of the headlights. As soon as he'd told his story, they all went back
into the woods, picking their way around the palmetto thicket. The
first thing they noticed was the flashlight, still burning, in a
clump of grass. Next to it was a place where the grass was flattened
down, as if a person had been lying there. They looked around for the
extra light that the scoutmaster had been carrying, but it was gone.
Later searches for this missing flashlight were equally fruitless.
They marked the spot where the crushed grass was located and left.
The constable took the boy scouts home and the scoutmaster followed
the deputy to the sheriff's office. On the way to town the
scoutmaster said he first noticed that his arms and face burned. When
he arrived at the sheriff's office, he found that his arms, face, and
cap _were_ burned. The deputy called the Air Force.

There were six people listening to his story. Bob Olsson, the two
pilots, the intelligence officer, his sergeant, and I. We each had
previously agreed to pick one insignificant detail from the story and
then re-question the scoutmaster when he had finished. Our theory was
that if he had made up the story he would either repeat the details
perfectly or not remember what he'd said. I'd used this many times
before, and it was a good indicator of a lie. He passed the test with
flying colors. His story sounded good to all of us.

We talked for about another hour, discussing the event and his
background. He kept asking, "What did I see?"--evidently thinking
that I knew. He said that the newspapers were after him, since the
sheriff's office had inadvertently leaked the story, but that he had
been stalling them off pending our arrival. I told him it was Air
Force policy to allow people to say anything they wanted to about a
UFO sighting. We had never muzzled anyone; it was his choice. With
that, we thanked him, arranged to pick up the cap and machete to take
back to Dayton, and sent him home in a staff car.

By this time it was getting late, but I wanted to talk to the flight
surgeon who had examined the man that morning. The intelligence
officer found him at the hospital and he said he would be right over.
His report was very thorough. The only thing he could find out of the
ordinary were minor burns on his arms and the back of his hands.
There were also indications that the inside of his nostrils might be
burned. The degree of burn could be compared to a light sunburn. The
ha