Perhaps the most interesting event in America from 1958 occurred on October 26 in Lock Raven, near Baltimore. Two men saw a large, disc-shaped object, about one hundred feet wide, hanging between 100 and 150 feet off the top of a bridge over a lake. They drove to investigate and reached to within seventy-five feet of the object. At that point, the car’s electrical system died, and one of the men felt a burning sensation. The object rose vertically and quickly disappeared. Investigators uncovered corroborating testimony from several other witnesses, and Blue Book announced it as unexplained. Another interesting case took place on the afternoon of November 3, in Minot, North Dakota, when a master sergeant and medic named William Butler saw a bright green object shaped like a dime. He also saw a smaller, silver object. The first object exploded, whereupon the second object rapidly moved toward the location of the first one. The entire sighting lasted one minute; it remained unexplained by Blue Book.76
THE MCCORMACK COMMITTEE FIASCO AND AFTERMATH
Although UFOs were scarce in 1958, NICAP continued to make waves. During the summer, after Congress had adjourned, Keyhoe learned from a congressman that NICAP was “in a big fight—big league.” The congressman warned Keyhoe: “Don’t let up for a second. Keep boring in with facts, facts, more facts, and you’ll break this open.” Keyhoe never got the chance to do so. In August, Congressman John McCormack’s House Subcommittee on Atmospheric Phenomena (part of the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration) requested a briefing on UFOs. McCormack wanted an extended hearing in closed secret session, unrecorded, with all witness names held in confidence. Even this level of secrecy was insufficient for the air force. Instead, Blue Book Captain Gregory persuaded the subcommittee to allow the air force to give a briefing, while allowing outside people like Menzel, Ruppelt, and Keyhoe to offer their opinions. NICAP as a whole should be ignored, he emphasized. The subcommittee took the recommendation, and the main witnesses turned out to be official air force policymakers such as Gregory and Tacker. The subcommittee commended Gregory for his presentation on Blue Book’s “improved” methods. Of the outsiders invited, only Keyhoe opposed the official air force line, and his effect seems to have been nil.77
The McCormack committee was Captain Gregory’s final service toward debunking and defusing the UFO problem. In October 1958, Maj. Robert Friend succeeded him as Blue Book chief. Friend was a trained physicist and less hostile to UFO reports than Gregory. Although he improved Blue Book’s filing methods, and supported changing Blue Book policies toward greater acceptance of UFO reports, he received little outside support. About this time, an air force fact sheet stated that recent refinements in its investigative procedures had reduced unsolved sightings to 1.8 percent. The refinement came mainly from lumping “probable” and even “possible” cases into “identified.” The fact sheet also mentioned the Robertson Panel for the first time publicly, although it passed over the Panel’s recommendation regarding UFO debunking. 78
During the fall of 1958, air force intelligence officers ordered a staff study to reevaluate its UFO program and public relations. The staff labeled Keyhoe a “political adventurist” and stated—incorrectly—that Ruppelt was affiliated with NICAP. The two represented “a formidable team from which plenty of trouble can be expected.” This had been true a year earlier, when Ruppelt still opposed the air force line, but it was certainly true no longer. In any case, the staff decided that the air force lacked credibility regarding UFOs, needed to respond more quickly to reports, and needed to become more sophisticated in its UFO investigations. ATIC tentatively approved the plan, but the air force dropped it. The study’s recommendations, which were simultaneous with air force claims of
FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE
