Ancillary Mercy полностью

UFOs, on the other hand, constitute the great hole of contemporary history. We know, at the very least, that this was a topic of great concern to those at the top of American national security policy, despite the near-complete absence of public references to it. An explanation centering on the UFO phenomenon accounts better than most for the complete unhinging of a successful and brilliant individual, and more importantly, the need to silence someone who could no longer be trusted. Did Forrestal learn a truth about UFOs that contributed to his breakdown?

Perhaps Forrestal’s psychological state was such that he did commit suicide. The facts of his death do not point toward this conclusion, but we do not have definitive knowledge. But consider the case of American journalist George Polk. A year before, Polk had been investigating corruption in the Greek military regime, elements of which then murdered him. The Communists were promptly blamed, while America’s intelligence and media communities knowingly went along with the charade. Or, just a few years later, in 1953, when American biological weapons expert Frank Olsen “fell” from the tenth floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City, after he had a very bad LSD trip, courtesy of the CIA, and had become a security risk. Hiding unpleasant realities from the public was nothing new.

SUMMER AND FALL 1949

The U.S. military recorded several intriguing UFO encounters during the late spring of 1949, most of which Project Grudge wrote off brazenly as conventional objects. On May 21, the last day of Forrestal’s life, an F-82 fighter took off from Moses Lake AFB, near Hanford, Washington, to intercept a flying disc seen visually and by radar over restricted airspace at twenty thousand feet. Before the F-82 became airborne, the disc veered south at a speed greater than a jet fighter. The pilot took off in pursuit, instructed to “intercept it in hopes that it might be a disc.” But the object was long gone.³⁷

The key UFO sighting of the season was once again at White Sands, during navy-conducted upper-atmosphere missile tests. On June 10, 1949, observers saw two round white UFOs suddenly enter their field of vision and maneuver around a missile traveling at over 1,300 mph. The objects paced the missile on either side, then one object passed through the missile’s exhaust and joined the other. The now-unified object accelerated upward and left the missile behind. According to Navy Capt. R. B. McLaughlin, five separate observation posts saw the incident. McLaughlin later reported the sighting, adding that “many times I have seen flying discs following and overtaking missiles in flight at the experimental base at White Sands....”³⁸

In August 1949, a mere six months after Project Grudge commenced, it issued its classified final report, firmly debunking flying saucers. No evidence, it argued, showed the objects to be the product of a foreign government with a superior technology, or were of any danger to American security:

All evidence and analysis indicates that reports of unidentified flying objects are the result of: (1) misinterpretation of various conventional objects; (2) a mild form of mass-hysteria and war nerves; (3) individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetuate a hoax or to seek publicity; (4) psychopathological persons.

Thus, UFO witnesses were either ignorant (unable to identify conventional objects), hysterical with “war nerves,” liars and hoaxers, or crazy. “[F]urther study along present lines,” the report added, “would only confirm the findings presented herein.” Considering such a categorical conclusion, fifty-five of the Project’s 244 cases were unidentified, or 23 percent.

The report suggested downscaling the investigation and study of UFO reports “to reflect the contemplated change of policy,” while at the same time keeping a heavy lid over them. In a key foreshadowing of the Robertson Panel more than three years later, the memo recommended that press releases should be created to “aid in dispelling public apprehension.”

Allen Hynek helped to write the reports of Projects Sign and Grudge but later criticized them. He complained about “the lackadaisical and irresponsible manner in which many of the UFO reports were treated,” and contended that “[o]ver the years, the Pentagon played loosely with statistics to support their position that all UFOs are misidentifications of natural phenomena—or outright hoaxes. Often statistical information was not fairly presented.” In the case of the Grudge Report, this complaint surely hits home. Throughout the entire history of air force public reporting of UFOs, less than 2 percent of UFO sightings turned out to be hoaxes or “psychological.” And yet the air force emphasized precisely that element of reports.³⁹