“What pictures?”
“That one taken at Harmon Field, Newfoundland, for a starter.”
“Oh, that thing,” said Splitt. “It wasn’t anything—just a shadow on a cloud. Somebody’s been kidding you.”
“If it’s just a cloud shadow, why can’t I see it?”
Splitt was getting a little nettled.
“Look, you know how long it takes to declassify stuff. They just haven’t got around to it. Take my word for it, the flying saucers are bunk. I went around with Sid Shallett on some of his interviews. What he’s got in the Post is the absolute gospel.”
“It’s funny about that April twenty-seventh report,” I said, “the way it contradicts the Post.”
“I tell you that was an old report—”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Al Scholin put in. “The Air Force doesn’t claim it has all the answers. But they’ve proved a lot of the reports were hoaxes or mistakes.”
“Just the same,” I said, “the Air Force is on record, as of April twenty-seventh, that it’s serious enough for everybody to be vigilant. And they admit most of the things, in the important cases, are still unidentified. Including the saucer Mantell was chasing.”