The local police had been contacted and they verified the story
and the fact of the burns. I asked the intelligence officer to
contact the scoutmaster and ask if he would submit to a physical
examination immediately. I could imagine the rumors that could start
about the scoutmaster's condition, and I wanted proof. The report
sounded good, so I told the intelligence officer I'd get down to see
him as soon as possible.

I immediately called Colonel Dunn, then chief at ATIC, and gave him
a brief rundown. He agreed that I should go down to Florida as soon
as possible and offered to try to get an Air Force B-25, which would
save time over the airlines.

I told Bob Olsson to borrow a Geiger counter at Wright Field, then
check out a camera. I called my wife and asked her to pack a few
clothes and bring them out to me. Bob got the equipment, ran home and
packed a bag, and in two hours he and I and our two pilots, Captain
Bill Hoey and Captain David Douglas, were on our way to Florida to
investigate one of the weirdest UFO reports that I came up against.

When we arrived, the intelligence officer arranged for the
scoutmaster to come out to the air base. The latter knew we were
coming, so he arrived at the base in a few minutes. He was a very
pleasant chap, in his early thirties, not at all talkative but
apparently willing to co-operate.

While he was giving us a brief personal history, I had the immediate
impression that he was telling the truth. He'd lived in Florida all
of his life. He'd gone to a private military prep school, had some
college, and then had joined the Marines. He told us that he had been
in the Pacific most of the war and repeated some rather hairy stories
of what he'd been through. After the war he'd worked as an auto
mechanic, then gone to Georgia for a while to work in a turpentine
plant. After returning to Florida, he opened a gas station, but some
hard luck had forced him to sell out. He was now working as a clerk
in a hardware store. Some months back a local church had decided to
organize a boy scout troop and he had offered to be the scoutmaster.

On the night before the weekly scout meeting had broken up early. He
said that he had offered to give four of the boys a ride home. He had
let one of the boys out when the conversation turned to a stock car
race that was to take place soon. They talked about the condition of
the track. It had been raining frequently, and they wondered if the
track was f