oke in other papers, the colonel's affiliation with
civil defense wasn't mentioned, and he became merely "a colonel from
Dayton." Dayton was quickly construed by the public to mean Wright-
Patterson AFB and specifically ATIC. Some people in the Pentagon
screamed while others gleefully clapped their hands. The gleeful
handclaps were from those people who wanted the UFO's to be socially
recognized, and they believed that if they couldn't talk their ideas
into being they might be able to force them in with the help of this
type of publicity.

The temporary lull in reporting that Project Blue Book had
experienced in early July proved to be only the calm before the
storm. By mid-July we were getting about twenty reports a day plus
frantic calls from intelligence officers all over the United States
as every Air Force installation in the U.S. was being swamped with
reports. We told the intelligence officers to send in the ones that
sounded the best.

The build-up in UFO reports wasn't limited to the United States--
every day we would receive reports from our air attaches in other
countries. England and France led the field, with the South American
countries running a close third. Needless to say, we didn't
investigate or evaluate foreign reports because we had our hands full
right at home.

Most of us were putting in fourteen hours a day, six days a week. It
wasn't at all uncommon for Lieutenant Andy Flues, Bob Olsson, or
Kerry Rothstien, my investigators, to get their sleep on an airliner
going out or coming back from an investigation. TWA airliners out of
Dayton were more like home than home. But we hadn't seen anything yet.

All the reports that were coming in were good ones, ones with no
answers. Unknowns were running about 40 percent. Rumors persist that
in mid-July 1952 the Air Force was braced for an expected invasion by
flying saucers. Had these rumormongers been at ATIC in mid-July they
would have thought that the invasion was already in full swing. And
they would have thought that one of the beachheads for the invasion
was Patrick AFB, the Air Force's Guided Missile Long-Range Proving
Ground on the east coast of Florida.

On the night of July 18, at ten forty-five, two officers were
standing in front of base operations at Patrick when they noticed a
light at about a 45-degree angle from the horizon and off to the
west. It was an amber color and "quite a bit brighter than a star."
Both officers had heard flying