Ancillary Mercy полностью

On July 9, 1947, the day that Roswell debris probably arrived at Wright Field, Brig. Gen. George F. Schulgen, chief of the Requirements Intelligence Branch of the Army Air Force Intelligence, requested FBI assistance in the problem of the flying discs. Army intelligence claimed the objects were not army and navy craft.³³ The next day, July 10, an FBI memo titled “Flying Discs” sent in the request, suggesting the discs could be a “communist-inspired plan to induce mass hysteria.” Appended to the memo were comments by Assistant Director David M. Ladd, Clyde Tolson, and Hoover. Ladd recommended that the bureau not assist, since many sightings were found to be “pranks.” Tolson wrote, “I think we should do this.” Hoover wrote, “I would do it, but before agreeing to it we must insist upon full access to discs recovered. For instance, in the La. case the army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination.”³⁴

The location of “La” has never been certain. Fawcett and Greenwood attributed the reference to a Blue Book case of July 7, from Shreveport, Louisiana (La.), which involved a hoaxed flying saucer (a sixteen-inch aluminum disc with the inscription “Made in USA”). Another researcher offered the possibility of the town Laborcita in New Mexico. That town sits on the main Highway 28 near the intersection with Highway 380, which leads to White Sands Proving Grounds and then to Roswell. The distance to Roswell, however, is over 150 miles, making a Roswell connection appear unlikely.³⁵

By the end of July, Schulgen assured Hoover that the FBI would have full access to any crashed discs. There was no hint that the discs were anything other than of terrestrial manufacture. On July 30, Hoover agreed to give full FBI cooperation in the investigation of flying discs. His main concern seems to have been that the discs might be made by subversive individuals, or those “desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, or playing a prank. ”³⁶

Even before Hoover’s formal approval, the FBI interviewed many prominent UFO witnesses, including E. J. Smith and Kenneth Arnold. By the end of July, the FBI/Army Intelligence Report concluded:

(a) This “flying saucer” situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying around. (b) Lack of topside inquiries, when compared to the prompt and demanding inquiries that have originated topside upon former events [such as the Swedish ghost rockets of 1946], give more than ordinary weight to the possibility that this is a domestic project about which the President, etc., know. ³⁷

We may ask what domestic project would account for the wave of 1947, but come up empty.

Throughout August, the FBI assisted the air force in investigating flying saucer sightings. The two jealous organizations had a rocky relationship. A September 3 letter from Air Defense Command Headquarters implied that the FBI was only good for “relieving the numbered air forces of the task of tracking down all the many instances which turned out to be ash can covers, toilet seats, and whatnot.” The memo reached an FBI agent in San Francisco who sent it up the chain, where it soon reached Hoover. On September 27, Hoover notified the air staff assistant chief that the FBI would “discontinue all investigative activity regarding the reported sightings of flying discs.” Four days later, the FBI formally ended its cooperation with the air force, although it continued to investigate UFOs.³⁸

MEDIA CLAMPDOWN

These documents remained classified for nearly thirty years, unavailable for an informed public to judge. Meanwhile, people relied on newspapers and radio, which continued to ply their trade on behalf of the national security establishment. After the middle of July, flying saucers disappeared with astonishing rapidity from mainstream journalism, unless to appear as the subject of ridicule. The New York Times published a tongue-in-cheek editorial dismissing flying saucers, while Life magazine compared UFOs to the Loch Ness Monster. By now, as historian David Jacobs noted, “newspaper reporters automatically placed any witness who claimed to see something strange in the sky as in the crackpot category.”

According to Ruppelt, the few members of the press who did inquire into the air force attitude toward flying saucers “got the same treatment that you would get today if you inquired about the number of thermonuclear weapons stockpiled in the U.S.’s atomic arsenal.” Thus—a very important point to consider—there was no independent investigation of UFOs to compete with the military monopoly.