The extraordinary UFO encounter at Redmond, Oregon, of September 24, 1959, discussed at length in this book’s introduction, contained all the ingredients that make the UFO story so compelling: (1) a multiple-witness, visual sighting of an object that defied conventional explanation; (2) clear tracking on multiple radars; (3) a serious and daring attempt by the air force to intercept the object, in this case with six F-102 jets; (4) strong indications that the military forcibly silenced the personnel involved; (5) continued stonewalling and deception on the part of the air force to explain the incident away, ending with the classic of all debunking solutions: the planet Venus; (6) the work of civilian UFO organizations—in this case, NICAP—to obtain documentation (FAA logs) that disproved the air force claims; (7) the loss of air force credibility to everyone involved in the incident; and (8) the mixed nature of success in covering up the incident—not enough to prevent it from reaching the attention of outside snoops who could then write about it, but enough to keep it from becoming a problem in the media or Congress.102
Fundamentally, the encounter provided more evidence that the military took UFOs very seriously and was doing everything possible to stifle all information about them—in short, that the government was hiding something big about UFOs.
Four days after the Redmond incident, on September 28, ATIC issued a report reassessing its UFO role. It recommended that the UFO program be transferred to an air force division with better scientific capabilities, which could then implement an active public relations campaign with the goal of “the eventual elimination of the program as a special project.” This did not mean that the air force would stop receiving UFO reports, but would merely eliminate Project Blue Book and the public dimension of the problem. ATIC’s problem now became to convince any other area of the air force to take the program, and none were foolhardy enough to agree.103
By October, NICAP was again gathering congressional support for a renewed investigation of the air force’s censorship over UFOs. Several former air force officers and NCOs provided statements for NICAP Among them was Lt. Col. Richard T. Headrick, a radar bombing expert who devised key missions during the Second World War:
Saucers exist (I saw two). They were intelligently flown or operated (evasive tactics, formation flight, hovering). They were mechanisms, not United States weapons, nor Russian. I presume they are extraterrestrial.
Another, Air Force Sgt. James H. Sawyer, stated:
Many airmen asked for more UFO information; I received strict orders there would be no discussion. I am convinced the unexplained UFOs are guided by advanced, intelligent beings. I believe the censorship is a grave error.
A third, Sgt. Oliver Dean, was also a NICAP member. In 1958, two officers at Kirtland AFB grilled him about his personal UFO investigations. He told NICAP, “I was warned, ‘If you continue this, Sergeant Dean, be careful; it can get you into serious trouble.’”
In addition to testimonies such as these, Keyhoe and NICAP collected a number of tentative statements by senators and congressmen favoring UFO hearings, provided such hearings not jeopardize national security. NICAP’s leaders also hoped that the Killian case might be a useful instrument in their hands. Ultimately, however, October was just not the right time to push ahead. It was too late in the session to gather enough momentum. Keyhoe learned from one congressman that “you don’t have enough support yet to ram it through. Get everything in shape for next year and keep on lining up with more backing.”104
RUPPELT REVISES HIS BOOK, THEN DIES
Throughout the spring of 1959, Keyhoe and NICAP encountered rumors that Ruppelt, under great pressure, would be revising the conclusion of his 1956 book,
