These two flying-saucer “explanations” brought denials from the White House, the Navy, and the Air Force.
The Air Force flatly declared that:
1. None of the armed forces is conducting secret experiments with disk-shaped flying objects that could be a basis for the reported phenomena.
2. There is no evidence that the latter stem from the activities of any foreign nation.
Before this, President Truman stated he knew nothing of any such objects being developed by the United States or any other nation.
The Navy denial came immediately after the first broadcast story. It ran:
“The Navy is not engaged in research or in flying any jet-powered, circular-shaped aircraft.”
The Navy added that one model of a pancake-shaped aircraft, called the Zimmerman Skimmer, was built but was never flown. However, a small, three-thousand-pound scale model did fly and was under radio control during flight. This last device is now being rumored as the Navy’s unpiloted “missile,” said to have been launched over the country like the so-called “harmless” disks.
Even though all these accounts have been officially denied, many Americans may still believe they are true. I have no desire to criticize the authors of these stories; I believe that in following up certain guided-missile leads they were misled into accepting the conclusions they gave.
But these stories, particularly the accounts of huge unpiloted disks, may have planted certain fears in the public mind-fears that are completely unwarranted. For this reason, I have personally checked at Washington in regard to the dangers of unpiloted missiles. Here aye the facts I learned: