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A 2°PORTER AT LF \°GE © r MN midsummer of 1947, the Stares Arr Force, already cuneeraed with such problems as the devclop- ment of guided niissiles and: sapersonic craft, the rigging up of radar networks, and its controversy with the Navy over unification, found itself confronted thy another, died complerely different, head- ache——tl fivine saucer, People im every section Br the country were seeing strange objects that streaked across the sky at tremendous speeds, and while these people, who inchided such prac- ticed students of the heavens as air- plane pilots, farmers, and the Licutenant Governor of Idaho, were net able tn identify the things they had scen, they were able to deseribe them vividly sind unforgettably, The newspapers called the first of these mysterious objects a flying saucer, takine thew cue from the man oawvhe reported: living seen it and whe desembed it ay samcerhike, anil dhe name stuck, althoueh later people re- ported seeing things that looked like flh- ing chromium hubcaps, flying dimes, flying teardrops, fying gashshts, flying ice-cream cones, and flying pie plates. As mire and mire cuvinis thie. were seen in tlie skies, cautiousl, quivciccl editorials began to appear aa Hie pepens, and the President and members of Cone gress received a deluge of letters de- manding an explanation, Many of the letter writers had concluded that the objects, whatever they might be, were manacd by Russians, and qhit as sean as their pilots had reconnoitresd sulle cienth, they would return loaded with atomic bombs, Orhers thought the carth was being visited by space ships from another planet. Still athers suspected that our ewn Air Force was seeretly testing seme new form oof aireraft. Everyone agreed, however, that it was up to the Air Force, as the cus todian of our welkin, to explain the flying objects and, if necessary, te repel them. The result was the launching hy the Air Force, on January 22, 1948, of a special investigation, an investiga- tien that, though it bas reached ain grous conclusions, is sill aiden weg tnd has yet te put the publi esd at fest, . * It appears that, aside from the hope of reassuging a jittery populace, the Air Fosce, in embarking upon his under- taking, had any or all of three things in mind, It may well have shared tic etvilian concern over what, if anything, the Russians might have to do with the reported phenomena, and it may even have felt that to insure a thoroughguing SOMETHING IN THE SKY investigation there was certainly no harm in assuming for the moment that the era of interplanctary travel had arrived and the earth had become an objective for fourncys from elac~ where an dhe salar system, Or---and this would not necessarily exclude the first two considerations—the Air Force may have boon setting up a smoke sereen ta protect, in the jaterest of national secu- rity, the secret of same experimental fly- ing objects of its own that only a trusted few of its members knew ahout. What- ever thy purpose, the investigation, with which T have been in touch from time to time, has seemingly been exhaustive, The Air Force personnel originally assismed po it was later augmented by astronoiners, psycholowists, physicists, meteorologists, physterns, and repres sertetives of the FOB. Phe investica- tian, which som became popularly known as Project: Saucer, was) first headed by Lieutenant General Benja- min W, Chidliw, Commanding Gen- p of the Air Matériel) Comma: andl its base was, and is, at Wright Fie Dayton, Ohio. The project’s task turn aut to invalve a mixture of old- fashion detection, scientific analysis, public re tions, and the study of a widespre state of mind. In December, 194 after checking, aver a period of t years, three hundred and seventy-f reports of intruders in the sky, the J Force publicly called it quits, but Proj Saucer was not actually dishanded. D tional security, the Air Force announce at the time, was not endangered. T flying saucers were apparitions, it all attributable either to a failure recognize conventional abjects, hoaxes, of to a mild form of mass hy teria. The Air Force, however, did r let the matter rest there, Not long after the apparent dem of Project Saucer, Thad a talk in Way ington with Brigasher General Ero Moore, then chief of Air Force I telligence, in the course of which muule four categorical statements U I felt sure he had made many times | » Clinned from The NU YORK™R September 6, 1952 names 64 throurh 62 - ee