space fancy without a
good reason. Some of the readers saw a clue in the author's comments
that the hierarchy of the Air Force was now taking a serious look at
UFO reports. "Did the Air Force prompt _Life_ to write the article?"
was the question that many people asked themselves.

When I arrived at Dayton, newspapermen were beating down the door.
The official answer to the _Life_ article was released through the
Office of Public Information in the Pentagon: "The article is
factual, but _Life's_ conclusions are their own." In answer to any
questions about the article's being Air Force-inspired, my weasel-
worded answer was that we had furnished _Life_ with some raw data on
specific sightings.

My answer was purposely weasel-worded because I knew that the Air
Force had unofficially inspired the _Life_ article. The "maybe
they're interplanetary" with the "maybe" bordering on "they are" was
the personal opinion of several very high-ranking officers in the
Pentagon--so high that their personal opinion was almost policy. I
knew the men and I knew that one of them, a general, had passed his
opinions on to Bob Ginna.

Oddly enough, the _Life_ article did not cause a flood of reports.
The day after the article appeared we got nine sightings, which was
unusual, but the next day they dropped off again.

The number of reports did take a sharp rise a few days later,
however. The cause was the distribution of an order that completed
the transformation of the UFO from a bastard son to the family heir.
The piece of paper that made Project Blue Book legitimate was Air
Force Letter 200-5, Subject: Unidentified Flying Objects. The letter,
which was duly signed and sealed by the Secretary of the Air Force,
in essence stated that UFO's were not a joke, that the Air Force was
making a serious study of the problem, and that Project Blue Book was
responsible for the study. The letter stated that the commander of
every Air Force installation was responsible for forwarding all UFO
reports to ATIC by wire, with a copy to the Pentagon. Then a more
detailed report would be sent by airmail. Most important of all, it
gave Project Blue Book the authority to directly contact any Air
Force unit in the United States without going through any chain of
command. This was almost unheard of in the Air Force and gave our
project a lot of prestige.

The new reporting procedures established by the Air Force letter
greatly aided our investigation because