(In the final Project “Saucer” report, the attempt to explain away this sighting was painfully evident. Analyzing this case, Number 206, the Air Force said: “If the facts are correct, there is no astronomical explanation. A few points favor the daytime meteor hypothesis—snow-white color, speed faster than a jet, the roar, similarity to sky-writing and the time of day. But the tactics, if really performed, oppose it strenuously: the maneuvers in and out of cloud banks, turns of 180 degrees or more, Possibly these were illusions, caused by seeing the object intermittently through clouds. The impression of a fuselage with windows could even more easily have been a sign of imagination.”
(With this conjecture, Project “Saucer” listed the sighting as officially answered. The Hague space-ship case was unexplained.)
In following up the Jackson and Bethel reports, I talked with two officials in the Civil Aeronautics Administration. One of these was Charley Planck, who handled public relations. I found that the pilots concerned had good records; C.A.A. men who knew them discounted the hoax theory.
“Charley, there’s a rumor that airline pilots have been ordered not to talk,” I told Planck. “You know anything about it?”
“You mean ordered by the Air Force or the companies?” he said.
“The Air Force and the C.A.A.”
“If the C.A.A.’s in on it, it’s a top-level deal,” said Charley. “I think it’s more likely the companies—with or without a nudge from the Air Force.”
While we were talking, an official from another agency came in. Because the lead he gave me was off the record, I’ll call him Steve Barrett. I knew Steve fairly well. We were both pilots with service training; our paths had crossed during the war, and I saw him now and then at airports around Washington.
When the saucer scare first broke, Steve had been disgusted. “Damn fools trying to get publicity,” he snorted. “The way Americans fall for a gag! Even the Air Force has got the jitters.”
So I was a little surprised to find he now thought the disks were real.