Ancillary Mercy полностью

On the heels of the announcement came an air force-sponsored article in Life titled, “Have We Visitors from Space?” Life’s answer: Maybe. The article came close to advocating the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), and gave it more serious consideration than any other major publication hitherto. Although the New York Times criticized the article, its main source was clearly the air force itself. Ruppelt knew that “very high-ranking” Pentagon officers, “so high that their personal opinion was almost policy,” had unofficially inspired the article, and that one of these men had given his opinions to reporter Robert Ginna. Why was the air force (or elements within) giving apparent support to the ETH?⁶

Perhaps because UFOs were everywhere that spring, with many sightings by the military. Just before the press conference, a remarkable incident had taken place, on March 29, near Misawa, Japan. The day was bright and clear, and an air force pilot was flying a T-6 target plane on a practice intercept mission for two F-84s. The first F-84 overtook him at six thousand feet when the T-6 pilot noticed a small, shiny disc-shaped object gaining on the interceptor. The UFO curved toward the F-84, rapidly decelerated, then flipped on edge in a ninety-degree bank. It flew between the two aircraft, pulled away, flipped again, passed the F-84, crossed in front, and accelerated out of sight in a near vertical climb. Both pilots noticed the object, which came to within thirty to fifty feet of the T-6; the pilot estimated it to be a mere eight inches in diameter. Although he saw no exhaust, he reported a ripple around its edge.⁷

In April, Blue Book received ninety-nine reports, a busy month. Many were baffling, such as this incident from San Jose, California, on April 25, when two formerly skeptical scientists saw “a small metallic-appearing disc rotating and wobbling on its axis.” Years later, James McDonald interviewed the two men, who said they saw

overhead a large, black circular object joined by two similar objects that dropped out of an overcast. The small disc accelerated upwards and one of the larger black objects, perhaps one hundred feet in diameter, took off after it on a seemingly converging course; both then vanished in the overcast.

One of the two remaining black objects then took off to the north. The scientists concluded that they had seen something extraterrestrial, using “some propulsion method not in the physics books.” Despite the quality of their sighting, they told only a few colleagues, for fear of ridicule.⁸

Many sighting reports never made it to Dayton. Keyhoe’s navy connections gave him one involving the Secretary of the Navy, Dan Kimball, and Adm. Arthur Radford during April 1952. While flying to Hawaii, Kimball saw two disc-shaped objects moving at about 1,500 mph. The UFOs circled his plane twice, then headed to another navy plane, which was carrying Radford, fifty miles east. The objects circled Radford’s plane and zoomed up out of sight. Upon landing, Kimball sent a report of the encounter to the air force. But despite repeated inquiries, he received no information on his case. Instead, he learned the air force was aggressively demanding all copies of UFO reports from navy and Marine Corps witnesses, even before preliminary navy investigations had been made. Kimball therefore decided to initiate naval intelligence reports on UFOs—independent from Blue Book. He told the Office of Naval Research to start a special investigation “to be kept separate from the air force project.” Keyhoe received this information from his old friend Adm. Calvin Bolster, chief of ONR, as well as from Kimball himself. According to them, the air force squawked at the news of a formal, independent navy body to investigate UFOs, and ONR eventually stopped its official investigation. Kimball never made his own sighting public, although mentioning it to Keyhoe amounted to the same thing.⁹

THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY 1952

Blue Book received seventy-nine UFO reports in May. Press coverage of UFOs was on the rise, an interest which was surpassed, in Ruppelt’s words, “only by the interest of the Pentagon.” He was in a good position to know. Throughout the spring and summer, he gave an average of one briefing in Washington, D.C., every two weeks, “and there was always a full house.”¹⁰