Ancillary Mercy полностью

Donald Keyhoe had an eventful fall of 1953. He learned of AFR 200-2 in September, then he met with Adm. Arthur W Radford, Chairman of the JCS, for an article on national defense. Years before, Keyhoe and Radford had trained together, and Keyhoe had served under him in Washington during the war. During this meeting, UFOs were not mentioned, although it will be recalled that Radford had his own UFO sighting in 1952. In October, Keyhoe’s Flying Saucers from Outer Space came out, eventually becoming one of the most widely read books of the decade. His message: aliens are here, observing our world; the military knows this and, in a well-meaning but mistaken notion, is hiding this information from the public, mainly to avoid panic. Keyhoe argued that the public would be able to handle the news, if it were delivered in a calm and straightforward manner. Moreover, the public—at least the American public—had a right to know. Then and later, Keyhoe’s conspiracy thesis came under attack.²⁵

Probably the most stunning aspect of Keyhoe’s book was that he had been able to get clearance through Ruppelt and Chop for fifty-one classified UFO reports and included these in his book. The air force stated that Keyhoe “misrepresented” the official analysis of these reports. Keyhoe took this personally and doggedly worked to clear himself of the charge. On October 1, he sent a telegram to Air Force Secretary Talbott and General Sory Smith, with copies to the press wire services. He said that the air force “publicly implied” that he had misrepresented their UFO position. “If this is true,” he wrote, “then as a Marine Corps officer I should be subjected to disciplinary action.” The air force provided “no comment” on the telegram. This would not be the last of the affair, however.²⁶

Keyhoe’s book sold very well, but reaction from major media was generally negative, although it was not universally condemned as Scully’s book had been in 1950. The review in Library Journal, for example, stated that he was either “very right or very wrong.” Keyhoe’s most significant critic in the media was Jonathan N. Leonard, the science editor for the New York Times. Leonard reviewed Keyhoe’s book in November, ignored its main strength—the clearance for over fifty UFO classified reports—and attacked it as teeming with “unidentifiable authorities and anonymous sources.”²⁷

ALBERT BENDER AND “THE MEN IN BLACK”

Although this incident is not the first alleged case of the infamous “Men in Black,” it is the first “classic” case and the first to receive any attention. It concerns a young man named Albert K. Bender, who had an interest in UFOs. In the fall of 1952, a letter of Bender’s was printed in Ray Palmer’s Other Worlds magazine, announcing the formation of a new organization, the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), which welcomed new members. West Virginia resident Gray Barker soon offered his help and told Bender what he knew of the Flatwoods case, which, along with others like Ivan Sanderson, he had investigated. In January 1953, Bender asked Barker to head IFSB’s new “Department of Investigation.”

In September 1953, Bender told Barker that three men in black suits, members of the U.S. government, had threatened him into abandoning his research. Barker was surprised, as the organization now had representatives in much of the country and abroad. In early October, Barker and other members interviewed Bender at his home. To their many questions, Bender said simply, “I can’t answer that.” In the final issue of IFSB’s Space Review, Bender wrote that he knew the solution to the flying saucer mystery but that a “higher source” ordered him not to publish it. The IFSB closed down.

Some UFO researchers concluded that Bender had been pressured out of business by government agents. Others, such as Coral Lorenzen, wrote in the APRO Bulletin that perhaps the IFSB was secretly backed by a pulp magazine publisher (Palmer?) who suddenly withdrew his funds. Bender then cooked up a fantastic story in order to get out from underneath. Barker, in turn, called this scenario “fantastic.”²⁸