PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘What technical details can you give us?’ Bob Jackson asked.

  ‘I’m afraid most of those are still classified,’ the Army press officer replied blandly, ‘but I can tell you that the powerhouse of this particular prototype housed three one-thousand-horse-power Continental J69-T-9 turbojets. It was designed to have a maximum forward speed of three hundred mph and a range of one thousand miles; but when test flown last month, it never did more than hover within ground effect.’

  ‘Is this the only such prototype being developed?’ Tony Scaduto asked.

  ‘It’s not the first,’ the press officer confessed, ‘but almost certainly it’s going to be the last.’

  ‘Why?’ Bob Jackson asked.

  ‘The truth of the matter is that although quite a number of aircraft featuring circular, disc-shaped or annular wing forms have been built and flown over the past few years, the aerodynamics of such shapes have been fully established. The design problems facing us are therefore formidable and, in the view of the majority of our engineers, probably insurmountable.’

  ‘So what’s happening to this project?’ Scaduto asked.

  ‘We’ll be dropping it,’ the press office said. ‘As for this particular prototype, the Avrocar, to prove that all the talk of flying saucers is bullshit – sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I meant nonsense – we’re going to leave it here on display for the benefit of the general public, along with everything else in the Army Transport Museum. We have been interested in the potential of air-cushion machines capable of vertical takeoff and landing – also known as VTOL – to avoid the necessity of lengthy airways. In the event, the most we could come up with was this relatively primitive, so-called flying saucer. As for real flying saucers... well, if you want those, you’ll have to go and buy yourselves tickets to some science-fiction movies, which I’m told are very popular these days. So please rest assured,’ he continued when the laughter of the assembled journalists had died down, ‘that the Department of Defence will soon be formally withdrawing from participation in this interesting, failed project and that no other disc-or-spherical-shaped prototypes are on the agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.’

  ‘Withdrawing from participation with whom?’ Scaduto whispered when the press conference was over and they were making their final, careful inspection of the Avrocar.

  ‘Good question,’ Dwight said.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Thirty-Three Approximately three years after the public unveiling of the Avrocar, which had killed off most public speculation about the possibility of man-made UFOs, Jack Fuller, who had engineered the whole scam, was having a bad morning in his office in CIA Headquarters, Langley Field, Virginia. This was due mainly to the fact that he was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce from his second wife, Lorraine Sandison, and she was trying to drive him mad on the telephone.

  After his disastrous, eighteen-month marriage to Belinda Wolfe, the ravishing brunette daughter of Georgetown aristocrats, Fuller had vowed never to marry again. He didn’t want kids, he didn’t believe in fidelity, and he had a low boredom threshold when it came to sex or romantic adventure. Unfortunately, he also had an eye for sophisticated beauties and an inability to take ‘No’ for an answer. His second wife, Lorraine, another child of wealthy parents, though from Alexandria, Virginia, had resolutely refused to surrender completely to him until he had agreed to tie the knot. As she was stunningly beautiful and an adroit sexual tease, he had finally caved in and convinced himself that this time the marriage would work out.

  Once he had bedded Lorraine, however, his desperate need to possess her waned rapidly. Subsequently, he had refused to give her children, returned almost immediately to the pursuit of other women, and beaten her up once or twice when she refused to submit to his more outrageous sexual demands, which included what he thought was only a modest brand of sado-masochistic frolics. Within three months, Lorraine, a notably cool and, in many ways, calculating beauty, was a sobbing wreck who spent more nights sleeping in her parents’ mansion in McLean, Virginia, than she did in Fuller’s fancy apartment off Dupont Circle in Washington DC. Two months ago, encouraged by her outraged parents, she had applied for divorce on the grounds of adultery and repeated sexual abuse – this after only seven months of marriage. In fact, Fuller had been relieved, wanting out of the marriage, until Lorraine started picking up the telephone to fill his ear with scorn and various legal threats. When Fuller wasn’t listening to her, he was listening to his lawyer, which in no way made him feel any better.

