skyhook balloon will get very brittle, and will take on the characteristics of a huge light bulb If a sudden gust of wind or some other disturbance hits the balloon, it will shatter into a thousand pieces As these pieces of plastic float down and are carried along by the wind, they could look like thousands of flying saucers

On St Patrick's Day a skyhook balloon launched fro Ground, did burst near Farh at 60,000 feet to ton never found any pieces of plastic, but the sht as feathers and could have floated far beyond the city

The next day, on March 18, the Air Force, prodded by the press, shrugged and said, ”There's nothing to it,” but they had no explanation

_True_ h for a third ti the latter part of March 1950, carried a roundup of UFO photos They offered seven photos as proof that UFO's existed It didn't take a photo-interpretation expert to tell that all seven could well be of doubtful lineage, nevertheless the collection of photos added fuel to the already s a lot about flying saucers and all of it was on the pro side For soht that the Air Force was being hty quiet

The subject took on added interest on the night of March 26, when a famous news coht Henry J Taylor, in a broadcast from Dallas, Texas, said that the UFO's were Uncle Sa saucer had been found on the beach near Galveston, Texas It had USAF eles television station cut into a regular progra the announcer said they would show the first photos of the real thing, oursaucer The photos turned out to be of the Navy XF- 5-U, a World War II experimental aircraft that never flew

The public was now thoroughly confused

By now the words ”flying saucer” were being batted around by every newspaper reporter, radio and TV newscaster, comedian, and man on the street Some of the comments weren't cooes, ”It doesn'tas the naht”

Early in April the publication that is highly revered by so many, _US_ _News_ _and_ _World_ _Report_, threw in their lot The UFO's belonged to the Navy Up popped the old non-flying XF-5-U again

Events drifted back to normal when Edward R Murrow made UFO's the subject of one of his TV documentaries He took his viewers around the US, talked to Kenneth Arnold, of original UFO faot the story of Captain Mantell's death from a reporter ”as there” Sandwiched in between accounts of actual UFO sightings were the pro and con opinions of top Washi+ngton brass, scientists, and the man on the street

Even the staid New York _Times_, which had until now stayed out of UFO controversy, broke down and ran an editorial entitled, ”Those Flying Saucers--Are They or Aren't They?”

All of this activity did little to shock the ation really hadn't been discontinued ”Any substantial reports of any unusual aerial phenoence channels,”

they told the press

Ever since July 4, 1947, ten days after the first flying saucer report, airline pilots had been reporting that they had seen UFO's

But the reports weren't frequent--ed, however, and the airline pilots began to ood reports The reports went to ATIC but they didn't receive much attention In a few instances there was a seation but it was halfhearted The reports reached the newspapers too, and here they received a great deal ated, and the stories checked and rechecked When airline crews began to turn in one UFO report after another, it was difficult to believe the old ”hoax, hallucination, and misidentification of known objects” routine In April, May, and June of 1950 there were over thirty-five good reports froo and Southern creere flying a DC-3 froht of March 31 It was an exceptionally clear night, no clouds or haze, a wonderful night to fly At exactly nine twenty-nine by the cockpit clock the pilot, a Jack Adaht off to his left

The copilot, G W Anderson, was looking at the chart but out of the corner of his eye he saw the pilot lean forward and look out the , so he looked out too He saw the light just as the pilot said, ”What's that?”

The copilot's ansas classic: ”No, not one of those things”

Both pilots had only recently voiced their opinions regarding the flying saucers and they weren't complimentary