◆ SpookStack

NO SALE By the time The News talked to Pfc. Viets at Quantico yesterday, the airplane navigation light theory already had been offered. The News asked Pfc. Viets about it, and he Said: “That was no airplane. I first thought it might be a weather balloon, but it wasn’t. Either way, you could have seen the shape.” Pfc. Viets and. Sergt. Salinder saw the light again at 10:15 the same night. Five minutes later they called in the roving guard from a nearby guard tower, but the light was gone. CONFLICT First reports had it that troops were’ sent into the area to look for the lights. Yesterday Maj. A. B. Ferguson, the base information of- ficer, said that report was errone- ous. “We did at no time dispatch troops to fight off the invaders or capture then or welcome them aboard or anything else,” he said. However, this is what the official record says: “A 13-man detail arrived (at 11:15 p. m., Dec. 30) from Camp Barrett and made a search of the area in which the light was first seen. The search proved fruit- less.” Fifty minutes later Pfc. Viets’ re- lief “reported seeing the same red light.” Sergt. Salinder saw nothing. HOVERS The next night the light was seen again, at 6:25 p. m., by a tank park sentry and the guard tower. At 7:10, it appeared again. time the sergeant of the guard “came out and checked the area This | fi Pfc. Bennett (top front) grabbed a butcher knife and said: g Maj. Pomerleau (middle photo) is skeptical, ing in the tank shed!” “Tt’s land- but still curious. Pfc. Viets (bottom photo) saw enough to convince him “that was no airplane.” with troops,” the official report says. Thirty minutes later, the sergeant of the guard saw it again, and at 8:23 p. m. three lights .were seen. (This was New Year’s Eve.) At 9:01 it was seen again, and at 4:20 New Year’s morning it moved northeast, then south, then north and remained “over the tank shed at an elevation of about 3500 feet.” That was the time Pfc. Viets said, “when they saw it come up there and lay under the moon until morning.” Pfe. Viets’ relief of the night be- fore got so excited he “grabbed a butcher knife and headed for the tank shed to help out his troops,” his barracks mates said. The light came back three times Friday night, once Saturday night, ve times Sunday night and twice last. night. Maj. Pomerleau said the best pos- THE WASH 1-5-5), —News Staff Photos by Gene Thomas sible way to describe the light’s size, shape and intensity was to compare it to “the way a blinking red traffic light appears to a motor- ist as he pulls up to an intersec- tion.” He heard no noise and saw no shape. He said the light was “sharp- ly delineated.” “But I have friends and a pro- fessional reputation,” he said, “and as far as I’m concerned just say it’s an aircraft navigation light.” Several airlines that fly in and out ef Washington say they began in- Stalling new lights atop the tails of | Planes six months ago. They blink on and off, are red, and can be seen much farther away than older types. “Nobody in the barracks knows,” | Pfe, Viets said.. “They're just talking flying saucers, that's all, They’re talking about men from Mars and everything else you could name.” ——————— oe YVALLY NEWS Greater Washingt i st0On Kdition