The Roswell Report: Case Closed

Fig. 26. Capt. Joseph W.
Kittinger, Jr. (right), is shown
here in 1962 with Dr. J. Allen
Hynek while preparing for
the project STARGAZER high
altitude balloon flight.
(U.S. Air Force photo)
According to the medical technician who arrived on the helicopter
with the pilots, he had difficulty persuading a flight surgeon to attend to
the injured pilots. SSgt. Roland H. "Hap" Lutz, now a retired Chief
Master Sergeant, recalled when he first contacted the Walker AFB hospital
explaining that he had three persons injured in a "gondola accident," the
flight surgeon told him to "Go home and sleep it off."222 Fulgham, the injured
pilot, recalled that when they got to the hospital, "there was this controversy
going on in the hospital about who in the hell we were ... we weren't supposed
to be there and nobody knew anything about Air Force officers flying
balloons ... we could have been ... [trying] to penetrate the security."223 Walker
AFB security officials were satisfied of the pilots' identities when they spoke
to Colonel Stapp, commander of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright-
Patterson AFB, Ohio.
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The "Red-headed Captain" and Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Captain Kittinger, the STARGAZER high altitude balloon pilot and project
engineer, had extensive professional contact with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an
astronomer and STARGAZER project scientist. Additionally, Hynek was also one
of the scientific consultants in the Air Force study of UFOs, Project BLUEBOOK.
Hynek is best known, however, for his apparent endorsement of extraterrestrial
theories concerning UFOs after concluding his associations with the Air Force.
When asked about his recollections of Hynek, Kittinger stated that when
they were associated, from 1958 to 1963, they discussed UFOs at length. 224
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