Ancillary Mercy полностью

Some of the nation’s top scientists are “pretty shook up” about the mysterious flying objects sighted in New Mexico and West Texas skies this week, said Charles Capen (a scientist at White Sands). “This is something that hasn’t happened before.”⁴⁷

Keyhoe, meanwhile, wanted to dispute the air force conclusions openly. He knew, for example, that the crew of the Sebago had not merely tracked a UFO on radar, but had seen it visually—something not mentioned in the air force summary of the incident. But even though Keyhoe had lined up three Sebago witnesses for public statements, each one withdrew his permission to use his name in the Senate investigation. One witness, a pilot, told Keyhoe, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got a family and my job to think about.”⁴⁸

UFO sightings dropped off after mid-November. A reported landing occurred on December 8 in Woodward, Oklahoma, when a UFO allegedly took complete control of a car with three passengers. The driver, an employee of an aircraft company, said the object caused his heater, windshield wipers, and radio to fail, and the engine just stopped. Above the car, a disc-shaped object, about fifty feet in diameter with portholes around the edge, emitted hot air and a high-pitched sound. As it rose, the car started by itself. In a sequence reminiscent of the Olden Moore case, the man spent four hours with two Kirtland AFB officers who told him of similar observations; but the case was never reported to Blue Book. On December 12, a radar-visual sighting of a multicolored UFO occurred in Tokyo, causing jets to be scrambled. On the eighteenth, Dr. Luis Corrales, of Caracas, Venezuela, made a time exposure on a photographic film to record the passage of Sputnik II. He succeeded and photographed a second trail alongside it, then veering away, then returning to pace it. Detailed analysis disproved double exposure, scratches, internal reflections, or other debunking explanations.⁴⁹

One last report of note surfaced in 1957. Like the Villas-Boas case, it is one of the few abduction reports in the pre-Hill era. It also seemed to describe a type of being—the so-called Grays—that became common in later years. The story is sketchy in the extreme and was reported on December 11, 1957, at least five years after it supposedly took place. A man serving in the U.S. Army in Austria claimed to have been paralyzed by a humanoid being, taken inside a UFO, and flown (he believed) to another planet. He saw other humans who did not acknowledge his presence. He was then returned to his base. This report received no thorough investigation, and there was no mention of the man’s name.⁵⁰

The wave did not make a dent in the Blue Book record. Despite the amazing activity that had occurred, Blue Book acknowledged a mere fourteen unidentified sightings for all of 1957, less than 2 percent of the 1,006 reports it received. In truth, for the past two years, AISS had completely taken over ATIC’s job of analyzing UFO reports. Moreover, by the end of the year, the wave was all but forgotten by the public.⁵¹

THE AIR FORCE PARRIES NICAP

Although records are never complete, it appears that from 1958 to 1963, American UFO sightings waned significantly. Air force fact sheets became less frequent, and simply restated the position of November 1957. Not everyone took the air force seriously. On January 16, 1958, a writer for Life magazine stated that “during the ensuing year there will be authenticated sightings of roughly two hundred Unidentified Flying Objects, of which the Pentagon will be able to disprove 210.”⁵²

NICAP membership grew. By 1958, it reached five thousand, although the organization was always strapped for cash. Meanwhile, elements within the U.S. Senate pondered the UFO question. In January 1958, the Senate Subcommittee on Government Operations (headed by Sen. John McClellan) asked to meet with representatives from the secretary of the Air Force Office of Legislative Action (SAFLA) to discuss the possibility of holding open hearings of the air force UFO program. The air force feared “uncontrolled publicity,” but agreed to go along. Very soon, however, Richard Horner, the air force assistant secretary for research and development, persuaded the subcommittee chief counsel, Donald O’Donnell, that hearings were “not in the best interest of the air force,” nor necessary for national security. Blue Book, said Horner, had the situation well in hand. Horner also told Sen. Barry Goldwater that month that allegations about the air force withholding information about UFOs were “entirely in error.” People who reported UFOs, stated Horner, simply wanted confidentiality, and the air force respected that.⁵³

KEYHOE CENSORED ON TELEVISION