“What’s that?”
“Interplanetary.”
“You’re kidding!” I said.
“I didn’t say I believed it,” said Purdy. “I just say it’s possible.”
DuBarry was watching me. “I know how you feel. That’s how it hit me when Ken first said it,”
“I’ve heard it before,” I said. “But I never took it seriously.”
“Maybe this will interest you,” Purdy said. He gave me a note from Sam Boal:
“Just talked with D———-,” the note ran. (D———- is a prominent aeronautical engineer, the designer of a world-famous plane.) “He believes the disks may be interplanetary and that the Air Force knows it—or at least suspects it. I’m enclosing sketches showing how he thinks the disks operate.”
“He’s not the first one who told us that,” said Purdy. “We’ve heard the same thing from other engineers. Over a dozen airline pilots think they’re coining from out in space. And there’s a rocket expert at Wright Field who’s warned Project ‘Saucer’ that the things are interplanetary. That’s why I’m not writing it off.”
“Have you read the Project ‘Saucer’ ideas on space travel?” DuBarry asked me. I told him my copy hadn’t reached me. He read me some marked paragraphs in his copy of the preliminary report: