"Explains it perfectly. You know what Mantell was chasing? The planet Venus!"
"That"s the Post"s answer?" I said, incredulously.
"It"s what the Air Force contract astronomer told Shallett. I"ve checked with two astronomers here. They say that even when Venus is at full magnitude you can barely see it in the daytime even when you"re looking for it. It was only half magnitude that day, so it was practically invisible."
"How"d the Air Force expect anybody to believe that answer?" I said.
Purdy shrugged. "They deny it was Venus in this report. But that"s what they told Shallett--that all those Air Force officers, the pilots, the Kentucky state police, and several hundred people at Madisonville mistook Venus for a metallic disk several hundred feet in diameter."
"It"s a wonder Shallett believed it."
"I don"t think he did. He says if it wasn"t Venus, it must have been a balloon."
"What"s the Air Force answer?" I asked Purdy.
"Look in the report. They say whatever Mantell chased--they call it a "mysterious object"--is still unidentified."
I glanced through the case report, on page five. It quoted Mantell"s radio report that the thing was metallic and tremendous in size.
Linked with the death of Mantell was the Lockbourne, Ohio, report, which tied in with what Jack Daly had told me, over a year before. I read the report:
"On the same day, about two hours later, a sky phenomenon was observed by several watchers over Lockbourne Air Force Base, Columbus, Ohio. It was described as "round or oval, larger than a C-47, and traveling in level
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flight faster than 500 miles per hour." The object was followed from the Lockbourne observation tower for more than 20 minutes. Observers said it glowed from white to amber, leaving an amber exhaust trail five times its own length. It made motions like an elevator and at one time appeared to touch the ground. No sound was heard. Finally, the object faded and lowered toward the horizon."
Purdy buzzed for his secretary, and she brought me a copy of the first Post article.
"You can get a copy of this Air Force report in Washington," Purdy told me. "This is the only one I have. But you"ll find the same answer for most of the important cases--the sightings at Muroc Air Base, the airline pilots" reports, the disks Kenneth Arnold saw--they"re all unidentified."
"I remember the Arnold case. That was the first sighting."
"You"ve got contacts in Washington," Purdy went on. "Start at the Pentagon first. They know we"re working on it. Sam Boal, the first man on this job, was down there for a day or two."
"What did he find out?"
"Symington told him the saucers were bunk. Secretary Johnson admitted they had some pictures--we"d heard about a secret photograph taken at Harmon Field, Newfoundland. The tip said this saucer scared h.e.l.l out of some pilots and Air Force men up there.
"A major took Boal to some Air Force colonel and Boal asked to see the pictures. The colonel said they didn"t have any. He turned red when the major said Symington had told Boal about the pictures."
"Did Boal get to see them?" I said.
"No," grunted Purdy, "and I"ll bet twenty bucks you won"t, either. But try, anyway. And check on a rumor that they"ve tracked some disks with radar. One case was supposed to be at an Air Force base in j.a.pan."
As I was leaving, Purdy gave me a summary of sighting reports.
"Some of these were published, some we dug up ourselves," he said. "We got some confidential stuff from
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airline pilots. It"s pretty obvious the Air Force has tried to keep them quiet."
"All right," I said. "I"ll get started. Maybe things aren"t sewed up so tightly, now this report is out."
"We"ve found out some things about Project "Saucer," said Purdy.
"Whether it"s a cover-up or a real investigation, there"s a lot of hush-hush business to it. They"ve got astronomers and astrophysicists working for them, also rocket expects, technical a.n.a.lysts, and Air Force Special Intelligence. We"ve been told they can call on any government agency for help--and I know they"re using the F.B.I."
It was building up bigger than I had thought.
"If national security is involved," I told Purdy, "they can shut us up in a hurry."
"If they tell me so, O.K.," said Purdy. He added grimly, "But I think they"re making a bad mistake. They probably think they"re doing what"s right. But the truth might come out the wrong way."
"It is possible," I thought, "that the saucers belong to Russia."
"If it turns out to be a Soviet missile, count me out," I said. "We"d have the Pentagon and the F.B.I. on our necks."
"All right, if that"s the answer." He chuckled. "But you may be in for a jolt."
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CHAPTER III
JUST THE idea of gigantic flying disks was incredible enough. It was almost as hard to believe that such missiles could have been developed without something leaking out. Yet we had produced the A-bomb in comparative secrecy, and I knew we were working on long-range guided missiles. There was already a plan for a three-thousand-mile test range. Our supersonic planes had hit around two thousand miles an hour. Our two-stage rockets had gone over two hundred miles high, according to reports. If an atomic engine had been secretly developed, it could explain the speed and range of the saucers.
But I kept coming back to Mantell"s death and the Air Force orders for pilots to chase the saucers. If the disks were American missiles, that didn"t jibe.
When I reached the lobby, I found it was ten after four. I caught a taxi and made the Congressional Limited with just one minute to spare.
In the club car, I settled down to look at Purdy"s summary.
Skipping through the pages, I saw several familiar cases. Here and there, Purdy had scrawled brief comments or suggestions. Beside the Eastern Airline report of a double-decked saucer, he had written:
"Check rumor same type seen over Holland about this date. Also, similar Philippine Islands report--date unknown."
I went back to the beginning. The first case listed was that of Kenneth Arnold, a Boise businessman, who had set off the saucer scare.
Arnold was flying his private plane from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington, when he saw a bright flash on his wing.
Looking toward Mount Rainier, he saw nine gleaming disks outlined against the snow, each one about the size of a C-54.
"They flew close to the mountaintops, in a diagonal chainlike line,"
he said later. "It was as if they were linked together."
The disks appeared to be twenty to twenty-five miles
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away, he said, and moving at fantastic speed. Arnold"s estimate was twelve hundred miles an hour.