Ancillary Mercy полностью

Within days, Keyhoe was back in Boulder for what he believed would be a final meeting with the Colorado team before NICAP withdrew its support. Condon alone seemed oblivious to the implications. NICAP’s withdrawal of support, so early in the project, could be a serious blow to the entire effort. Other project members tried to convince Condon that the project needed NICAP Condon was prevailed upon and threw Keyhoe a bone. The ignored NICAP reports, he said, would be examined as soon as possible. “I appreciate your cooperation and I hope NICAP will continue.” Once again, Keyhoe accepted this for the time being, but Condon was angry at having to apologize. ¹⁷

James McDonald also saw storm clouds. By late January 1967, he lobbied the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Frederick Seitz, with some relatively mild criticisms of the project and revived his idea for a UFO research panel. Seitz, however, was a former student of Condon’s, and McDonald got nowhere.

By February 1967, according to Vallee, several project members had privately approached their scientific colleagues to learn their reactions to the recommendation that Blue Book be closed down. All this before any significant investigative work had even been done.¹⁸ On the twentieth of that month, project members Condon, Low, Saunders, Price, and Rachford visited the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) to become familiar with the CIA’s photographic analysis capabilities. The visit required a clearance level of Secret and established that no photographic work done for the project would be linked to the CIA. NPIC personnel would be available, according to a CIA document, to perform work “of a photogrammetric nature, such as attempting to measure objects imaged on photographs that may be part of Dr. Condon’s analysis.” No written comments or documentation from NPIC would be made public. Another CIA memo stated:

Any work performed by NPIC to assist Dr. Condon in his investigation will not be identified as work accomplished by the CIA. Dr. Condon was advised by Mr. Lundahl to make no reference to CIA in regard to this work effort.

Obviously, it was essential to keep CIA involvement out of the realm of public knowledge, as McDonald and others were becoming vocal about the CIA’s manipulation over the entire UFO controversy.¹⁹

Meanwhile, the University of Colorado Project’s main opportunity to study UFO reports was slipping away. The first three months of 1967 continued to be an active period of American UFO reports, but practically no one at Boulder had the knowledge or resources to perform a serious investigation. Other than Low and the junior staff, nearly everyone lacked the basic equipment and tools, such as questionnaires, psychological tests, and even cameras or tape measures. “Most of the fish in this wave got away,” said Saunders. Unfortunately, it was the only significant wave within the U.S. during the project’s term. Vallee’s prediction would prove true.²⁰

In early March 1967, Robert Low wrote a position paper which expected that the project would fail to support the ETI theory, even after a diligent search and substantial record. Before sharing his paper with project members (which he did individually and confidentially), he shared them in talks and speeches with the Rand Corporation, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Boeing. Low was obsessed with “building the record,” which appeared to mean creating a lengthy report that would persuade by its sheer bulk. Despite this ambition, the project’s failure to move quickly had by now forced it to prepare a proposal to extend its contract.²¹

In March 1967, world-renowned physicist Dr. Paul Santorini revealed a long-hidden experience connected with UFOs. Santorini’s credentials were surely impressive: he had helped to develop radar, fuses for the atomic bomb, and the Nike missile guidance system. Until 1964, he had directed the Experimental Physics Laboratory of the Polytechnic. Santorini stated that a “world blanket of secrecy” surrounded UFO reports and related his experience of twenty years prior, when strange objects flying over Greece had alarmed the government, which soon learned the objects were not Russian missiles. When Greek army commanders asked the U.S. Defense Department about the objects, he said, “they were quickly pressured into silence, (and) the army ordered the investigation discontinued.” Santorini said he was later closely questioned by U.S. scientists from Washington. He offered one clear reason as to the secrecy: authorities were unwilling to admit the existence of a force against which we had “no possibility of defense.” When asked about Santorini’s statement, Condon brushed it off.²²