Revisiting the 1952 Washington DC UFO Flap

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: PlanetXisHERE



Just to slightly correct you. "Life" magazine published the specific edition in April of 1952. A good few months before the DC sightings.

The Full Life Article "Have We Visitors from Space" can be viewed by clicking here.

Thanks Buddy, I stand corrected. I had just made the assumption it had come out AFTER the Washington incidents in your OP, I think it says a lot about the UFO activity at the time that it actually came out before this incident!

I'm going to read that article right now. What was that other incident in 1952 that you thought was more significant than this one? Sorry if you have already mentioned it in this thread.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

There was a lot of activity going on. Operation Mainbrace which followed it was a major NATO exercise in Europe involving another UFO flap. There are a number of other incidents but that's a good starter.

I'll have to catch up another time as I'm off to sleep now as it's getting on for 2:00am here in the UK.

a reply to: mirageman

Hiya MM, here's the text from LIFE magazine August 4th 1952. It's not much and just intended to add contemporary records for future readers. I ripped the magazines to PDF a few years back and the quality isn't amazing - just readable.

a reply to: Kandinsky

That's a good addition to thread Kandinsky.

I know people don't necessarily like to jump out of a thread for more information on a topic as it breaks your concentration.

The post above yours has also reminded me that I did intend to cover the mass of sightings in 1952 beyond the DC case.



It'll have to wait for another time now!

a reply to: mirageman

CardDown mentioned looking at Mike Swords' book 'UFOs and Govt.' There's a mention of some estimated '30000' media reports in that year. The figures were sourced from “A Survey of Press Coverage of UFOs, 1947-1966” by Dr. Herbert J. Strentz

a reply to: Kandinsky

I haven't read Swords' book but may put it on my wish list.

'52 was certainly a peak year for sightings and I've been sort of enjoying delving back into the midst of time for a while. However a full on thread on 1952 deserves some serious time to do it justice. It's finding that time that is often the problem.

I agree with the posters that Mirage man has provided a great thread here…

Thanks MM!

What this event reminds me of is the unfortunate reality that there is no scientific attempt to analyze these events only propaganda by the gov to avoid such a venture by mislabeling them or just outright lying to the public.

The government panels including the Robertson group and the blue book are all propaganda efforts not legitimate objective scientific endeavors.

This implies two things to me: either the government has given up on attempting understanding these phenomena (for whatever reason: ignorance or fear) or they know something they aint telling.

Indeed if these UFOS aren’t just joy riding then the observation of them in these events in itself may provide knowledge or insight of this phenomenon.

derrufo note...this is what they are discussing in 2015 instead of the fact that alien light ships landed in the pacific ocean in late august 2015, in an area that took up 15 mile long and 10 miles wide, and not one official govt of the world will list what the science probes have in the way of evidence of this event...occurring...you are all being owned and served...on a platter.

originally posted by: DERRUFO
derrufo note...this is what they are discussing in 2015 instead of the fact that alien light ships landed in the pacific ocean in late august 2015, in an area that took up 15 mile long and 10 miles wide, and not one official govt of the world will list what the science probes have in the way of evidence of this event...occurring...you are all being owned and served...on a platter.

Interesting, I think you mean August 2014, unless you have some secret tech you are keeping under wraps!

Are you talking about the lights seen under the Pacific and videotaped and discussed in this thread?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What info do you have to lead you to believe these were caused by ET craft?

a reply to: PlanetXisHEREsincere apology...yes august 2014..there are no reflections on the water of the lights.pacific ocean area...meaning that pics were from a plane at 34,000 ft and there would have been wave motion.there is no reflection of any lights onto waves...no the lights were under the water or at the surface but not above the surface of pacific ocean as would be the case with fishing boats of humans...those who say it was volcano activity or plasma energy in the deep. no i very much doubt it. I am not trying to interfere with this nostalgic dip in the pool...here about ufos...i do believe there is a design here at this site to inform and educate but not deliver all the goods on the ufo coverup situation. the work done in the Mirage Men movie area threads by ATS people was incredibly good. But my worry is it is becoming now much too late to do any thing to stop the problem...massive ships seen, by the pilot between france and england....the shape of the ships and the art descriptions are exactly as was imaged by NASA and provided to filers files long ago called the mothership or cylinder ufo...NASA image provided to filer files by steve tobias...long ago...if you take that event imaged by NASA and the 2007 (?) pilot for Aurugny airline company of the same type long cylinder craft a mile long you are beginning to see more than visitation.With the incredibly large light ships formation that Pilot Heijt imaged and estimated for us all the size at 15 miles long and 10 miles wide, colonization is taking place. The event was exactly similar to art work by graham bethune us navy pilot of events seen feb 1951, in ocean atlantic at night off northern USA and canada areas...No where is the call taken up of the lack of follow up on the Heijt Lights case, there is no attempt to connect to the G . Bethune case, there is no outrage over the blackout of news on the HL case....you have instead a swirling picnic of intellectuals or friends gathering for a few drinks in virtual reality at the good old daze of ufo legendary sightings...it must be the end...for it to be this doubtful that even web site have nothing add....

