Shortly after this meeting, on April 5, another important incident occurred over White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. A team of navy missile trackers and a scientist tracked a UFO for several minutes as it streaked across the afternoon sky in a series of steep climbs and incredible maneuvers. The object appeared to be disc- or oval-shaped, and about one-fifth the apparent size of the full moon. Most amazing was the object’s speed, which theodolites measured to be as fast as 18,000 mph.
As a result, Dr. Joseph Kaplan, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Panel, secretly visited the area on April 27 and 28. Kaplan was charged with reviewing the UFO situation and, if necessary, recommending appropriate scientific measures. He spoke with people at the Kirtland AFB Office of Special Investigations, AEC’s Sandia Base, Dr. Lincoln La Paz, and “several security personnel at Los Alamos.” He decided that UFOs were “of extreme importance and should be investigated scientifically.”5
THE SUMMER CRISIS OF 1948
As spring became summer, sightings increased and the situation reached a dramatic climax. Sometime in the summer of 1948 (exact date unknown), there occurred a remarkable UFO encounter by the U.S. and Canadian air forces at Goose Bay, Labrador. The account was later reported to NICAP by Air Force Maj. Edwin A. Jerome (Ret.), a former command pilot and air provost marshal for eight years. A high-ranking inspection team that included several generals was visiting the base radar facilities when a radar operator picked up a target on his scope moving at the incomprehensible speed of 9,000 mph. The generals assumed that the American equipment was way off calibration. But nearby Canadian facilities had obtained the same radar return. The inspecting officers were “appalled” over such a coincidence and attributed the sighting to a meteor. Jerome, involved in writing the intelligence report, discounted this because of the object’s altitude (a constant sixty thousand feet) and speed. The following day, both radars reported an object hovering over the base at forty-five thousand feet moving at 10 mph. The official explanation was that they were probably “high-flying seagulls.”6
In late July came two sightings of a brilliant, rocket-like object which shook the analysts at Project Sign. On July 20, the Netherlands government reported to the USAF that a wingless, cigar-shaped object with two decks of windows was seen flying rapidly on four separate occasions at The Hague. 7 Then, on July 24, at 2:45 A.M, an Eastern Air Lines DC-3 had a near-collision with an object of the same description near Montgomery, Alabama. The pilots, C. S. Chiles and J. B. Whitted, as well as one passenger, said the object rushed straight at them, then veered to the right of the airliner, emitted a long gust of red exhaust, and either shot up into the clouds or vanished. The pilots were adamant that the object was not a meteor. An hour before, a similar object was seen by a ground maintenance crewman at Robins AFB in Georgia, who was certain the object was no meteor.
The Pentagon showed little outward interest, identifying the object as a weather balloon. Behind the public facade, the air force took a strong interest. Ruppelt said it disturbed the Project Sign team more than the Mantell incident had. The official explanation soon became “unknown,” but the members of the Project Sign team believed they identified this one—as extraterrestrial. The qualifications of the witnesses, the incredible description of what they saw, and the up-close-and-personal nature of the sighting itself led them to endorse the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the most logical for the existence of UFOs.
Allen Hynek conceded the faint possibility that the object seen might have been a fireball, but candidly called this “far-fetched.” Within a few years, however, the air force took this reed for its explanation. The pilots never agreed with it. Years later, they spoke at length with UFO researcher Dr. James McDonald, who was impressed by the detail they gave so many years after the fact. Hynek himself doubted the fireball explanation. Throughout his career, he believed that the sighting had no apparent astronomical explanation. 8
“THE ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION”
