s office with the
preliminary report on the sightings. I found Colonel Bower, we went
up to Major Fournet's office and listened to the intelligence
officer's briefing.

The officer started by telling us about the location of the radars
involved in the incident. Washington National Airport, which is
located about three miles south of the heart of the city, had two
radars. One was a long-range radar in the Air Route Traffic Control
section. This radar had 100-mile range and was used to control all
air traffic approaching Washington. It was known as the ARTC radar.
The control tower at National Airport had a shorter-range radar that
it used to control aircraft in the immediate vicinity of the airport.
Bolling AFB, he said, was located just east of National Airport,
across the Potomac River. Ten miles farther east, in almost a direct
line with National and Bolling, was Andrews AFB. It also had a short-
range radar. All of these airfields were linked together by an
intercom system.

Then the intelligence officer went on to tell about the sighting.

When a new shift took over at the ARTC radar room at National
Airport, the air traffic was light so only one man was watching the
radarscope. The senior traffic controller and the six other traffic
controllers on the shift were out of the room at eleven-forty, when
the man watching the radarscope noticed a group of seven targets
appear. From their position on the scope he knew that they were just
east and a little south of Andrews AFB. In a way the targets looked
like a formation of slow airplanes, but no formations were due in the
area. As he watched, the targets loafed along at 100 to 130 miles an
hour; then in an apparent sudden burst of speed two of them streaked
out of radar range. These were no airplanes, the man thought, so he
let out a yell for the senior controller. The senior controller took
one look at the scope and called in two more of the men. They all
agreed that these were no airplanes. The targets could be caused by a
malfunction in the radar, they thought, so a technician was called in
--the set was in perfect working order.

The senior controller then called the control tower at National
Airport; they reported that they also had unidentified targets on
their scopes, so did Andrews. And both of the other radars reported
the same slow speeds followed by a sudden burst of speed. One target
was clocked at 7,000 miles an hour. By now the targets had moved into