ore long this placid attitude changed, and
changed drastically. Classified orders came down to investigate _all_
UFO sightings. Get every detail and send it direct to ATIC at Wright
Field. The order carried no explanation as to why the information was
wanted. This lack of an explanation and the fact that the information
was to be sent directly to a high-powered intelligence group within
Air Force Headquarters stirred the imagination of every potential
cloak-and-dagger man in the military intelligence system.
Intelligence people in the field who had previously been free with
opinions now clammed up tight.

The era of confusion was progressing.

Early statements to the press, which shaped the opinion of the
public, didn't reduce the confusion factor. While ATIC was grimly
expending maximum effort in a serious study, "certain high-placed
officials" were officially chuckling at the mention of UFO's.

In July 1947 an International News Service wire story quoted the
public relations officer at Wright Field as saying, "So far we
haven't found anything to confirm that saucers exist. We don't think
they are guided missiles." He went on to say, "As things are now,
they appear to be either a phenomenon or a figment of somebody's
imagination."

A few weeks later a lieutenant colonel who was Assistant to the
Chief of Staff of the Fourth Air Force was widely quoted as saying,
"There is no basis for belief in flying saucers in the Tacoma area
[referring to a UFO sighting in the area of Tacoma, Washington], or
any other area."

The "experts," in their stories of saucer lore, have said that these
brush-offs of the UFO sightings were intentional smoke screens to
cover the facts by adding confusion. This is not true; it was merely
a lack of coordination. But had the Air Force tried to throw up a
screen of confusion, they couldn't have done a better job.

When the lieutenant colonel from the Fourth Air Force made his
widely publicized denunciation of saucer believers he specifically
mentioned a UFO report from the Tacoma, Washington, area.

The report of the investigation of this incident, the Maury Island
Mystery, was one of the most detailed reports of the early UFO era.
The report that we had in our files had been pieced together by Air
Force Intelligence and other agencies because the two intelligence
officers who started the investigation couldn't finish it. They were
dead.

For the Air Force the story started on July 31, 1