◆ SpookStack

ru Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9 eee Jet crewman sent up over Capital in 1952 to scout UFOs seen twice over Washington, D.C. views of three world-famous scientists among whorh is Pro- fessor Hermann Oberth, pioneer in space travel, who was convinced that UFOs “are piloted by super-intelligént be- ings from another planet.” For those to whom acceptance of such a far out explana- tion is unthinkable, Edward J. Ruppelt in The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects reminds us that only 100 years ago two eminent members of the French Academy of Sci- ences rejected meteorites in the same way with a scathing: “It can’t be . . . stones don’t fall from the sky.” And that at about the same time our own then Chief Engineer for the Navy labeled the possibility of flying heavier-than-air craft as absurd and it was only twenty years ago that our Chief of Staff to the President said of the atomic bomb: “It will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.” These incidents may have prompted Ruppelt to close his fine book with “. . . maybe the many pilots, radar spe- cialists, generals, industrialists, scientists and the man on the street who have told me ‘I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it myself,’ knew what they were talking. about.” WHAT DO AIR PILOTS SAY? It was the pilot of a privately owned plane who made the first recorded sighting, Kenneth Arnold; gave it its name, Flying Saucers; and submitted information without which no history of UFOs in America would be complete. That was on June 24, 1947 in the vicinity of Mt. Ranier, Wash., when the observer watched nine disc shaped ob- jects flying in linked line, “much like geese.” He was a veteran mountain pilot, flying his own plane, over country familiar to him. During the less than two minutes they were in view he estimated their length at 45 to 50 feet; their speed at 1,700 mph; their distance from him at 20-25 miles away. They had a skipping motion and every so often two or three would dip or shift course and occasionally disappear behind a peak of the Cascade Mountains. The skeptics spiked away at Arnold’s account, unwilling to accept the speed at which he had estimated their flight; the distance away . . . settling finally, for their own peace of mind, on jets as the explanation, although there was one school that held out for wind whipping snow over the mountain ridges. There were many others, however, familiar with Ar- nold’s experience, character and knowledge of the region who were less anxious to kiss off this incident. As publicity built, Arnold was interviewed by intelligence officers from HQ of the Fourth Air Force. The interviewer stated that. in his opinion, Arnold had seen what he stated he saw. This opinion was shared by many newsmen in the area who had considered. the story a hoax at inception, planned to report it as such, but came away, after intensive investiga- tion, with the same “saw-what-he-said conviction.” The conclusion of the Army Air Force’s was that Mr. Arn- old had seen a mirage, brought about by existing atmos- pheric conditions. continued on next page AN a Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010002-9 >