  Fuller was therefore in a bad mood when his secretary called through to say she had a former USAF Captain, Bob Jackson, on the line, wishing to speak to him on behalf of the Aerial Phenomenon Investigations Institute.

  Aware that APII was headed by that troublemaker, Dr Frederick Epstein, that it was now using the meddlesome Dwight Randall as a freelance stringer in Dayton, Ohio, and that it had recently been kicking up a stink about CIA involvement in the suppression of information about UFOs, Fuller was about to tell his secretary to give Jackson the brush-off. But realising that he needed some distraction from Lorraine and her scavenging lawyer, and, also, that he could not resist finding out what Bob Jackson, Dwight Randall’s best friend, wanted with him, Fuller told his secretary to put the call through.

  ‘Mr Fuller?’ ‘Yeah, this is special agent Jack Fuller. Is this a personal call, Mr Jackson, or are you ringing up on behalf of APII?’

  ‘On behalf of APII.’

  ‘APII isn’t popular with this office at the moment,’ Fuller sardonically informed him. ‘All that talk about CIA suppression of UFO information.’

  ‘That’s the impression we get, Mr Fuller.’

  ‘Impressions can be misleading.’

  ‘Actually more than impressions, Mr Fuller. We have a fairly substantial bundle of evidence here to support our contention that the CIA is involved in the suppression of UFO material and the harassment of witnesses.’

  ‘Well, you guys tend to see what you want to see,’ Fuller said blandly, ‘and what you’re reading isn’t always what it seems. Your organisation has us all wrong, but this being a democratic society, I guess that’s your privilege. So what did you call me for?’

  ‘Because we’re not at all sure that this is a democratic society.’

  ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

  ‘We’ve come across some old records indicating that you were the CIA officer in charge of the intelligence team that checked the Socorro UFO crash site with local farmer Marlon Clarke, way back in 1947.’

  ‘No secret in that.’

  ‘According to local newspaper records, Clarke disappeared soon after being interrogated by you and Air Force intelligence about the sighting.’

  ‘If you’re implying that the CIA had something to do with his disappearance, I can only say that’s paranoid nonsense.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to say that, Mr Fuller. I was only going to ask if, since 1947, there’s been any new information on the fate of Mr Clarke?’

  ‘The short answer is “No.” Marlon Clarke disappeared without trace and hasn‘t been seen or heard from since. We, the CIA, know no more about his fate than you do. But I’m sure that’s not what you really phoned me about.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Get straight to the point, Mr Roberts. I’m here to oblige.’

  ‘Are you willing to tell me, either on or off the record, exactly what you found at the Socorro UFO crash site?’

  ‘I’ve told this to the ATIC and I’ve told it to the NICAP and I’ve also told it to your APII investigators a thousand times: what I and the others found at the crash site was the remains of a Rawin weather balloon – no more and no less. As for Marlon Clarke, he was drunk when he saw the so-called UFO flying overhead, drunk when he drove out there to see it close up, and still drunk when we arrived at his ranch to interrogate him. As for his subsequent disappearance, he probably drank himself to death in the desert and then got dragged away by a wild animal. Those things hap
pen to his kind out there. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jackson said. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll come as any surprise to you that the two biggest civilian UFO organisations in the United States are feeling an unexpected financial squeeze due to a dramatic decrease in press publicity about UFOs and a corresponding wane in public interest.’

  ‘So the membership of your UFO organisations is dwindling,’ Fuller said, not attempting to hide his satisfaction.

  ‘Yes,’ Jackson admitted. ‘And it’s our belief that this came about because of a deliberate policy of suppression on the part of the government, through the CIA, which was bothered by our joint call for, and support of, Congressional hearings about the UFO problem.’

  ‘That’s some mouthful,’ Fuller said, ‘so I’m not sure what you mean.’

