Green eyes and red face, so the story was told.
It floated in air with fingers of flame.
It was gone with a hiss just as quick as it came.
Chorus:
Oh, Phantom of Flatwoods, from Moon or from Mars,
Maybe from God and not from the stars,
Please tell us why you fly o’er our trees
The end of the world or an omen of peace?
The Panel of Civilian Scientists
When after three months of constant threat no flying saucers had yet tried to invade the country, the acute phase of the panic subsided. Nevertheless, responsible officials in the Department of Defense were uneasy, and Air Defense was particularly worried by the problem of the radar phantoms, whose cause was not fully understood (see [Chapter VIII]). Even if UFOs proved to be normal phenomena, other very real dangers existed in the situation. If the public believed in the possibility of extraterrestrial antagonists, a clever enemy on earth simply by fabricating a few incidents could easily induce a mass hysteria that might paralyze the country. Also, if the number of saucer reports should be greatly multiplied by some artificial stimulus, their sheer numbers would clog communication channels, interfere with the Early Warning System, and at a time of imminent attack from another part of the globe might cause a disastrous three- or four-hour delay in the activation of the Air Force network.