The next day during Mainbrace exercises, a silvery disc, similar to the object seen the day before, was observed following a Meteor jet, then descended with a pendulum motion. Once again, there was no shortage of competent observers, who noticed the object flying “extremely fast behind the naval fleet.” An American photographer aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier
The Mainbrace “wave” continued the next day, when six RAF jets over the North Sea saw a spherical object heading towards them. They tracked it, lost it, and found it as it appeared directly behind them. One Meteor pilot tried to intercept the object, but it easily outpaced him. UFO researcher Jenny Randles pointed out that this was precisely the behavior displayed by the objects seen over the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The last Mainbrace sighting occurred three days later, on September 24, when a Meteor fighter came close to a silvery spherical UFO revolving around its axis. The object flew away before the pilot got too close.
Ruppelt followed the Mainbrace sightings and learned from an RAF exchange intelligence officer in the Pentagon that the reports “caused the RAF to officially recognize the UFO.” Of course,
During the Mainbrace sightings, UFOs continued to be seen throughout Europe and North Africa. On September 21, Morocco was flooded with reports throughout the country. On the twenty-sixth, ATIC reported strange green lights approaching the Azores, observed by U.S. Air Force personnel. On the twenty-ninth, a large cigar-shaped craft was seen over Denmark, flying with several smaller disclike objects, and was reported throughout the country.55
CHADWELL AND UFOs
On September 24, 1952, the final day of the Mainbrace UFO sightings, H. Marshall Chadwell wrote a letter to CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith, stating that since 1947 unexplained sightings were running at 20 percent, and that for 1952 they were at 28 percent. Chadwell wrote:
I consider this problem to be of such importance that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council in order that a community-wide coordinated effort toward its solution may be initiated.56
Chadwell played the familiar themes of mass hysteria and the potential for Soviet mischief. Parts of the letter showed concern about the UFOs themselves and the need to identify them. His memo did not indicate any interest in the possibility that UFOs represented alien intelligence. Rather, the CIA consultants he spoke with
stated that these solutions would probably be found on the margins or just beyond the frontiers of our present knowledge in the fields of atmospheric, ionospheric, and extraterrestrial phenomena, with the added possibility that the present dispersal of nuclear waste products might also be a factor.
By extraterrestrial, Chadwell did not mean alien life-forms, but any phenomena originating from space. Overall, he strongly suggested the conclusions later arrived at by the Robertson Panel: to keep the profile of UFOs as low as possible while the real investigation and activity could continue. At all cost, mass hysteria and panic must be avoided.
Ruppelt, meanwhile, continued to give standing-room-only lectures on UFOs for military and scientific groups. Interest in this subject remained high. Around the time of Chadwell’s letter, Ruppelt briefed General Chidlaw and his staff at Air Defense Command on the past few months of UFO activity. One of the attendees was Maj. Verne Sadowski, the ADC Intelligence’s liaison officer with Project Blue Book. During an informal exchange, Ruppelt encountered a great deal of skepticism, not regarding UFOs, but of Project Blue Book’s honesty in analyzing UFOs. Sadowski said that no one “can understand why Intelligence is so hesitant to accept the fact that something we just don’t know about is flying around in our skies, unless you are trying to cover up something big.”57