a reply to: DERRUFO placing formal structure of my earlier remarks :
yes august 2014...
there are no reflections on the water of the lights.pacific ocean area.
meaning that pics were from a plane at 34,000 ft and there would have been wave motion.
there is no reflection of any lights onto waves.
no. the lights were under the water or at the surface but not above the surface of pacific ocean as would be the case with fishing boats of humans.
those who say it was volcano activity or plasma energy in the deep. no i very much doubt it.
I am not trying to interfere with this nostalgic dip in the pool,here about ufos...
i do believe there is a design here at this site to inform and educate but not deliver all the goods on the ufo coverup situation.
the work done in the Mirage Men movie area threads by ATS people was incredibly good.

But my worry is it is becoming now much too late to do any thing to stop the problem.
2 massive ships seen, by the pilot between france and england.the shape of the ships and the art descriptions are exactly as was imaged by NASA and provided to filers files long ago called the mothership or cylinder ufo...NASA image provided to filer files by steve tobias...long ago.

if you take that event imaged by NASA and the 2007 (?) pilot for Aurugny airline company sighting 2 of the same type long cylinder craft a mile long you are beginning to see more than visitation.

With the incredibly large light ships formation that Pilot Heijt imaged and estimated for us all the size at 15 miles long and 10 miles wide, colonization is taking place.

The event was exactly similar to art work by graham bethune us navy pilot of events seen feb 1951, in ocean atlantic at night off northern USA and canada areas...

No where is the call taken up of the lack of follow up on the Heijt Lights case.

there is no attempt to connect ACTUAL IMAGE EVIDENCE from Pilot Heijt to the G . Bethune case.
there is no outrage over the blackout of news on the HL case.
you have, instead, a swirling picnic of intellectuals or friends gathering for a few drinks in virtual reality at the good old daze of ufo legendary sightings...
it must be the end, for it to be this doubtful that even web sites have nothing new to add....

a reply to: DERRUFO

I don't want to offend you but I am just not understanding why you have chosen this thread to take it seriously away from the main topic of the DC Sightings in '52?

If you have major concerns about people like me writing threads about UFOs from the dawn of the UFO age then why not create a thread of your own? (There is no particular agenda by me. I simply write these threads up to help me learn a bit more about the subject & consider the evidence available.)

You've basically wrote your own thread here anyway.

All you need to do is tidy up the grammatical errors to make it easier to read and add a few pictures and I'm sure a lot of ATS people would be interested in what you have to say.

Just a thought like

Now back on topic.

originally posted by: Willtell
I agree with the posters that Mirage man has provided a great thread here…

Thanks MM!

What this event reminds me of is the unfortunate reality that there is no scientific attempt to analyze these events only propaganda by the gov to avoid such a venture by mislabeling them or just outright lying to the public.

The government panels including the Robertson group and the blue book are all propaganda efforts not legitimate objective scientific endeavors.

This implies two things to me: either the government has given up on attempting understanding these phenomena (for whatever reason: ignorance or fear) or they know something they aint telling.

Indeed if these UFOS aren’t just joy riding then the observation of them in these events in itself may provide knowledge or insight of this phenomenon.

I think it's highly likely that the 'US government' and it's allies really didn't know what the hell these things violating airspace were back in the late 1940s and 1950s. Project Bluebook for a short time under Ed Ruppelt did seem to have serious intentions to investigate in a rational scientific way. However the revived public interest in 'flying saucers' in the early 1950s, the worry of the Soviet threat and then the establishment of a base at Groom Lake probably all helped turn it all into a propaganda project.

There have been a few attempts to scientifically investigate the UFO issue. However the main problem is that "UFO events" are entirely unpredictable and so trying to witness one becomes a high cost, very low probability of success scenario.

