Ancillary Mercy полностью

One thing we can say with reasonable certainty: claims to have “closed the case” are greatly premature, based on slender evidence, wrapped in the cloak of official sanction, and given widespread circulation by the mass media. In such an environment, it is unrealistic to presume that we will ever get to the bottom of the mystery. We may form opinions about what we think happened, but we would be wise to refrain from claiming to know much of anything, except that the military deceived the public about it for fifty years, and probably continues to do so.

A final observation that often goes unnoticed: the Roswell crash occurred amid one of the greatest UFO-sighting waves in modern history. While the case must stand or fall on its own merits, isolating it from its historical context has been an all-too-common mistake.

OTHER SIGHTINGS

The Roswell crash not only followed a rash of interesting sightings, it preceded one. On Sunday, July 6, as the events in Roswell were still unfolding, a sergeant in Birmingham, Alabama, saw several dim, glowing lights speed across the sky, and photographed one of them. The same day, a B-25 crew saw a bright, disc-shaped object below their aircraft. At Fairfield-Susan AFB in California, a pilot saw a strange object “oscillating on its lateral axis” shoot across the sky in a few seconds. In southern Wyoming, an aviation engineer also saw an oval-shaped UFO.³⁰

On Monday the seventh, a young man named William H. Rhodes of Phoenix, Arizona, took two photographs of a flying saucer, which were published two days later on the front page of the Arizona Republic—right next to the article debunking the Roswell crash. The photographs did not appear in any other newspapers, but Rhodes was soon visited by an FBI agent and an Intelligence officer from Hamilton Field, California. At their request he gave them his pictures, which he never saw again. In early 1948, Rhodes was asked to come to Wright-Patterson Field for an interview—he declined—and was soon afterward interviewed for a second time at his home. Years later, publisher Raymond Palmer erroneously charged that the army had picked up all sixty-four thousand copies of the newspaper’s July 9 edition and destroyed the plates. The paper humorously rebutted his claim. After conceding his mistake, Palmer said he had heard the story from a Phoenix resident, and asked the paper for a copy of the edition or a front page photostatted from the back issue file. He never heard from them. For the rest of his life, Palmer continued to think “that Rhodes photographed the real thing, and that the air force felt it was necessary to quiet the whole matter.”³¹

While Roswell buzzed with activity, claims, and denials, an extraordinary series of sightings occurred in California’s Mojave Desert, at Muroc Air Field (now Edwards AFB). Ruppelt called it “the first sighting that really made the air force take a deep interest in UFOs.” This is unlikely, but there is no denying that the events there concerned the air force.

On July 8, 1947, at Muroc, four separate sightings by a number of officers and technicians took place. Each involved circular or disc-shaped UFOs seen at 9:30 A.M., 11:50 A.M., 12:00 noon, and 3:50 P.M. The first is by far the best-known. Several pilots on the ground saw two silver-colored, spherical or disc-like UFOs maneuvering over the base, circling tightly at eight thousand feet at speeds of 300-400 mph—rather fast maneuvering. According to the report, the “objects in question were not, repeat, were not, aircraft.” Nor were they balloons, since the objects were traveling against the wind. They simply flew off and disappeared. Very soon afterward, the witnesses saw another object “traveling in circles.” One witness said, “I have been flying in and have been around all types of aircraft since 1943, and never in my life have I ever seen anything such as this.”

Somewhat later, at 11:50 A.M., a crew of technicians saw a white-aluminum object with a distinct oval outline descending and moving against wind. Then at noon, an air force major at the field saw a thin metallic object climb, oscillate over the field, dive down to ground level, and rise again. The event was simultaneously observed by a test pilot (a captain) at Rodgers Dry Lake, a secret test base. The final sighting occurred as an F-51 pilot saw a flat object “of light-reflecting nature” pass over his plane. There were no known aircraft in the area at that time.

Over fifty years later, the public explanation of the sightings—“probably” research balloons—remains not credible. Balloons are incapable of 300 mph speed and the tight circles reported. The Muroc incident continues to provide evidence for military knowledge, interest, and secrecy regarding UFOs.³²

ENTER THE FBI