ld be processed through
normal intelligence channels along with other intelligence reports.

To show good faith ATIC requested permission to issue a new Air
Force-wide bulletin which was duly mimeographed and disseminated. In
essence it said that Air Force Headquarters had directed ATIC to
continue to collect and evaluate reports of unidentified flying
objects. It went on to explain that most UFO reports were trash. It
pointed out the findings of the Grudge Report in such strong language
that by the time the recipient of the bulletin had finished reading
it, he would be ashamed to send in a report. To cinch the deal the
bulletins must have been disseminated only to troops in Outer
Mongolia because I never found anyone in the field who had ever
received a copy.

As the Air Force UFO-investigating activity dropped to nil, the
press activity skyrocketed to a new peak. A dozen people took off to
dig up their own UFO stories and to draw their own conclusions.

After a quiet January, _True_ again clobbered the reading public.
This time it was a story in the March 1950 issue and it was entitled,
"How Scientists Tracked Flying Saucers." It was written by none other
than the man who was at that time in charge of a team of Navy
scientists at the super hush-hush guided missile test and development
area, White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. He was Commander R. B.
McLaughlin, an Annapolis graduate and a Regular Navy officer. His
story had been cleared by the military and was in absolute, 180-
degree, direct contradiction to every press release that had been
made by the military in the past two years. Not only did the
commander believe that he had proved that UFO's were real but that he
knew what they were. "I am convinced," he wrote in the _True_
article, "that it," referring to a UFO he had seen at White Sands,
"was a flying saucer, and further, that these disks are spaceships
from another planet, operated by animate, intelligent beings."

On several occasions during 1948 and 1949, McLaughlin or his crew at
the White Sands Proving Ground had made good UFO sightings. The best
one was made on April 24, 1949, when the commander's crew of
engineers, scientists, and technicians were getting ready to launch
one of the huge 100-foot-diameter skyhook balloons. It was 10:30A.M.
on an absolutely clear Sunday morning. Prior to the launching, the
crew had sent up a small weather balloon to check the winds at lower
levels. One man was w