The longest ongoing one (which I've also posted in another thread) is the Hessdalen Lights Project from Norway.



It appears to be some kind of natural phenomenon we have yet to understand but can also been seen on a fairly regular basis.

We do need proper scientific investigation into what UFOs are. I suspect there are also a number of different answers as well.

a reply to: miragemanin total agreement. sorry again for interruption.

Awesome thread , thank you ..

one of the few ... just like the Montana Ufo Incident in 1950

and the

UFO incident of 1952 In UTAH ... around the Same Year..


another look is

Rod Serling's UFO Documentary Called

IT HAS BEGUN

Which has Details of the Washington D.C. Event with the Legit Personal, that were there, In the Traffic/Radar Control Room within those Two Weeks ...

The Full Video


If you want to Jump to the part where the 1952 Washington D.C. Incident Take Place in the Documentary

Click the Link Below VVVV

Link At the Start of the Talk of the Washington D.C. Incident in IT has Begun
youtu.be...

Just watched Hangar 1 the UFO files, episode "the shadow government" and they mention this as the tipping point to when the government really decided to keep a lid on all UFO encounters.

There is a clip of a Major Keyhole, during a press conference, saying, "I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin." The clip is at 32:44 in the Hangar 1 show. Here is History2's youtube link to the show :
www.youtube.com...

I thought some might find this interesting.

Anyway, I'm glad I could find more details about the incident on ATS. Great thread.

a reply to: blueman12

Just watched Hangar 1 the UFO files, episode "the shadow government" and they mention this as the tipping point to when the government really decided to keep a lid on all UFO encounters. There is a clip of a Major Keyhole, during a press conference, saying, "I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin....."

Yes Kehoe was a firm believer that we were dealing with something ET. Unfortunately we are not nearing proving their interplanetary origins 7 decades after that appearance. I don't think there is any doubt that the UFO subject was being covered up by the end of 1952. I think the main reason for the cover up was to prevent 'panic' and there was no way the military were prepared to admit that domestic airspace was being violated and they could do nothing about it. The times were very different and the threat from the Soviets and a nuclear exchange was very real.

However if you want to see a sort of 'sequel thread' to this that then you might want to check this thread :

UFOs & the Cold War: Project Palladium

originally posted by: mirageman
Official Air Force Conclusion and Press Conference

At the request of the President himself, Captain Edward Ruppelt was called on July 28th 1952 by, (then Brigadier General), Landry to brief him on the Washington sightings and to state what he knew of the phenomena.

Ruppelt describes President Truman’s concern in his book:

"About 10:00 a.m., the President’s air aide, Brigadier General Landry, called intelligence at President Truman’s request to find out what was going on. Somehow I got the call. I told General Landry that the radar target could have been caused by weather but we had no proof."

Source : The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt

Ruppelt later learned that President Truman had been listening while he was delivering this briefing to General Landry.

Given the levels of excitement and also a rising anxiety across the nation it was decided to hold a press conference at the Pentagon. Air Force Major Generals John Samford (USAF Director of Intelligence) and Roger Ramey (USAF Director of Operations) held the best attended press conference since WWII at the Pentagon on July 29th 1952.

Actually the 'press conference' film shown above is not the actual press conference.

It is a newsreel clip General Samford posed for in a different room AFTER the actual news conference had ended, where he repeated a few selected statements for the movie cameras.

Here now is the real press conference reported by Major Keyhoe -


The Press Conference

July 29 - That very morning Army officers and Indiana state police had watched a weird "dogfight" between several discs over Indianapolis. Three hours later a saucer had scouted the atomic energy plant at Los Alamos, racing off at high speed when Air Force jets went after it.

By noon the Air Force had still another headache. The night before a story by INS had reported a new Air Force order—if saucers ignored orders to land, pilots were to open fire.

At Washington, Frank Edwards had picked up the flash and repeated it on the Mutual network.

Telegrams protesting the order were now coming in from all over the country. One, typical of the rest, came from Robert L. Farnsworth, president of the U. S. Rocket Society.

Also wiring the White House, Farnsworth gave United Press a copy of his message to help arouse the nation.

It read:





Under this new barrage General Samford gave up his last-ditch attempt to postpone the conference. By this time no one could have stopped it without a disastrous flare-back.

Many people would have suspected some frightening answer too terrible to make public.

By 4 o'clock the room was packed with top correspondents, wire-service men, and commentators. I hadn't seen a bigger turnout since the A-bomb story broke.

