The Air Force will continue to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects and to treat them as “serious business.”[[XIII-14]] The security of the nation depends on this watchfulness. When a pilot sees a bright object flashing through the sky and cannot immediately recognize it, he knows that he may be looking at a meteor, a balloon, a bird, a sundog, a planetary mirage, or another plane. On the other hand, since he may be catching a significant glimpse of a guided missile or an aircraft from beyond the United States, he promptly reports another UFO. The Air Force cannot afford to guess what is in our skies. They want to know.
The creative scientist, eternally curious, keeps an open mind toward strange phenomena and novel ideas, knowing that we have only begun to understand the universe we live in. He remembers, too, that Biot’s discovery that meteorites were “stones from the sky” was at first greeted with disbelief, and he hopes never to be guilty of similar obtuseness. But an open mind does not mean credulity or a suspension of the logical faculties that are man’s most valuable asset.
Human beings now stand on the threshold of space. Visits to and from other worlds may occur in the future, bringing new facts and new interpretations of reality that we cannot now imagine. No evidence yet found indicates that such visits have begun. No fact so far determined suggests that a single unidentified flying object has originated outside our own planet.
[[XIII-1]] Keyhoe, D. E. The Flying Saucer Conspiracy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1955.
[[XIII-1a]] Tacker, L. J. Flying Saucers and the U. S. Air Force. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1960.
[XIII-2] Keyhoe, D. E. Flying Saucers from Outer Space. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1953.
[[XIII-3]] UFO Investigator (March 1960).
[[XIII-4]] UFO Investigator (August-September 1958).
[[XIII-5]] UFO Investigator (April-May 1961).
[XIII-6] UFO Investigator (July-August 1960).