Charge 3a. The spotlight used by the Coast Guard cutter was of a type that could not be focused like a searchlight; therefore the beam could not have been reflected from the clouds to the Fitzgerald house. [Incorrect. The spotlight used could operate with either a diffuse or a narrow beam, could be focused like a searchlight, and could have been reflected from the clouds to the house.]
Charge 3b. The Coast Guard cutter had used its spotlight and turned the beam in the direction of the house only once that night, while signaling another boat at a time two hours earlier than the sighting and a place roughly five miles from the house. [The December 1, 1958, edition of the document gives the distance as 4½ miles; the 1959 edition gives 5½ miles. Whatever the true distance, the statement is incorrect. A signaling incident did occur at the time and about the place specified, but it had no relation to the Fitzgerald sighting. The light was used frequently in the hours between midnight and 4 A.M., as the cutter carried out its search for the missing cabin cruiser. In a statement obtained by the Akron Committee itself, the chief boatswain’s mate affirmed that “subject spotlight was flashed on and off a number of times during the night, picking up objects in all directions. It is hard to estimate how many times spotlights were snapped on and off during subject search, but they were used quite often during short periods of time.”]
Charge 4. The statement that the supposed confirmatory witness, Mrs. S, could not recall anything unusual for the night of the sighting was “a lie,” as evidenced by her signed statement. [Incorrect. When the investigators visited Mrs. S, she asserted that she had nothing to contribute. At about 2:30 A.M. (half an hour earlier than the Fitzgerald sighting) she had indeed noticed a bright-red glow that had startled her at first until she realized that it probably came from the nearby Ohio Edison plant or from the foundry. The signed statement printed by the Akron Committee in the December 1958 edition of the document bears no date. The notarized statement used in the 1959 edition is dated March 25, six months after the sighting had occurred. After the Air Force interview, apparently, Mrs. S had changed her mind for reasons unknown.]
Charge 5. The statement that another confirmatory witness, Mr. G, was not available for interview was “pathetic” because it was Mrs. G, not Mr. G, who saw the UFO. [The point of this accusation is not clear. Because of a typographical error in a letter, “Mrs.” was changed to “Mr.” The fact remains that the supposed witness, Mrs. G, was not available. Also, the light she reported had appeared about 2 A.M., an hour before the Fitzgerald sighting.]
Charge 6a. It was not true that a misty rain with haze and mist had occurred at the time of the sighting; the witness herself stated that it was not raining. [Incorrect. The Cleveland Weather Bureau recorded continual slight precipitation between midnight and 7 A.M.: .20 inches were recorded between 2 and 4 A.M. When asked whether it was raining when she saw the UFO, the witness replied, “It had rained a few hours before,” a vague response suggesting that she had not noticed the weather at the time of the sighting. Other parts of her account, however, strongly indicate rain. Although the night was warm (about 65 degrees F. at 3 A.M.), her bedroom window was closed.]
Charge 6b. It was not true that smoke from the steel plant southwest of the house could have been a factor in the sighting, because the direction of the wind was wrong. [Incorrect. The Weather Bureau recorded “WSW and SW” winds that night averaging ten miles an hour; coming from the southwest, the winds would have blown the smoke northeast, directly toward the house.]
Charge 7a. The sergeants did not make a house-to-house check among the neighbors to obtain confirmatory evidence. [Correct. Such a time-consuming procedure would not have been justified. The neighbors had had two weeks in which to report a visiting spaceship. No such report had been made, even by the neighbor in whose yard the noisy object was supposed to have hovered while emitting puffs of smoke.]
Charge 7b. They did not ask Mrs. Fitzgerald to make a drawing of the UFO. [Correct. Before their visit she had already made such a drawing, prepared with the help of members of the Akron Committee who had shown her a sketch of an alleged spaceship reproduced several years earlier in an Air Force pamphlet[[XIII-13]]. With this sketch before her to aid her memory, Mrs. Fitzgerald had described her UFO to a draftsman provided by the committee. Unsurprisingly, the resulting sketch was very similar to the picture used as an example. A drawing obtained in this way could have no value as evidence.]
Charge 7c. The sergeants failed to ask enough questions about the motions of the object. [Incorrect. The standard form for reporting unidentified flying objects contains questions specifically designed to describe the motion of an unknown; all these questions were asked and answered.]
Charge 7d. They used only the standard report form; it did not include questions that allowed Mrs. Fitzgerald to express all her ideas of what she had seen. [Correct. The questions are designed to elicit observed physical facts; it does not require all the witness’s interpretations.]