Ancillary Mercy полностью

That day, Maj. Gen. E. B. LeBailly, Air Force Director of Information, issued a memorandum stating that the inquiry into UFOs was important enough that all agencies and commands should support it. Rather than attempt to shop Blue Book’s program elsewhere, the memorandum said that Blue Book should stay right where it was, at Wright-Patterson AFB. While hostility did not seem to be a factor in considering the unknowns, wrote LeBailly, they could not be ignored because of the excellent qualifications of many observers. Moreover, in an important admission, he stated that only an extremely small percentage of accounts actually made their way to Blue Book. Thus, he recommended that a new committee of both physical and social scientists, including Hynek, be convened to review the air force approach and policy with respect to UFOs offering a fresh perspective and recommendations. ⁶⁹

Meanwhile, the UFO controversy continued to stew through the autumn. On October 5, the Oklahoma City Journal printed an enlargement of the August 3 UFO photo from the Tulsa youth, which other papers reprinted for the next month or so. That day, astronaut James McDivitt spoke to the media about UFOs: “They are there without a doubt, but what they are is anybody’s guess.” Later that month, John Fuller published his article on the Exeter encounter in the Saturday Review, greatly stimulating public interest in UFOs. Before publication, Fuller wrote to his editors that

reliable, but off-the-record information from the Pease AFB in Portsmouth indicates frequent radar blips and fighters are constantly scrambled to pursue these objects. This information is not official, but it comes from a reliable source.

Fuller’s bosses in New York were impressed by his report. Around this time, Fuller met with Richard Hall of NICAP Hall said there was no pressure being put on NICAP by the air force or government and said that reports of close-range UFOs had been building up over the last year.⁷⁰

Such reports continued to pour in. By late October, around the time of the Pentagon press release explaining the Exeter sighting, Fuller learned from an air force pilot that pilots had been ordered to shoot at any UFO they came across in order to bring it down. The UFOs, however, appeared to be “invulnerable” and were able to outmaneuver any air force aircraft. Fuller’s informant personally disagreed with this policy, as he saw no gain in alienating the unidentified craft.

Fuller also obtained a report from a military radar operator who told him that a UFO came directly toward an unnamed base, was seen visually and clocked on the radar scope. For a moment, it appeared that the object would actually land at the base. Instead, the officer of the day watched it hover through a telescope, then suddenly accelerate to over 800 mph, while it was simultaneously clocked on the radar scope. Fuller also learned that “constant” radar reports were being made at the Portsmouth Naval Base. In one instance, an object hovered over a water tower at the base before taking off incredibly fast, also seen visually and on radar. By this time, at Pease AFB, at least fifteen pilots were no longer skeptical about UFOs. Other air force officers told Fuller they were “shocked and dismayed” by the Pentagon report on Exeter. They all believed that the report severely damaged the air force. Fuller theorized that the air force impotence against UFOs might be the underlying reason for the stonewalling.⁷¹

In early November, the air force Scientific Advisory Board met in Dallas to discuss the UFO question and the idea of an independent study of the problem. Within a year, this led to the announcement of the air force decision to commission a study of UFOs by the University of Colorado, otherwise known as the Condon Committee. The meeting in November 1965 was later offered by Jacques Vallee as “near proof” that the air force’s policy regarding UFOs was more of a bungling than a conspiratorial nature. This is a frail reed upon which to base such an argument. Could it be possible that after almost twenty years of investigation, the air force was still trying to determine what UFOs were?⁷²

BLACKOUT SEASON

Over the years, blackouts linked to UFO sightings had been reported in cities throughout the world. None, however, matched the massive blackout that affected 35 million people throughout the northeastern United States on November 9, 1965. Nearly 800,000 people were detained in elevators, subway cars, and commuter trains. The entire power grid for the region, supposedly invulnerable, failed. In addition, several local companies independent of the main power grid also failed, and short-wave and VLF transmissions and reception were jammed with static.