What was the answer? Was this just a wandering discussion of possibilities, badly put together, or was it a hint of the truth? it could be the first step in preparing America for a revelation. It could also be a carefully thought-out trick.
This whole report might be designed to conceal a secret weapon. If the Air Force or the Navy did have a secret missile, what better way to distract attention? The old sighting reports could have been seized on as a buildup for space travel hints.
Then suddenly it hit me. Even if it were a smoke screen, what of those old reports? They still remained to be answered. There was only one possible explanation, unless you discarded the sightings as lies. That meant discrediting many reliable witnesses—naval officers, merchant shipmasters, explorers, astronomers, ministers, and responsible public officials.
Besides all these, there had been thousands of other witnesses, where large groups had seen the objects. The answer seemed inevitable, but I held it off. I didn’t want to believe it, with all the changes it might bring, the unpredictable effect upon our civilization. If I kept on checking I might find evidence that would bring a different explanation for the present saucers.
DuBarry had put another group of reports in the envelope; this series covered the World War II phase and on up to the outbreak of the saucer scare in the United States. Some of it, about the foo fighters, I already knew. This was tied in with the mystery rockets reported over Sweden. The first Swedish sightings had occurred during the early part of the war. Most of the so-called “ghost rockets” were seen at night, moving at tremendous speed. Since they came from the direction of Germany, most Swedes believed that guided rockets were the answer.
During the summer of 1946, after the Russians had taken over Peenemunde, the Nazi missile test base, ghost rockets again were reported flying over Sweden. Some were said to double back and fly into Soviet areas. Practically all were seen at night, and therefore none had been described as a flying disk. Instead, they were said to be colored lights, red, green, blue, and orange, often blurred from their high speed.
But there was a puzzling complication. Mystery lights, and sometimes flying disks, were simultaneously reported over Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, and even French Morocco. Either there were two answers, or some nation had developed missiles with an incredibly long range.
By January 1947, ghost-rocket sightings in Europe had diminished to less than one a month. Oddly enough, the first disk report admitted by Project “Saucer” was in this same month. The first ’47 case detailed by Project “Saucer” occurred at Richmond, Virginia. It was about the middle of April. A Richmond weather observer had released a balloon and was tracking it with a theodolite when a strange object crossed his field of vision. He swung the theodolite and managed to track the thing, despite its high speed. (The actual speed and altitude—the latter determined by a comparison of the balloon’s height at various times—have never been released. Nor has the Air Force released this observer’s report on the object’s size, which Project “Saucer” admitted was more accurate than most witnesses’ estimates.)
About the seventeenth of May 1947, a huge oval-shaped saucer ten times longer than its diameter was sighted by Byron Savage, an Oklahoma City pilot. Two days later, another fast-flying saucer was reported at Manitou Springs, Colorado. In the short time it was observed, it was seen to change direction twice, maneuvering at an unbelievable speed.
Then on June 24 came Kenneth Arnold’s famous report, which set off the saucer scare. The rest of the story I now knew almost by heart.