Ancillary Mercy полностью

In February 1962, the month that Hillenkoetter was pressured to quit NICAP and drop out of the UFO business, the air force issued the last of its old-style fact sheets. For the next three years, it released occasional public relations packages dealing with UFO reports, typically reevaluating (“solving”) earlier cases. For all of 1962, Blue Book recorded only fourteen unidentified sightings, but the category of unknown became so diluted as to be meaningless and so broadened that it included many vague and incomplete cases. Several of these occurred in the eastern U.S., through the spring and summer, of round, oval, triangular, diamond-shaped, and even rectangular objects, usually red in color, performing intricate maneuvers. Meanwhile, the air force tried hard throughout the year to ditch its program to places such as NASA and the National Science Foundation, with no success.²

As noted, the Las Vegas crash was not among the unknowns, although it was by far the most spectacular UFO event of the year. Other good-quality sightings were ignored or mishandled by Blue Book, two of which involved American X-15 aircraft. The first occurred on April 30 during Joe Walker’s record-breaking fifty-mile-high flight. Although Walker saw no object, his instrumentation photographed five or six “cylindrical or discoid-shaped” objects. On May 11, 1962, at the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space Research in Seattle, Washington, Walker showed slides of the objects and said this had been the second time they were photographed. According to the Paris paper, Le Matin, he also admitted that one of his appointed tasks was to detect UFOs. Both NICAP and the publication Flying Saucer Review tried, but failed, to obtain prints of the slides. NASA told FSR that the objects were actually ice flaking off the aircraft, as “ice forms on the aircraft after it is filled with liquid oxygen.” No still photos were available, said NASA.³

The ice explanation seems weak, if only because another X-15 pilot saw a strange object in space at the top of his climb on July 17, 1962. Maj. Robert White was about fifty-eight miles high when he saw a grayish object “about thirty to forty feet away.” According to Time magazine, White reportedly exclaimed during the flight, “There are things out there. There absolutely is!” Presumably he did not mean ice crystals.⁴

By July, the lack of UFO publicity, combined with an economic recession, contributed to an open rift between APRO and NICAP In an APRO Bulletin editorial, Coral Lorenzen wrote that NICAP was little more than a lobbying group; if forced to choose, members should retain their APRO membership, since it was a truly research-oriented organization that refrained from pointless attacks against the air force.⁵

NICAP, of course, could not change what it was, and besides, it had a valuable role to play. In the August issue of the NICAP Bulletin, the organization reported that an air force spokesman at the Pentagon, Maj. C. R. Hart, revealed that UFO investigations and evaluations involved “hundreds” of air force intelligence officers, as well as

the best scientific brains available in the laboratories of all government agencies, also scientific investigators in commercial laboratories, whenever needed. ⁶

Indeed, only the month before, the Air Force re-released AF 200-2, covering seven pages of instruction in tightly spaced eight-point type. It described UFOs as

any aerial phenomena, airborne objects, or objects which are unknown or appear out of the ordinary to the observer because of performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features.

It also restated the threefold air force interest in UFOs: first as a possible security threat, next to determine the “technical or scientific characteristics” involved, finally to explain or identify all sightings. All air base commanders were to “conduct all investigative action necessary” before submitting an initial report. Air Force Intelligence and Air Defense Command had “a direct and immediate interest” in UFO reports within the country. Base commanders could only release information to the public “after positive identification of the sighting” as a familiar or known object. Discussion with unauthorized persons remained prohibited.⁷

Many of those persons were members of Congress. On October 29, 1962, Department of Defense Assistant Secretary Arthur Sylvester admitted that, when necessary, the government did withhold UFO data from the public. He cited air force regulation 11-7, which stated that sometimes information requested by Congress might not be furnished “even in confidence.” ⁸