On April 18, just six days after Yury Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth, and while the Bay of Pigs invasion was disintegrating, a strange UFO encounter allegedly took place at Eagle River, Wisconsin. At 11 A.M., Joe Simonton claimed to hear a whining sound and then saw a craft, thirty feet in diameter and twelve feet high, resting on his property. A man about five feet tall appeared from the craft; he wore a black, turtleneck pullover with a white band at the belt and black trousers with a vertical white band along the side. Inside the craft, Simonton discerned two more figures; he said all three resembled “Italians.” The strange man held up a metallic jug, which Simonton took and filled with water. He noticed one man frying on a flameless grill and motioned for some food. He received three ordinary pancakes or cookies, about three inches in diameter, perforated with small holes. Soon after, the craft departed. The air force investigated the case and even analyzed the pancakes, finding them to be entirely ordinary, except for the lack of any salt. The case was inconclusive: nothing ever pointed to a hoax, but little evidence supported anything more.144
The rest of 1961 provided few, albeit intriguing, reports. On April 29, 1961, near Newport, Rhode Island, a man on the beach saw a spherical object bobbing on the waves two hundred yards out. It then rose about sixty feet and took off in a straight line out to sea at an estimated 100 mph. Another water-related incident occurred in Savona, Italy, early on June 3. Four people in a boat were shaken by growing waves; at some distance, they saw the sea swell up, and a cone-shaped object emerge. It hovered briefly over the water, showed a glowing underside, then left at high speed.145
In Exeter, England, on June 19, a flying object was reported to have hovered for over an hour above an airport. The object appeared on radar and was observed “for some time.” It appeared to be large, highly reflective, and about fifty thousand feet high. Officials were baffled.146
A month later, on July 17 at 2 A.M. in Las Vegas, Nevada, two people traveling on U.S. Highway 91 saw a low-flying object in the rearview mirror that overtook their car, bringing a rush of cold air. The object stopped, circled the vehicle, then flew off behind the mountains, where the witnesses believed it might have landed. Vallee said the ensuing military investigation was “exceptionally complete,” yet no one found evidence of a landing.147
Another low-flying UFO was seen by car passengers sometime around August 25, 1961, in Toulouse, France. Five people claimed to see a luminous, yellow sphere, about twenty-five feet in diameter, flying about thirty-five feet above the road. The object ascended rapidly when the car reached town.148
On September 18, Fourth Officer G. Gendall of the vessel
1961: ANOTHER ROUND WITH CONGRESS
By early 1961, the air force gave Blue Book slightly more money and staff, which appeased Congressman Smart, but which affected neither operations nor public statements. An air force release from January 19, 1961, stated the old news that “... no physical or material evidence, not even a minute fragment of a so-called ‘flying saucer’ or spaceship has ever been found.” The Soviet Union issued similar statements. On January 9, 1961,
In March, Maj. Lawrence Tacker used his strongest language to date on UFOs. Claims for UFOs were either “absolutely erroneous,” “a hoax,” “sensational theories,” or the work of “amateur hobby groups.” NICAP’s evidence was “drivel,” its claims “ridiculous,” and it made “senseless accusations.” In April, the air force reassigned Tacker to Europe. He had been associated with the UFO project for three years and had written a book on the subject, but his UFO career was now abruptly over.151