  But of course he was sure... In July 1960, under pressure from the general public and, in particular, APII and the ATIC, the Senate Preparedness Committee had demanded briefings and résumés from the Air Force on some of the major UFO flaps, including the famous Washington DC and Levelland sightings. At the main briefing on July 15, the congressmen present did not go easy on the Air Force, practically siding with the civilian UFO organisations and insisting that in future the Air Force had to keep the committee informed of all pertinent sightings. Nevertheless, against the protests of Dr J. Allen Hynek, then a consultant to the ATIC’s Project Blue Book, but with the firm support of Fuller, on behalf of the CIA and Major General Luehman, director of intelligence, the call for public hearings was again resisted.

  ‘We weren’t in the least bit bothered by the thought of Congressional hearings,’ Fuller lied, ‘and certainly did nothing to head them off.’

  ‘Well someone did,’ Jackson insisted. ‘Within a few weeks of the committee’s request to be kept updated on all sightings and its recommendation that Project Blue Book be given more funds, it became perfectly clear that information on sightings was not being supplied and that the request for more money had been ignored. It had also become clear that the Air Force, despite the disapproval of the congressmen on the committee, was still insisting that it was doing all that was required regarding UFOs, when in truth it was doing nothing at all.’

  ‘Money recommended by Congressional committees often ends up being sidetracked – usually to other benefactors recommended by those very same committees. It may not be correct, but it’s hardly cause for conspiracy theories. As for the committee not being sent the sighting reports they requested, you’ll have to take that up with Major Friend, the head of Project Blue Book, not with me.’

  ‘There’s a rumour that Friend is in your pocket.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the Capitol thrives on rumours and that’s what most of these stories are. Friend is not in my pocket.’

  ‘Is it true that you and General Luehman, director of intelligence, were responsible for subverting the committee’s proposals?’

  ‘If it was, I certainly wouldn’t admit it, so why bother asking?’

  Jackson actually chuckled at the other end of the phone, before saying, ‘May I continue?’

  ‘Sure,’ Fuller said.

  ‘Why were the Congressional hearings slated for 1962 dropped?’

  ‘Because the Chairman decided that there was no justification for continuing them.’

  ‘But the House Speaker, John McCormack, believed that the UFOs were real. That makes the abrupt turn-around seem pretty odd.’

  Jackson was referring to the fact that House Speaker John McCormack, with the encouragement of the troublesome head of the NICAP, Donald E. Keyhoe, had started talking – too often, too loudly, about holding another Congressional investigation, and finally, in 1961, directed Congressman Overton Brookes of the House Science and Astronautics Committee to look into the matter. Brooks did so by appointing Joseph Karth, then head of the Subcommittee on Space Problems and Life Sciences, to hold hearings on UFOs. When news of the proposed hearings was released, Keyhoe promised that NICAP would offer proof of the Air Force’s incompetence in dealing with UFO reports. He would also, he threatened, prove conclusively that the Air Force had embarked on a course of ‘contradictory, misleading and untrue statements’ in order to suppress information about, and kill public interest in, UFO reports.

  Neither Fuller nor Major General Luehman, director of intelligence, was thrilled at this prospect.

  ‘McCormack may have believed that UFOs were real objects,’ Fuller said, ‘but the other members of the committee weren’t so impressed when the man sent to gather evidence to be used against the Air Force came back to say he now supported it.’

  ‘You mean Richard P. Hines.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We believe the CIA encouraged those statements.’

  ‘Simply not true,’ Fuller lied again.

