' - f
-'r . ........
of the 11,000 sightings · since
1947, did have some ex
planations. ·Th e mystedous
f 1am in g object in the East
was "probably a meteor."
As for :Michigan's much
• you details," he complained.'No Threat' "If they did, many of their
The main conclusions explanations would fall flat."
r e a ch e d by the Air Force And K e y h o e could alsowere: claim a powerful ally in
~ "No unidentified fiying
public i z e d and plentiful
unidentified f 1 y i n g objects,
they turned out to be
monkeyshines i n s t e a d of
moonships : ..C'nidentified
c~llege boys" playing pranks
with flares to frighten the
g i r 1 s in the dormitories,
came the aug4st report from
a distinguished astronomer
called in by the Air Force to
investigate the HiUsdale af
fair.
E very r.eport of a "flyina
saucer " had ostensibly beenb
ch e ck e d out by the Air
F orce's special squad known
as ''Project Blue Book," al
though the staff was woefully
small. Of the 10,147 sightings
s 1 n c e 1947, the Air Force
insisted that only 646 remain
unexplained - and most of
these because of insufficient
information. The others have
been attributed to . planes,
b a 11 o o n s, astronomical
causes, missiles, swamp gas,
meteo r s, fireworks and, in
some cases, to hallucinations
ru1d psychological reasons.
Ball Ligbining?
Philip Klass, avionics edi
tor of Aviation Week & Space
Technolo g y magazine,
recently proposed soine other
exp I an at ions. Klass, an
electronics engineer, said a
form of "ball lightning," gen
er ated by high tension power
lines, could explain the phe
nomena.
Many of the sightings, said
-mass, occw·red along or very
near high-tension lines where
luminous balls of ionized air
could be g e n e r a t e d under
certain conditions.
obJects reported, investigat
ed and evaluated by the Air
· Force haYe ever given any in
dication of a threat to our
national security."
o "There has been no ev-
Tclence submitted to or discov
ered by the Air Force that
sightings r epresent t e c h n o-
•1ogical developments or prin
ciple s beyond the range of
present day scientific knowl
edge."
c " There has been no evi
dence th2t sightings catego
rized as unidentified are ex
traterrestrial vehicles."
Major D on al d Keyhoe,
however, w as unconvinced.
Major Key h oe, USMC (re
tired), dir ector of the Nation
al Investigations Committee
on A er i a I P henomena (NI•
CAP ), a private space watch
ing organization, accused the
Air F o·r c e of conducting a
long-term whitewash on the
UFO question.
It wa_s Keyhoe's theory
that the Air Force was with
holding information for fea~
of c a u s in g public panic.
UFOs, insisted the Major,
who had never seen one. were
of exb-aterrestrial origin an.:
the Air Force feared that the
public could not accept this
knowledge. " They won't give
Michigan's Ger ald Ford, the·
Hou se Republican leader,
who suggcs:ed it would be " a
very wholesome thin g" for
Congress to look into uniden
tified flying objects. Such an
investigation. Ford suggest
ed. would make the Ameri
can people '·feel better."
- Study in Depth
Whether or not that was· so,
the Air Force last week took
definite steps to make itself
feel better. Fed up with in
yestigating r eports of glow
ing, f l y i n g. zooming, wink
ing, awe s ome, blinking,
streaking, hoveling things,
the Air Force last week de
cided to bail itself out of all
responsibility for future con
clusions concerning UFOs.
The Air Force announced
that it had commissioned the
University of c o 1 0 r a d O to
conduct an "in-depth" study
of flying saucers for the next
18 m O n th s. The director of
the study (expected to cost
$300,000) would be Dr. Ed
ward U. Condon, former di
rector of the National Bureau
of St an d a r d s, and now a
physics professor at Colora
do.
. To satisfy the skeptics, and
rnsm·e the study's objectivi
ty' C o 1 o r a d o would select
several other universities to
~ake ~art. in the independent
m~est~gation, with about 100
scientists participating.
And in c.a s e that wasn't
enough, the National Acade
my of Sciences also agreed
to appoint a panel to review
the Colorado report.