Part 34 (1/2)
The reporting spread to Italy, where thousands of people in Ro over the city for forty minutes
Newspapers claimed that Italian Air Force radar had the UFO on their scopes, but as far as I could detered
In Deceraph of two UFO's over Taormina, Sicily, appeared inon a bridge, with a fourth running up with a ca two disk-shaped objects The photo looked good, but there was one flaw, theoff to the right of theree with Captain Hardin of Blue Book--the photographer just fouled up on his double exposure
Sightings spread across southern Europe, and at the end of October, the Yugoslav Governrade newspapers said that a ”thoughtful inquiry” would be set up, since reports had come from ”control tower operators, weather stations and hundreds of farht was, ”Scientists in astronoe objects with their own eyes”
During 1954 and the early part of 1955 my friends in Europe tried to keep me up-to-date on all of the better reports, but this soon approached a full-time job Airline pilots saw them, radar picked them up, and military pilots chased theued the US since 1947 bloomed forth in all its confusion
An ex-Air Chief Marshal in the RAF, Lord Dowding, went to bat for the UFO's The Netherlands Air Chief of Staff said they can't be
Herman Oberth, the father of the German rocket development, said that the UFO's were definitely interplanetary vehicles
In Belgium a senator put the screws on the Secretary of Defense--he wanted an answer The Secretary of Defense questioned the idea that the saucers were ”real” and said that the military wasn't officially interested In France a member of parliament received a different answer--the French military was interested The French General Staff had set up a committee to study UFO reports
In Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, American Ambassador to Italy, said that she had seen a UFO and had no idea what it could be
Halfway around the world, in Australia, the UFO's were busy too At Canberra Airport the pilot of an RAAF Hawker Sea Fury and a ground radar station teah data to make an excellent radar- visual report
In early 1955 the flap began to die down about as rapidly as it had flared up, but it had left its hly respected British aviationto say One of the editors took a long, hard look at the over-all UFO picture and concluded, ”Really, old chaps--I don't know”
Probably the most unique part of the whole European Flap was the fact that the Iron Curtain countries were having their own private flap The first indications came in October 1954, when Ru a drive to induce a ”flying saucer psychosis” in their country The next arian Government hauled an ”expert” up in front of the microphone so that he could explain to the populace that UFO's don't really exist because, ”all 'flying saucer' reports originate in the bourgeois countries, where they are invented by the capitalist war the people's attention away from their economic difficulties”
Next the USSR itself took up the cry along the same lines when the voice of the Soviet Aruessed it, capitalist propaganda
In 1955 the UFO's were still there because the day before the all- important May Day celebration, a day when the Soviet radio and TV are norlory of Mother Russia to get the peasants in the mood for the next day, a et on the air to calm the people's fears
He left out Wall Street and Dulles this ti to note that during the whole Iron Curtain Flap, not one sighting or complimentary comment about the UFO's was made over the radio or in the newspapers; yet the flap continued The reports were obviously being passed on by word of ate the theory that if the newspaper reporters and newscasters would give up the UFO's would go away The people in Russia were obviously seeing soress, the UFO's weren't entirely neglecting the United States The nu into Project Blue Book were below average, but there were reports
Many of theood, but the best was a report from a photo reconnaissance B-29 crew that encountered a UFO almost over Dayton
About 11:00AM on May 24, 1954, an RB-29 equipped with soht Field, one of the two airfields that ht-Patterson AFB, and headed toward the Air Force's photographic test range in Indiana At exactly twelve noon they were at 16,000 feet, flying west, about 15 miles northwest of Dayton A major, a photo officer, was in the nose seat of the '29 All of the gun sights and the bo in a large picture --except you just can't get this kind of a view anyplace else Thedohen he saw an extreht circular-shaped object under and a little behind the airplane It was so bright that it seemed to have a mirror finish He couldn't tell how far below hiher than 6,000 feet above the ground, and it was traveling fast, faster than the B-29 It took only about six seconds to cross a section of land, whichabout 600 miles an hour
The major called the crew and told them about the UFO, but neither the pilot nor the copilot could see it because it was now directly under the B-29 The pilot was just in the process of telling him that he was crazy when one of the scanners in an aft blister called in; he and the other scanner could also see the UFO
Being a photo shi+p, the RB-29 had ca to do would be to take a picture, but during a UFO sighting logic soround In this case, however, it didn't, and the major reached down, punched the button on the intervalo vertical camera in the aft section of the airplane clicked off a photo before the UFO sped away
The photo showed a circular-shaped blob of light exactly as the major had described it to the RB-29 crew It didn't show any details of the UFO because the UFO was too bright; it was coative The circular shape wasn't sharp either; it had fuzzy edges, but this could have been due to two things: its extreh, close to the RB-29, and out of focus There was no way of telling exactly how high it was but if it were at 6,000 feet, as the major estimated, it would have been about 125 feet in diaht-Patterson, Captain Hardin from Project Blue Book carried out one of the ations in UFO history They checked aircraft flights, rephotographed the area froh and low altitude to see if they could pick up soht, and round search of the area They found absolutely nothing that could explain the round blob of light, and the incident went down as an unknown
Like all good ”Unknown” UFO reports, there are as ht could have been as there are people who've seen the photo ”Soht phenomenon” is the frequent opinion of those who don't believe They point out that there is no shadow of any kind of a circular object showing on the ground--no shadow, nothing ”solid” But if you care to take the ti that this is what it as above 4,000 feet the shadoould fall out of the picture
Then all you get is a blank look fro froraph, all of the other UFO reports that Blue Book has collected and all of those that ca question--the key question-- is: What have the last two years of UFO activity brought out? Have there been any iood reports have co 1954 they received soain July was the peak month In the first half of 1955 they had 189 But I can assure you that these reports add nothing more as far as proof is concerned The quality of the reports has i more than the same circumstantial evidence that we presented to the panel of scientists in early 1953 There have been no reports in which the speed or altitude of a UFO has been raphs that show any details of a UFO, and there is no hardware There is still no real proof