  In fact, though the hearings were not scheduled until 1962, in the middle of 1961, while the Office of Legislative Liaison was directing its attention to heading off the hearings, House Science and Astronautics Committee staff member Richard P. Hines visited the ATIC, was ‘thoroughly briefed’ by the Project Blue Book head, Major Friend, and returned to inform his fellow committee members that he was ‘favourably impressed’ with the Air Force’s efforts. Given this response, it was not surprising that a week after Hines’ return to Washington DC, committee chairman Overton Brooks announced that the Congressional hearings were to be dropped and not likely to be an issue in the near future. The following week, Congressman Joseph Karth, slated to head the aborted hearings, publicly attacked Donald Keyhoe and, by implication, the other major UFO groups, including Dr Frederick Epstein’s APII, for trying to ‘belittle, defame and ridicule’ the Air Force. He also accused Keyhoe of being guilty of ‘malicious intent towards a great branch of the military.’

  While the verbal slaughter of Keyhoe was still continuing, Chairman Overton Brooks died and the new Chairman, Congressman George P. Miller of California, confirmed that there would be no hearings on the UFO phenomenon.

  ‘Listen,’ Fuller said. ‘Neither I personally, nor the CIA generally, can be held responsible for the fact that a Congressman with an open mind goes to collect evidence that could be used against the Air Force and instead comes back convinced that the Air Force is in the right. That just proved how wrong you and the other conspiracy theorists were.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jackson responded quietly. ‘But we now have strong reason to believe that Hines also informed his fellow committee members that Congressional interest in the UFO programme could be blamed on pressure from – I quote – “undisclosed sources on House Speaker John McCormack”.’

  ‘Where did you get that statement?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’

  Now it was Fuller’s turn to chuckle, even knowing that Jackson’s story was entirely accurate. ‘If you don’t reveal your source I can’t verify the statement. What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?’

  ‘We also have reason to believe that Hines, as well as dropping McCormack in the shit, dropped Donald Keyhoe in it by suggesting that he was the one who placed the so-called undisclosed pressure on McCormack. Since Hines and people like yourself viewed Keyhoe as the most vocal of the advocates for Congressional hearings – therefore the man most likely to break the wall of silence regarding UFOs – this would have been a good way of dirtying him with the committee, getting the hearings dropped, and discrediting his civilian UFO group and others like it.’

  ‘More paranoid nonsense.’

  Yet as Fuller knew, since he had been the one to plan it, that’s exactly what happened. Once the Congressional hearings were dropped and Keyhoe ridiculed, press interest in UFOs shrank dramatically and public awareness followed suit. Within a year of Brook’s death and the final cancelling of the Congressional hearings, all the major civilian UFO organisations, including APII and NICAP, were suffering from a severe lack of funds and, even more damaging, from a lack of credibility. To add insult to injury, it was happening during a year, 1962, when sightings were
three times higher than they had been in the former ‘peak’ years of 1947-1951. From the point of view of APII and NICAP, it couldn’t have been worse. From Fuller’s point of view, on the other hand, it couldn’t have been better.

  ‘I don’t think it’s nonsense,’ Jackson said, running up his big phone bill. ‘I think that you and your friends were behind Hines all the way, engineered the cancellation of the Congressional hearings, went out to get Donald Keyhoe and thus discredit the civilian UFO organisations; and even now, after seriously diminishing public interest in UFOs, are trying to get rid of Project Blue Book altogether.’

  ‘Excuse the language, my friend, but that’s bullshit. The CIA has no interest in UFOs, one way or the other. Though speaking personally at this moment, I think I can speak for the CIA when I say that very few folk here at Langley Field believe that UFOs exist.’

  Which was another blatant lie. The truth was that right now, under pressure from the CIA, the ATIC was trying to transfer its UFO programme elsewhere and, hopefully, out of the Air Force altogether, to somewhere less visible. Unfortunately, neither NASA nor the National Science Foundation would touch it, which was giving Fuller a headache. Luckily, it had at least been made a part of the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of the Air Force Systems Command, where it was languishing without the resources once insisted upon by the Congressional committee.

  ‘All I can say,’ Jackson continued doggedly, ‘is that between the harassment of individuals and the suppression of civilian UFO organisations, the US government has managed to practically bury the UFO question.’