a few examples of what the
report called "minor incidents" to justify his stand.

Finally the pilot who had been flying with the "accused" man was
called in. He said that he had been monitoring the tactical radio
channel but that he hadn't heard any calls from his buddy's low-
flying F-86. The squadron commander triumphantly jumped on this
point, but the accused pilot tended to refute it by admitting he was
so jumpy that he might not have been on the right channel. But when
he was asked if he had checked or changed channels after he had lost
the object and before he had finally contacted the other F-86, he
couldn't remember.

So ended the pilot's story and his interrogation.

The intelligence officer wrote up his report of a UFO sighting, but
at the last minute, just before sending it, he was told to hold it
back. He was a little unhappy about this turn of events, so he went
in to see why the group commander had decided to delay sending the
report to Project Blue Book.

They talked over the possible reactions to the report. If it went
out it would cause a lot of excitement, maybe unnecessarily. Yet, if
the pilot actually had seen what he claimed, it was vitally important
to get the report in to ATIC immediately. The group commander said
that he would made his decision after a talk with his executive
officer. They decided not to send the report and ordered it destroyed.

When I finished reading, the intelligence officer's first comment
was, "What do you think?"

Since the evaluation of the report seemed to hinge upon conflicts
between personalities I didn't know, I could venture no opinion,
except that the incident made up the most fascinating UFO report I'd
ever seen. So I batted the intelligence officer's question back to him.

"I know the people involved," he replied, "and I don't think the
pilot was nuts. I can't give you the report, because Colonel ------
told me to destroy it. But I did think you should know about it."
Later he burned the report.

The problems involved in this report are typical. There are certain
definite facts that can be gleaned from it; the pilot did see
something and he did shoot at something, but no matter how thoroughly
you investigate the incident that something can never be positively
identified. It might have been a hallucination or it might have been
some vehicle from outer space; no one will ever know. It was a UFO.

The UFO story started soon after June 24, 1947, when newsp