hat a certain top scientist sit on a panel to
review our material he would do it.

In late November 1952 the preliminary review panel met at ATIC for
three days.

When the meeting ended, the group unanimously recommended that a
"higher court" be formed to review the case of the UFO. In an hour
their recommendation was accepted by higher Air Force authorities,
and the men proceeded to recommend the members for our proposed
panel. They picked six men who had reputations as being both
practical and theoretical scientists and who were known to have no
biased opinions regarding the UFO's.

The meeting of the panel, which would be held in Washington, was
tentatively scheduled for late December or early January--depending
upon when all of the scientists who had been asked to attend would be
free. At Project Blue Book activity went into high gear as we made
preparations for the meeting. But before we were very far along our
preparations were temporarily sidetracked--I got a lead on the facts
behind a rumor. Normally we didn't pay attention to rumors, but this
one was in a different class.

Ever since the Air Force had become interested in UFO reports, the
comment of those who had been requested to look them over and give a
professional opinion was that we lacked the type of data "you could
get your teeth into." In even our best reports we had to rely upon
what someone had seen. I'd been told many times that if we had even
one piece of information that was substantiated by some kind of
recorded proof--a set of cinetheodolite movies of a UFO, a spectrum
photograph, or any other kind of instrumented data that one could sit
down and study--we would have no difficulty getting almost any
scientist in the world interested in actively helping us find the
answer to the UFO riddle.

The rumor that caused me to temporarily halt our preparations for
the high-level conference involved data that we might be able to get
our teeth into.

This is the way it went.

In the fall of 1949, at some unspecified place in the United States,
a group of scientists had set up equipment to measure background
radiation, the small amount of harmless radiation that is always
present in our atmosphere. This natural radiation varies to a certain
degree, but will never increase by any appreciable amount unless
there is a good reason.

According to the rumor, two of the scientists at the unnamed place
were watching the equipment one day when, for no ap