Part 24 (1/2)

Abouton Tuesday, July 29th, Major General John Samford sent word down that he would hold a press conference that afternoon in an attehten out the UFO situation with the press

Donald Keyhoe reports on the press conference and the events leading up to it in detail in his book, _Flying_ _Saucers_ _from_ _Outer_ _space_ He indicates that before the conference started, General Sa walnut desk in Rooon and battled with his conscience Should he tell the public ”the real truth”--that our skies are loaded with spaceshi+ps? No, the public ht panic The only ansould be to debunk the UFO's

This bit of reporting reatest journalist in history This beats wire tapping He reads h the walls of the Pentagon But I'lad that Keyhoe was able to read the General's mind and that he wrote the true and accurate facts about what he was really thinking because I spent quite a bit of ti to the General that day and he sure fooled me I had no idea he orried about what he should tell the public

When the press conference, which was the largest and longest the Air Force had held since World War II, convened at 4:00PM, General Saton National Sightings, but the cards were stacked against hie on many answers to questions froave the i more than just the fact that his people had fouled up in not fully investigating the sightings

Then he had brought in Captain Roy James from ATIC to handle all the queries about radar James didn't do any better because he'd just arrived in Washi+ngton that s than he'd read in the papers Major Dewey Fournet and Lieutenant Holcos, were extremely conspicuous by their absence, especially since it was co the press that they weren't convinced the UFO's picked up on radars eather targets

But somehow out of this chaotic situation caot off our backs Captain Jaets' being caused by temperature inversions had been construed by the press to h today the twin sightings are still carried as unknowns

The next ota read:

AIR FORCE DEBUNKS SAUCERS AS JUST NATURAL PHENOMENA

The Washi+ngton National Sightings proved one thing, so that many of us already knew: in order to forestall any h ays had to get all of the facts and not try to hide thereat deal of the press's interest was caused by the Air Force's reluctance to give out any information, and the reluctance on the part of the Air Force was caused by sione out to find the answers

But had soation a few big questions would have popped up and taken soue out of the two reports It took ether because I just picked up the information as I happened to run across it, but it could have been collected in a day of concentrated effort

There was soe-colored sphere” that the tower operators at Andrews AFB sahen the radar operators at National Airport told thee station When the tower operators were later interrogated they coed their story and said that what they saasthey ”had been excited” (According to astronoht stars where the UFO was seen over the range station, however And I heard froood source that the tower men had been ”persuaded” a bit)

Then the pilot of the F-94C changed his iven the press and later told hts In an official report he says that all he saas a ground light reflecting off a layer of haze

Another question hts that the airline pilots saw Months after the sighting I heard from one of the pilots whom the ARTC controllers called to learn if he could see a UFO Thisin and out of Washi+ngton since 1936 This is what he had to say:

Theincident happened just after a take-off one night froton National The tower man advised us that there was a UFO ahead of us on the take-off path and asked if ould aid in tracking it down We were given headings to follow and shortly ere advised that we had passed the UFO and would be given a new heading None of us in the cockpit had seen anything unusual Several runs werethe UFO we noticed that ere over one certain section of the Potomac River, just east of Alexandria Finally ere asked to visually check the terrain below for anything which ht cause such an illusion We looked and the only object we could see where the radar had a target turned out to be the Wilson Lines ht steaimmick on the radar unit at the ti up the steamboat

The pilot went on to say that there is such a congloton area that no ht”

Then there was another point: although the radars at Washi+ngton National and Andrews overlap, and ets appeared in the overlap area, only once did the three radars siht out a few more points on the pro side too

We found out that the UFO's frequently visited Washi+ngton On May 23 fifty targets had been tracked froht between the two faht, and again the night of the press conference; then during August they were seen eight more tihts exactly where the radar showed the UFO's to be

On each night that there was a sighting there was a teh to affect the radar the way inversions north of the inversion according to the methods used by the Air Defense Command Weather Forecast Center

Then there was another interesting fact: hardly a night passed in June, July, and August in 1952 that there wasn't an inversion in Washi+ngton, yet the slow-hts

But the one big factor on the pro side of the question is the people involved--good radar men--men who deal in hu thousands of people into Washi+ngton National Airport and with a responsibility like this they should know a real target froton National Airport Sightings are still unknowns

Had the press been aware of so this period, the Washi+ngton sightings ht not have been the center of interest True, they could be classed as good reports but they were not the best that ere getting In fact, less than six hours after the ladies and gentlemen of the press said ”Thank you” to General Samford for his press conference, and before the UFO's could read the newspapers and find out that they were natural phenomena, one of thean The incident that occurred that night was one of those that even the