Promptly on the minute, General Samford came in, a stockily built man with whimsical blue eyes. His shrewd, pleasant face showed no hint of concern—it was not for nothing that he was Director of Air Force Intelligence.

Behind Samford came Major General Ramey, a florid-faced, serious-looking officer. Their advisers spread out around the platform—an impressive group of colonels, majors, captains, and civilian specialists.

Only Ruppelt came near to matching Samford's unconcerned look. Most of the others were sober-faced, and with good reason:

For the next hour or so they would be sitting on a powder keg. Two simple questions would light the fuse. All they could do was pray that nobody thought to ask them.

In his opening remarks, General Samford set a pattern which he used later in answering difficult questions.

Normally, Samford is not a verbose man: on occasion he can be as terse as a drill sergeant. But clipped words, short sentences, often give a dramatic effect, and the Director wanted no drama here.

A dry, academic approach was the best answer, and Samford did his utmost to set the pattern.

"I think the plan is to have very brief opening remarks," he said in a slow, unruffled voice, "and then ask for such questions as you may want to put to us for discussion and answer.

Insofar as opening remarks are concerned, I just want to state our reason for concern about this.

"The Air Force feels a very definite obligation to identify and analyze things that happen in the air that may have in them menace to the United States and, because of that feeling of obligation and our pursuit of that interest, since 1947, we have an activity that was known one time as Project Saucer (press name for Project Sign) and now, as part of another more stable and integrated organization, have undertaken to analyze between a thousand and two thousand reports dealing with this area.

And out of that mass of reports that we've received we've been able to take things which were originally unidentified and dispose of them to our satisfaction in terms of bulk where we came to the conclusion that these things were either friendly aircraft erroneously recognized or reported, hoaxes—quite a few of those—electronic and meteorological phenomena of one sort or another, light aberrations, and many other things."

The general's involved sentences could not have been better calculated to ease the tension.

Already the saucers seemed a little less real.

He went on in the same detached, academic manner. "However, there have remained a percentage of the total, in the order of 20 per cent of the reports that have come from credible observers of relatively incredible things.

And because of those things not being possible for us to move along and associate with the kind of things that we've found can be associated with the bulk of these reports; we keep on being concerned about them.

"However, I'd like to say that the difficulty of disposing of these reports is largely based upon the lack of any standard measurement or any ability to measure these things which have been reported briefly by some, more elaborately by others, but with no measuring devices that can convert the thing or idea or the phenomenon into something that becomes manageable as material for the kind of analysis that we know."

Several reporters looked at each other blankly. The man on my right leaned over to me.

"If he's trying to befuddle us, he's already got me," he whispered.

The general went on for two or three minutes; "Our real interest in this project is not one of intellectual curiosity, but is in trying to establish and appraise the possibility of a menace to the United States. And we can say, as of now, that there has been no pattern that reveals anything remotely like purpose or remotely like consistency that we can in any way associate with any menace to the United States."

continued -

Here, I knew, Samford was skating on thin ice. Even before I saw all the ATIC evidence, I had enough reports that did show a definite pattern. But it was the general's job to dispel public fear, and admitting a pattern would only have increased it.

After mentioning reports of strange aerial objects back in biblical times, Samford threw the conference open for questions.

In giving the questions and answers here, I have taken them verbatim from the official transcript. It is not a complete account—the conference lasted 80 minutes, and many questions were unimportant. But all the main points are included.

Since reporters did not identify themselves, the transcript shows queries as merely from "the press." In one or two cases I have identified men whom I recognized.

General Samford's preliminary remarks had, somehow, lifted the saucers into a distant, shadowy realm. But the first question briskly brought them back to earth.

It came from Doug Larsen of NEA.

"Have there been more than one radar sighting simultaneously?" he asked. "That is, blips from several stations all concentrating on the same area?"

"You mean in the past?" said Samford.

"Yes, sir."

"Yes. That is not an unusual thing to happen to this sequence at all. Phenomenon has passed from one radar to another and with a fair degree of certainty that it was the same phenomenon.. . Now, when we talk about down to the split second, I don't know . . ."

"Enough to give you a fix so that you can be sure it is right in a certain place?"

"That is most rare," said the general.

"Has there been any?" persisted Larsen.

"Most rare. I don't recall that we have had one that gives us that kind of an effect."

Larsen and many of the others looked baffled, for this very point had been emphasized by the Control Center men. But before Larsen could go on, another man cut in with a safer question on ionized clouds.

