Ancillary Mercy полностью

Norman Levine of the Colorado Project investigated the incident but did not explain it. During the 1990s, Canadian UFO researchers Chris Styles and Don Ledger conducted an exhaustive investigation, which included interviews with several of the divers and military personnel involved in the search. According to what they learned—all officially unconfirmed, of course—the searchers realized that the object had moved northeast, near a then-top-secret submarine detection station run jointly by Canada and the U.S. As a flotilla of ships positioned themselves over the submerged craft, a second underwater UFO joined the first and engaged in a repair operation. The members of the ships observed but did not interfere. Seven days later, a Soviet submarine appeared but was escorted away. Soon after, the two UFOs moved off toward the Gulf of Maine. Emerging from the water, they ascended rapidly and flew off.⁶⁹

CLOAK AND DAGGER

As a result of James McDonald’s public focus on the UFO cover-up, several key documents relating to UFOs and secrecy were released in late 1967. The two most important of these were (segments of) the Robertson Panel report and the Twining Letter of September 1947, which stated that UFOs were real, mechanical objects under apparently intelligent control. While McDonald could justly claim credit for release of the former, if correct procedures had been followed, it would have been declassified in January 1965. The public now learned that the Robertson Panel had known of 1,900 UFO reports to the Pentagon in 1952, not the 1501 as Lawrence Tacker and others had long reported. With the release of such documents, the rush began to counter their effectiveness for UFO researchers. Condon, for example, told the Lorenzens that the Robertson Report meant nothing since it was not based on any scientific study as such. That was true, of course, but also evaded some fundamental questions, to wit: (1) to what extent was the CIA running UFO policy; (2) why was it necessary to hide CIA interest in UFOs; (3) what about those four hundred missing UFO reports; (4) why wasn’t the report released in 1965, according to federal regulations ; (5) if the study “meant nothing,” why did the CIA gather Nobel-caliber scientists and use their conclusions as the basis of policy?⁷⁰

The Lorenzens visited Boulder on October 10. Aside from their aforementioned disappointment with the project, they also met with Boulder journalist Roger Harkins, who had been covering the Colorado Project from the beginning. The Lorenzens and Harkins were both curious about the possibility of CIA manipulation of the media and decided to see whether they could bait the hook. The Lorenzens gave Harkins a seven-point rationale for CIA interest in UFOs, mainly to see whether the AP would print it and whether the CIA would try to suppress it. The seven points, summarized, were:

1. The CIA was created to ensure that a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor would never happen again.

2. UFO reports exist.

3. The reports give patterns indicating that they are based on real occurrences.

4. If UFO reports are based on real occurrences, that is, actual physical objects invading U.S. airspace, this is a national security matter of prime importance—exactly what the CIA was designed to handle.

5. The existence of unidentified vehicles invading U.S. airspace must be interpreted as indicating the existence of a possible unknown enemy.

6. Intelligence procedures would require that all such information be withheld from the public until firm conclusions could be reached; premature disclosures might help the enemy.

7. Therefore, the CIA could not possibly avoid responsibility for the UFO mystery. In this perspective, the Robertson Panel was a device used by the CIA to establish a cover program (Blue Book) that would draw attention away from a covert program designed to meet the UFO challenge.

After dictating the story to the Denver AP Bureau, Harkins waited. And waited. Nothing happened. The story never surfaced.⁷¹

During the latter part of 1967, the Lorenzens were working on their newest book, soon to be published as UFOs over the Americas. They speculated on the possibility that the Colorado University Project was infiltrated in some way by the CIA:

[I]f we are right in our theories concerning CIA involvement [in the Condon Committee], there is an agent on or near the committee quietly monitoring its activities and preparing to subvert the final report for intelligence purposes if it seems advisable. ⁷²

LEAKS FROM BOULDER