Purdy agreed with Paul Redell that any long-range tests would be made over the sea or unpopulated areas, with every attempt at secrecy.
“They might make short-range tests down there in New Mexico and Arizona-maybe over Texas,” he said. “But they’d never risk killing people by shooting the things all over the country.”
“They’ve already set up a three-thousand-mile range for the longer runs,” I added. “It runs from Florida into the South Atlantic. And the Navy missiles at Point Mugu are launched out over the Pacific. Any guided missiles coming down over settled areas would certainly be an accident. Besides all that, no missile on earth can explain these major cases.”
Purdy was emphatic about speculating on our guided-missile research.
“Suppose you analyzed these minor cases that look like missile tests. You might accidentally give away something important, like their range and speeds. Look what the Russians did with the A-bomb hints Washington let out.”
It was finally decided that we would briefly mention the guided missiles, along with the fact that the armed services had flatly denied any link with the saucers.
“After all, interplanetary travel is the main story,” said Purdy. “And the Mantell case alone proves we’ve been observed from space ships, even without the old records.”
The question of the story’s impact worried both of us. public acceptance of intelligent life on other planets would affect almost every phase of our existence-business, defense planning, philosophy, even religion. Of course, the immediate effect was more important. Personally, I thought that most Americans could take even an official announcement without too much trouble. But I could be wrong.
“The only yardstick—and that’s not much good—is that ‘little men’ story,” said Purdy. “A lot of people have got excited about it, but they seem more interested than scared.”
The story of the “little men from Venus” had been circulating for some time. In the usual version, two flying saucers had come down near our southwest border. In the space craft were several oddly dressed men, three feet high. All of them were dead; the cause was usually given as inability to stand our atmosphere. The Air Force was said to have hushed up the story, so that the public could be educated gradually to the truth. Though it had all the earmarks of a well-thought-out hoax, many newspapers had repeated the story. It had even been broadcast as fact on several radio newscasts. But there had been no signs of public alarm.