tain
Mantell was killed chasing the UFO, and he had spent hours talking to
the crew of the DC-3 that was buzzed near Montgomery, Alabama, by a
"cigar-shaped UFO that spouted blue flame." In essence, he knew UFO
history from _A_ _to_ _Z_ because he had "been there."

I think that it was this controversial thinking that first aroused
my interest in the subject of UFO's and led me to try to sound out a
few more people.

The one thing that stood out to me, being unindoctrinated in the
ways of UFO lore, was the schizophrenic approach so many people at
ATIC took. On the surface they sided with the belly-laughers on any
saucer issue, but if you were alone with them and started to ridicule
the subject, they defended it or at least took an active interest. I
learned this one day after I'd been at ATIC about a month.

A belated UFO report had come in from Africa. One of my friends was
reading it, so I asked him if I could take a look at it when he had
finished. In a few minutes he handed it to me.

When I finished with the report I tossed it back on my friend's
desk, with some comment about the whole world's being nuts. I got a
reaction I didn't expect; he wasn't so sure the whole world was nuts--
maybe the nuts were at ATIC. "What's the deal?" I asked him. "Have
they really thoroughly checked out every report and found that
there's nothing to any of them?"

He told me that he didn't think so, he'd been at ATIC a long time.
He hadn't ever worked on the UFO project, but he had seen many of
their reports and knew what they were doing. He just plain didn't buy
a lot of their explanations. "And I'm not the only one who thinks
this," he added.

"Then why all of the big show of power against the UFO reports?" I
remember asking him.

"The powers-that-be are anti-flying saucer," he answered about half
bitterly, "and to stay in favor it behooves one to follow suit."

As of February 1951 this was the UFO project.

The words "flying saucer" didn't come up again for a month or two.
I'd forgotten all about the two words and was deeply engrossed in
making an analysis of the performance of the Mig-15. The Mig had just
begun to show up in Korea, and finding out more about it was a hot
project.

Then the words "flying saucer" drifted across the room once more.
But this time instead of belly laughter there was a note of hysteria.

It seems that a writer from _Life_ magazine was doing some research
on UFO's and rumor had it that _Lif