Few realized how weak the air force explanation was, and most newspapers accepted the temperature inversion theory without reservation. According to Ruppelt “somehow out of this chaotic situation came exactly the result that was intended—the press got off our backs.”33
Was the temperature inversion explanation valid, or not? Fifteen years later, Condon Committee member Gordon Thayer concurred with it. He believed the visual sightings were caused by meteors and scintillating stars. Atmospheric physicist James McDonald disagreed and argued that Thayer’s data did not support that conclusion. Michael Wertheimer, a psychologist with the Condon Committee, later interviewed many of the radar operators. Nearly all disagreed with the temperature inversion explanation. They maintained that experienced operators had no trouble identifying such inversions. Ironically, years later, an official air force scientific report discredited the “temperature inversion” explanation, but this received no publicity.34
Apparently there were no complaints with Samford’s handling of the job. A few years later, he became head of the National Security Agency.
SIGHTINGS CONTINUE
Public debunking of UFOs did not affect sightings themselves, which continued at a torrid pace. On July 29, the day of Samford’s briefing, ATIC received more remarkable UFO reports. One described a sighting over Los Alamos, which included several pilots and a guard who saw a fast, metallic-looking UFO with yellow lights. At some point, it hovered over the base, made a 360-degree turn behind the fighters trying to intercept it, and streaked away. In Albuquerque, an air force reserve colonel saw an ellipse-shaped light moving rapidly. Nearby, an unidentified sighting occurred at Walker (formerly Roswell) AFB, involving a base weather officer and three other weather observers, who saw several flying discs through a theodolite. The object moved much faster than any conventional aircraft. The field intelligence officer wrote “indicates an actual appearance of ‘unidentified flying objects.’” Another ATIC report from that day described a sighting at an aircraft and warning station in Michigan in which a UFO was tracked on radar at over 600 mph. Several F-94s pursued the object; one pilot obtained a radar lock while seeing a bright flashing light in that location. In Miami, movie film was taken of a high-speed UFO, submitted to the air force, and never released.35
These, and many other sightings, all occurred on the day of Samford’s briefing. None of them received any press.
And so it went into August. On August 1, 1952, an Air Defense Command radar station outside of Yaak, Montana, picked up a UFO. It was daytime, and the station crew saw a “dark, cigar-shaped object” right where the radar indicated. On the same day, a UFO was seen near Wright-Patterson AFB, in Bellefontaine, Ohio. This was another radar-visual case, in which people on the ground saw an object that was also being tracked on radar. Two F-86s moved to intercept. As they reached thirty thousand feet, the pilots saw a bright, round, glowing object maneuvering above them. They took several feet of film using a gun camera, but the object quickly accelerated and disappeared. 36
An ATIC report from August 3 described a sighting near Hamilton AFB in California. Two huge silvery discs, observed visually and tracked on radar, circled the base at 4:15 P.M. After F-86s were dispatched to intercept, six more discs appeared, took up a diamond formation, and quickly accelerated out of sight. Two days later, at Haneda AFB in Japan, a UFO was observed visually and tracked on radar. The object was seen as a bright light that hovered over the base, then swiftly accelerated away at 400 mph. As it did so, it appeared to divide into three units.37
On August 20 at Congeree AFB in South Carolina, Air Defense Command radar tracked a UFO at 4,000 mph. On the twenty-second, air force jets chased a pulsating yellow light over Elgin, Illinois. On the twenty-fourth, an air force pilot in an F-84 saw two round, disc-shaped, silvery objects over Hermanas, New Mexico, and then again at El Paso, Texas. The objects displayed extreme maneuverability and acceleration.38
THE CIA ACTS
The public explanation is always one thing. What the explainers actually believe is another. Ruppelt wrote that “several groups in Washington were following the UFO situation very closely,” and available documents from a variety of agencies support this claim.39
