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Page ID (PID)
MISC-AFOSR4-153
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Other Official Microfilm
Page 153 of 619
Roll Description
AFOSR NICAP/CSI Roll 4
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N/A
MISC-AFOSR4-151
MISC-AFOSR4-152
MISC-AFOSR4-153
MISC-AFOSR4-154
MISC-AFOSR4-155
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As I left the anteroom with Colonel John Hutchins, the admiral''s press aide, an officer with a mass of campaign rib- I''bons came down the hall. I recognized him as a captain I had known for years.. . : Colonel Hutchins was leading me to his office, just across |'' from Radford''s. "Before Admiral Radford signs this," he said, "every word must be checked by all the armed forces and the National Security Council, And since the President also is going to make a statement on the subject, it may have to be checked , with the White House." The Navy captain had stopped. He came over to,me as I Hutchins went intp his office. "Can you call me when you''re through here?" he said abruptly. , "I''ll be out jn a minute," I told him, puzzled at his tone, When I came back/he got me.to one side. "I should have known you''d be in on it," he said in an | undertone; ...,:'' ; , I looked at him blankly: "I never-believed, it,", he went on. "You know that. But after what happened at Pearl Harbor last month . ~ .". He A stunned look came into his face."" "But that colonel said--"/'' "He meant a defense article I''m doing for Radford''s by- line;" - "Good God, I thought they''d decided to reveal" he broke off. "Forget what I said. It was all just a crazy rumor." "Wait. This thing at Pearl! What happened?" _"." He shook his head wordlessly and hurried on down the -^corridor. For a minute I stood there, weighing what, he had I said. The Pearl Harbor mystery, whatever it''was, must have been-dramatic. And if a space base were really circling the earth,-it was tremendously important. - , "You wereright. Something queer happened on the night I I of August 6vl''Here''s the story they gave out! Some^Navy jet I pilot suddenly went nuts while on patrol. He buzzed Wai- Ikiki Beach. Then he cut in his mike and started yelling^at 1 the Naval Air Station tower. When he landed, they grounded [him and hushed it up." .) "Who told you that?" I asked. ; "A DC-6 captain on the Honolulu run. That''s what he I was told when he started nosing around. We both agreed it j sounded fishy." "If a jet had buzzed Waikiki Beach," I said, "it could [never have been kept secret. The police and city officials would have screamedand we''d have seen the story in head- | lines here in the States." Stone called the waiter and ordered more coffee. "What do you think they''re hiding?" he said. ; I told him the original story about the Navy pilot who- | claimed to have seen some kind of creature. Stone swore under his breath. "This thing gets worse and I worse," he said. "It''s like a nightmare." I had almost finished the reports when I was startled by an air-mail letter from Honolulu. It was signed by a well-known businessman, a licensed, pilot with Navy connections, and contained the following statements: '' _, l^i 3 "On August 6j between 5 p.m. and midnight, at least 75'' lighted objects, some hovering, some moving swiftly, were observed in .the .Hawaiian area, especially near ^asbers.Pftijat . , [Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor],.Many pE;fte^^I]^.^i^;y seen by the control toiver.^ersvby pilots.The ofefrets ip- "peared as blips oiTthc rada''r.scopes. At about 9 -p.m.''.a Navy,. pilot on patrol picked up the: blip of a JjfO approaching head on at an alarming rate of speed. Seconds later, a glowing object made three close passes at his p''ane. The pilot landed immediately at Barbers Point. . _ "After this report, the Captain and F.xecutive Officers were summoned, emergency patrols were ordered alter midnight. At 11 minutes''past two, the._pilbt of a TV-1 jet sighted''a strange, glowing object streaking urj from directly behind. When approximately 100 feet astern, the UFO shot to star- board and paced the TV-1 lor four.seconds. It then acceler-:. ated swiftly to an estimated speed of 1000 mphand disap- peared. . . '' "According to ground_crew ahd''oflicer, the pilot was very pale and frightened when he landed. He kept saying, "I actu~ ally saw A/m I read the letter again carefully. '''' Barbers Point and August fi-^tliiFtied in with the informa- tion given me by Caperton and the Navy captain. There might be one simple.''pxplana''tioh; aM could have;heard''the same unfounded rumor. But Caperton and. the captain were, not easily misled. And this letter had the ring of an official .report. '' . .''. But what, exactly, had the Navy pilot seen? What kind of", being-:or creature? It sounded Jike one of the "monster" stories beginning to circulate, yet there couhi be another ex- planation. . . ., ''" ; ; I had always been wary of the ..space\ni.an-nibnster tales. Two lfad popped up in 1952 with-irigjitefliiig details. In one - case,-after a saucer was supposed to have landed on a West Virginia hilltop, witnesses claimed to have seen a gruesome creature nine feet tall. The witnesses appeared to be sincere; , they seemed to believe they had actually seen the monster., . , Several investigators who checked at the scene also be- lieved it Was possible. But I had always kept it on my "doubt- fui"Hst. .''. '' ''.'';;: -'' ; In the second case, another night encounter, a West Palm ''. Beach scoutmaster claimed to have seen a saucer hovering just over his-hea''d. A fearful creature, he said, had appeared in the control,section, releasing a paralyzing ray. Captain Edward Ruppelt, after investigating this person- ally, had advised me through Albert Chop to ignore the story. "Ed will give the reasons sometime," Chop told me. "I''m positive there''s nothing to it." But this Pearl Harbor story,did not appear to be a hoax. Next day I met Frank Edwards and told him the Pearl Harbor story. He didn''t laugh it off, as I''d half expected him to do. .
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