ucer grapevine, which exists at every major scientific
laboratory in the country.

By late summer of 1950 they were in business. For the next three
months the scientist and his group kept their radiation equipment
operating twenty-four hours a day, but the tapes showed nothing
except the usual background activity. The saucer grapevine reported
sightings in the general area of the tests, but none close to the
instrumented mountaintop.

The trip to the instrument shack, which had to be made every two
days to change tapes, began to get tiresome for the "rock hounds,"
and there was some talk of discontinuing the watch.

But persistence paid off. Early in December, about ten o'clock in
the morning, the grapevine reported sightings of a silvery, circular-
shaped object near the instrument shack. The UFO was seen by several
people.

When the "rock hounds" checked the recording tapes in the shack they
found that several of the Geiger tubes had been triggered at
10:17A.M. The registered radiation increase was about 100 times
greater than the normal background activity.

Three more times during the next two months the "mineral club's"
equipment recorded abnormal radiation on occasions when the grapevine
reported visual sightings of UFO's. One of the visual sightings was
substantiated by radar.

After these incidents the "mineral club" kept its instruments in
operation until June 1951, but nothing more was recorded. And,
curiously enough, during this period while the radiation level
remained normal, the visual sightings in the area dropped off too.
The "mineral club" decided to concentrate on determining the
significance of the data they had obtained.

Accordingly, the scientist and the group made a detailed study of
their mountaintop findings. They had friends working on many research
projects throughout the United States and managed to visit and confer
with them while on business trips. They investigated the possibility
of unusual sunspot activity, but sunspots had been normal during the
brief periods of high radiation. To clinch the elimination of
sunspots as a cause, their record tapes showed no burst of radiation
when sunspot activity had been abnormal.

The "rock hounds" checked every possible research project that might
have produced some stray radiation for their instruments to pick up.
They found nothing. They checked and rechecked their instruments, but
could find no factor that might have induced false readin