A minute later a redheaded correspondent down in front tried to pick up where Larsen was stopped.

"General, have you talked to your Air Intelligence officer who was over at National Airport when they were sighting all these 'bandits' on the CAA screen?"

"Yes, sir, I have."

"Have you talked with the Andrews Field people who apparently saw the same thing?"

"I haven't talked to them myself, but others have."

"Well, could you give us an account of what they did see and what explanation you might attach to it?"

This was getting closer, but Samford showed only a good-natured patience.

"Well, I could discuss possibilities. The radar screen has been picking up things for many years that—well, birds, a flock of ducks. I know there's been one instance in which a flock of ducks was picked up and was intercepted and flown through as being an unidentified phenomenon."

"Where was that, General?" asked the redheaded man.

"I don't recall where it was. I think it might have been in Japan."

In the next five minutes the reporter's question somehow was lost in the shuffle. Then Gunnar Back brought it to light again.

"General Samford, I understand there were radar experts who saw these sightings Saturday night or early Sunday morning. What was their interpretation of what they saw on the scope?"

"They said they saw good returns."

"Which would indicate that these were solid objects similar to aircraft?"

"No, not necessarily. We get good returns from birds."

"Well, you wouldn't get as large a blip from a bird as—"

"No, unless it was close."

"Did they report that these could have been birds?"

"No," said Samford.

(In fact they had flatly denied it, as I learned later.)

At this point an Associated Press man broke in with a question on temperature inversions.

Samford passed it on to Captain James.

"What sort of ground targets give these reflections?" the AP man asked.

"It depends on the amount of the temperature inversion and the size and shape of the ground objects," Captain James told him.

I could see he was uneasy; this was getting close to one of the key questions.

"Would this reflection account for the simultaneous radar sightings and visual sightings which appear to coincide on the basis of conversations between the radar operator and the observer outside?"

"There is some possibility of that," James said cautiously.

"Why would these temperature inversions change location so rapidly or travel?"

"Well, actually," said James, "it can be the appearance or disappearance of different ground targets, giving the appearance of something moving when, actually, the different objects are standing still."

"Would these pseudo-blips cause any difficulties in combat?"

"Not to people that understand what's going on." James hesitated. "They do cause difficulty."

Shortly after this, another newsman came even closer to the danger point.

"Captain, was there a temperature inversion in this area last Saturday night?"

It jarred James; I could see that.

"There was," he said briefly.

"And the Saturday night proceeding?"

"I'm not sure—"

"Did any two sets in this area get a fix on these so-called saucers around here?"

"The information we have isn't good enough to determine that," evaded James.

The reporter looked incredulous. "You don't know whether Andrews Field and Washington National Airport actually got a triangulation on anything?"

"You see," said James, "the records made and kept aren't accurate enough to tie that in that close."

"What is the possibility of these being other than phenomena?"

This was too hot a potato for Captain James. General Samford quickly caught it.

"I'd like to relieve Captain James for just a minute," he said.
Confirming the query to guided missiles, Samford ruled them out in a long discussion that reduced the saucers to "something” with unlimited power and no mass.

"You know what no mass means," he added. "There's nothing there."

For the next ten minutes the questions led into safer fields. By this time I had changed my mind about questioning General Samford. It was obvious this was a deliberate debunking, a carefully worked-out plan to combat hysteria. There might be more reason for hiding the facts than I knew.

I decided to wait until after the conference and ask my questions privately.

After several vain attempts the red-headed man down front finally got back to his original question.

"You had two experts over there last Saturday night. . . What was their opinion?"

He had put the query to Captain James, but again General Samford interrupted.

continued -


"May I try to make another answer and ask for support or negation on the quality of the radar operator? I personally don't feel that is necessarily associated with quality of radar operators, because radar operators of great quality are going to be confused by the things which now appear and may appear in a radar ... I think that a description of a GCA landing has some bearing on that in which to get associated with the GCA you have to make a certain number of queries and do a certain number of things and then you become identified through the fact that you obey..."

This went on for a minute or so, during which the redheaded man began to look a trifle groggy. Then Samford finished.

"Would you address yourself to what I've just said?" he inquired.

"Yes," said the redhead. "What do the experts think? That was the question."

"The experts?" said General Samford.

"The ones that saw it last Saturday night. What did they report to you?"

"They said they made good returns."

The reporter, apparently a bit dizzy from the merry-go-round, gave up and sat down. But another correspondent jumped up.

"Did they draw any conclusion as to what they were, whether they were clouds?"

