The project also learned of a series of radar and visual reports from Lake Superior and Upper Michigan from September 6. At one point, more than twenty radar targets appeared and disappeared over the middle of the lake during a three-hour period, tracked at speeds of up to 2,000 mph (at times turning at right angles), and involving apparent separation and merging of distinct targets. Project members discovered from radar operators at Kincheloe AFB (who reported the incident to them) that radar operators at the other end of the lake, in Duluth, Minnesota, had gotten similar targets. The project sent John Ahrens and Norm Levine to investigate. While there, they checked into rumors of visual sightings over Sault Sainte Marie, although none of these correlated with the radar. When they reached Duluth, to their surprise, they drew a complete blank, with denials that anyone had obtained any such radar return. They returned home with a much weakened case. The Colorado Project’s public status meant precious little when it came to important cases within the classified world.61
Shortly after Labor Day, Saunders suggested to Low that academic commitments might require a reorganization of project duties. Namely, that Low and principal investigator Roach each report directly to Condon. According to Saunders, Low “blew his stack.” First of all, Roach had known Condon much longer than had Low; second, Roach was more sympathetic to Saunders’s position. Low ultimately agreed to a change, but replaced Roach with Levine. Meanwhile, Edward U. Condon stirred up more controversy. A week before returning to campus, he gave an after-dinner talk about UFO crackpot cases to his former colleagues at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, startling his audience with his cavalier attitude. When James McDonald briefed the project soon after on his Australian trip, he was dismayed that Condon asked no questions and dozed off three times.62
With leadership such as this coming from the project charged with conducting a scientific study of the UFO problem, and with the discovery of the Low memorandum now widely (and secretly) known among project members, it should be no surprise that discontent was the rule. On September 17, Franklin Roach submitted his resignation from the project, in order to pursue his academic interests. On the nineteenth, Saunders, Low, and Condon met for three hours to discuss Saunders’s suggestions on improving the project’s public image. Saunders argued that the public could already tell the project was headed toward a negative conclusion. Little came of the meeting, other than the speculation by Condon that if the project did find evidence to support the extraterrestrial hypothesis, he would either put the evidence in a briefcase and take it directly to the president, or else he would write a report to the air force and let them decide what to do with it. In either case, he would not disclose the fact publicly. Saunders interpreted this as a failure to honor the project’s commitment to make a public report and to tell it like it was.63
On the following day, NICAP provisionally withdrew its support. Keyhoe had heard Condon’s gaffe at the NBS, and told Saunders he had made this decision reluctantly and only under pressure from NICAP’s Board. He hoped some means might be found to allow for a reversal of that decision and said he would not yet publicize the break. Keyhoe had other reasons to be angry. He had recently learned that Condon had not interviewed a single UFO witness, and had no intention of doing so. He also discovered—gasp!—that the only reason the Colorado Project wanted NICAP’s support was for its own credibility. This was surely a difficult time for Keyhoe and NICAP Just recently, for personal reasons, Richard Hall resigned from NICAP. Now, it looked as though relations with the Colorado Project might be irretrievably severed. But if all was not well at NICAP, neither was it in Boulder. Keyhoe may not have fully appreciated until his conversation with Saunders how wide the chasm was that separated the leaders from the led.
