By late November, strange sightings had come to Venezuela. An incredible tale came from Caracas on November 28. At 2 A.M., two truck drivers claimed to see a luminous spherical object hovering six feet off the ground, blocking their way. They stopped the truck and one of them investigated. He saw a hairy, three-foot-tall being with claws and glowing eyes, who knocked him about fifteen feet. The man drew a knife and struck the creature, but it glanced off as though he had hit steel. Another creature shone a light which blinded the man, and his assailant entered the craft while two other beings, carrying various samples, also got in. The craft then swiftly took off. The man was hospitalized for a deep scratch on his side, and both men received sedatives. Authorities who investigated considered them reliable.118
Three bizarre events were reported in Venezuela on December 10, all of which involved close-up sightings of landed or low-hovering UFOs, encounters with small beings (most of them covered with hair), two of which involved physical encounters and attempted kidnappings which left bruises on the witnesses.119 On December 16, three young men driving in the suburbs of San Carlos pulled over so that one of them could relieve himself. The man screamed; his friends found him unconscious and saw a small hairy creature enter a shiny disc hovering off the ground, then take off with a deafening buzzing sound. The man was taken to a hospital in a state of shock, and all three were interviewed by authorities.120
Back in Europe, close encounters were reported in Belgium, Spain, Germany, and France (including another “paralysis” case in late December); but aside from Italy, the wave of alien sightings declined after mid-November, and more so in December. In November, the Hungarian government announced that UFOs did not exist, since all flying saucer reports came from bourgeois countries. On December 15, a Royal Australian Navy pilot was paced by two UFOs. The incident was confirmed on radar and kept out of the press for sev eral months.121
Around this time, Melbourne University scientist Harry Turner wrote a report on flying saucers for the Royal Australian Air Force, which remained classified until 1982. Turner stated:
The evidence presented by the reports held by [the Australian air force] tend to support the ... conclusion ... that certain strange aircraft have been observed to behave in a manner suggestive of extraterrestrial origin.
It would be interesting to see the reports that Turner analyzed. The RAAF, however, seems to have dismissed his report. A key reason was that Turner included references to Keyhoe’s book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space. According to Australian UFO researcher Bill Chalker,122 the Australian Director of Air Force Intelligence inquired of the Americans about Keyhoe. The Australians were told that Keyhoe’s books deceptively conveyed the impression that they were based on official documents (they didn’t, the Pentagon implied), made “improper use of information,” and that “a dim view” was taken officially of Keyhoe and his works. Thus, Turner’s findings and recommendations (which included greater official interest) were dropped.123
AMERICA DEBUNKS
While bedlam swept through Europe and South America, the U.S. Air Force released a statement through the
The air force said today that after seven years of exhaustive investigation by its Air Technical Intelligence Center at Dayton, Ohio, it has failed to uncover any proof that flying saucers exist except in the imagination of observers. . . .124
UFOs were not prominent in America at the time. Why, then, would the air force issue such a statement? Keyhoe pointed to the crazy stories from France and elsewhere which, while “obviously inspired by excitement or hysteria,” nevertheless had sown “the seeds of panic” in most of the world.
That may be, but the American military continued to encounter UFOs and express varying levels of concern about them. The 4602nd AISS noted in a September 1954 memo that it was receiving about fifteen reports per week, a bit busier than its average pace of one per day during the latter half of 1954. From mid-August through the end of the year, the 4602nd received 112 raw reports and conducted twenty-five field investigations. Thirty-five cases (31 percent) were unsolved and went on to ATIC/Blue Book, which recorded twenty-two unsolved cases for that period. In November, members of the 4602nd met with Blue Book representatives Capt. Charles Hardin and Allen Hynek, who were to release the “rule of thumb” criteria to evaluate UFOs. Hynek was better qualified than Hardin to do this, and probably helped the 4602nd to compile its own detailed UFO Guide, which it was then doing.125