"They made good returns," said General Samford, "and they think they ought to be followed up."

"But now you come to the general belief that it was either heat inversions or some other phenomena without substance."

"The phrase 'without substance' bothers me a little," said Samford.

"Well, could you—"

"Say what we think?"

About 50 of the press, in one voice, shouted: "Yes!"

General Samford smiled.

"I think that the highest probability is that these are phenomena associated with the intellectual and scientific interests that we are on the road to learn more about, but that there is nothing in them that is associated with materials or vehicles or missiles that are
directed against the United States."

"The question whether these are hostile or not makes very little difference," said one reporter. "Are you excluding from consideration a missile, a vehicle, or any other material object that might be flying through the air other than sound or light or some other intangible? Somebody from this planet or some other planet violating our air space?"

This was the first direct mention of the space visitors answer.

Instead of replying directly, the general brought in outside opinions.

"The astronomers are our best advisers, of course, in this business of visitors from elsewhere. The astronomers photograph the sky continuously perhaps with the most adequate photography in existence, and the complete absence of things which would have to be in their appearance for many days and months to come from somewhere else—it doesn't cause them to have any enthusiasm whatsoever in thinking about this other side of it."

But this oblique answer did not tell the full story. Perhaps General Samford did not know it, but several astronomers had reported strange objects moving in outer space. In several other cases astronomers had seen mysterious objects moving across the face of the moon.

One reporter, not satisfied with Samford's answer, tried to pin him down.

"General, let's make it clear now you are excluding—if you'll affirm that—you are excluding vehicles, missiles, and other tangible objects flying through space, including the subhuman bodies from other planets."

"In my mind, yes," said the general.

The man on my right leaned over to me. "Why 'subhuman?' They'd have to be superhuman to be that far ahead of us. And I noticed Samford didn't make that an official answer."

A few moments later one of the press brought Samford back to the subject of simultaneous radar tracking. It was a touchy point. If the general admitted the triangulation, by absolutely simultaneous radar bearings, it would wreck the Menzel answer, as several
scientists had already told ATIC. But this time he had a determined opponent.

"General, you said there'd never been a simultaneous radar fix on one of these things."

"I don't think I wanted to say that," replied Samford.

"You didn't mean to say it?"

"I meant to say that when you talk about simultaneously, somebody will say, 'Was it on 1203 hours 24 ½ seconds?' and I don't know."

"Well," said the reporter, "I'd like to point out this fact. The officer in charge of the radar station at Andrews Field told me that on the morning of July 20, which was a week from last Saturday, he picked up an object three miles north of Riverdale.

He was in intercom communication with CAA and they exchanged information. The CAA also had a blip three miles north of Riverdale and on both radars the same blip remained for 30 seconds and simultaneously disappeared from both sets—"

"Well, their definition of simultaneous, yes," said Samford. "But some people won't be satisfied that that is simultaneously."

"It is pretty damned simultaneous for all purposes," the reporter said firmly.

But the general refused to be trapped. "Well, I'm talking about the split-second people... they'll say your observations are delayed by half a second, therefore you can't say it was simultaneous."

Outmaneuvered, the reporter turned to Captain James.

"Does your inversion theory explain away that situation?"

"It possibly could, yes," James said warily.

"It possibly could, but could it?"

"We don't have the details."

"Is there any reason why it couldn't?" the reporter demanded.

James squirmed, looked at Samford, apparently in the hope of being taken off the hook.

"General," the reporter said tardy, "can we get this clarified?"

For the first time Samford ducked the issue. "I'm trying to let this gentleman ask a question—" he looked down at the front row. "Excuse me."

For the next 15 minutes Samford and his advisers had an easier time.

One reporter, quizzing Ruppelt, tried unsuccessfully to make him admit a concentration of sightings at atomic energy plants.

Mr. Griffing and Colonel Bower, discussing the refraction-grid cameras, Schmidt telescopes, and plans for more scientific investigations, managed to avoid any pitfalls.

So did General Ramey, when he explained a few of the interception details.

Then one reporter, who'd tried for ten minutes to get the floor, tossed in a hot question.

"General, suppose some super intelligent creature had come up with a solution to the theoretical problem of levitation. Would that not be mass-less in our observations, either by radar or by sight—no gravity?"

"Well, I don't know whether I can give any answer to that," said General Samford. "We believe most of this can be understood gradually by the human mind."

The reporter, balked, sat down. But later he tried another angle.