As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, observers at Robbins Air Force Base, Macon, Georgia, saw the same mysterious object streak overhead, trailing varicolored flames. This was about one hour before Chiles and Whitted saw the onrushing space ship.
To bolster up the meteor theory, the Project consultant suggests a one-hour error in time. The explanation: The airliner would be on daylight-saving time.
“If there is no time difference,” he proceeds, “the. object must have been an extraordinary meteor. . . . in which case it would have covered the distance from Macon to Montgomery in a minute or two.”
Having checked the time angle before, I knew this was incorrect. Both reports were given in eastern standard time. And in a later part of the Project report, the consultant admits this fact. But he has an alternate answer: “If the difference in time is real, the object was some form of known aircraft, regardless of its bizarre nature.”
The “bizarre nature” is not specified. Nor does the Project “Saucer” report try to fit the Robbins Field description to any earth-made aircraft. The air-base observers were struck by the object’s huge size, its projectile-like shape, and the weird flames trailing behind. Except for the double-deck windows, the air-base men’s description tallied with the pilots’. With the ship at five thousand feet or higher, its windows would not have been visible from the ground. All the observers agreed on the object’s very high speed.
Neither of the Project “Saucer” alternate answers will fit the facts.
1. The one-hour interval has been proved correct. Therefore, as the Project consultant admits, it could not be a meteor.
2. The Robbins Field witnesses have flatly denied it was a conventional plane. The Air Force screened 225 airplane schedules, and proved there was no such plane in the area. No ordinary aircraft would have caused the brilliant streak that startled the DC-3 passenger and both of the pilots.
Major Boggs’s bolide answer had gone the way of his Venus explanation. I wondered if the Gorman light-balloon solution would fade out the same way. But the Project report on Gorman (Case 172) merely hinted at the balloon answer. In the Appendix, there was a brief comment: “Note that standard 30 inch and 65 inch weather balloons have vertical speeds of 600 and 1100 feet per minute, respectively.”
In all the reports I have mentioned, and on through both the case books, one thing was immediately obvious. All the testimony, all the actual evidence was missing. These were only the declared conclusions of Project “Saucer.” Whether they matched the actual conclusions in Wright Field secret files there was no way of knowing.