I was in the process of completing the intelligence summary that would answer the BNE request. What, if anything, did we know about these spacemen, if they even existed? Why were they here? Were they hostile?
Communistic? I worked diligently away in my dingy office at 2430 E Street, the headquarters of the CIG.
My official employer was still the OSS. The military was battling the President over the establishment of the CIA, and the National Security Act was at that time under debate in Congress.
The best friend of the Central Intelligence idea in those days was General Hoyt Vandenberg, soon to become commanding general of the United States Air Force. But he wanted the CIA on his own terms, as a military toy, not as an independent civilian agency.
An old Socialist and gentleman named Norman Thomas once said, "Where the secrets start, the republic stops." We were ignorant and proud men and we did not believe that. Had he known what he was helping to create, Vandenberg would never have done it. He was a great man, and I love him still.
The Central Intelligence Group was populated from three or four different directions. OSS people. FBI people.
Military intelligence people. A prescription for chaos, but it worked fairly well. We were united in our desire to turn back communism. Well, perhaps a few of us were a little more cynical—but for the most part, we were united.
Flying disks were the merest diversion, and my intelligence estimate was expected to be the work of an afternoon. The disks had started appearing in numbers only in June, and nobody viewed the matter very seriously.
During the war a little work on the question had been done by the Army Air Force. So we already had a dossier of unsolved mysteries and unusual phenomena, collected on an ad hoc basis when Army Air Force Intelligence was assessing the "foo-fighter" phenomenon toward the end of the war. We had concluded in 1946 that the "foo-fighters" were some sort of unknown phenomenon "possibly under intelligent control."
They represented a form of chaos, the intrusion of a powerful and provocative unknown into human affairs. I will not lie about it: The AAF was telling us that there was something going on, but they had no idea what to make of it.
I had worked through the July Fourth holiday, which I viewed as a minor sort of a tragedy.
I would have enjoyed spending my Fourth banging around the Snake Pit at the Mayflower Hotel looking for unescorted chorines, or crawling the Statler-Carlton circuit in search of a party.
Since the war I'd been uncomfortable with anything but the most casual relationships. I had nightmares about a French operative named Sophie, and about the North African I also lost, Jamshid, who was little more than a child. Often I would wake up in tears, but be unable to remember which of them had broken my sleep.
I disliked myself pretty thoroughly, because I thought I had been a less than brilliant spymaster, and I had wasted their lives.
I assumed that Admiral Hillenkoetter, who had just replaced Vandenberg as CIG director, realized these things about me. He knew that I felt useless on the French desk even though French politics was what I knew best.
As I worked on my intelligence estimate I found a peculiar pattern hidden in the old reports, and I did not like that pattern at all. If I was right about it, then the disks were far more dangerous than we had ever imagined.
So much for a few days' lark: the facts began to bother me.
What the hell was going on? Were they Russian, or some sort of Nazi or Jap secret weapon hidden until now?
They certainly appeared to be damned dangerous.
As the nights wore on, my olive-drab gooseneck lump would attract more than its share of June bugs, moths and mosquitoes, until I would be sitting there at midnight in a cloud of darting insects and billowing cigarette smoke.
It was immediately clear that there would be no purpose served in repeating the assessment that the Army Air Force's intelligence unit had already provided about the "foo-fighters." We needed to go deeper than to simply say that they might be under intelligent control.
If my suspicions were even directionally correct, we had to find out what was going on and find out fast, because we were at war. We were being invaded.
My method of gathering information was much less simple and straightforward than what the AAF had done, which was to view gun-camera photography of "foo-fighters" and interview pilots who had seen them.
I was looking for possible earlier instances of contact that might tell us more about the motives and intentions of our strangers.
1947: We were the victors. We had telephones and radar and DC-4's, with DC-6's just beginning to appear.
We had Good Humor bars and weather balloons. We had captured German V-2 rockets. We had Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. We had the atomic bomb, and there were bigger bombs on the way.
We were lost in the dark and didn't know it.
The world went on, swathed in that beauty you can never quite touch, the beauty of a radio's voice drifting through the evening, of a woman waiting in a bed, the smell of bourbon at three A.M., of swimming in a dark pool, of watching children sleep. . . .
But there was also something else. There was that field near the tiny hamlet of Maricopa, New Mexico, and what was in that field.
It was there that the others waited. And not for some abstraction like mankind or the nation. They waited for each one of us individually—for me, for you, and for each trembling child.
In time each of us, every one, will face them.
In due time.
July 8, 1947
National Board of Estimate INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE ON FLYING DISK MOTIVES
Prepared by Office of Research and Analysis, Central Intelligence Group Copy 1
of 2
Purpose
The purpose of this estimate is to assess the motives of possible nonhuman beings piloting so-called "flying disks ."
Background
From June 1947 there has been a dramatic increase in the sighting of "flying disks" in the United States, primarily in the Western states. On 24 June Mr.
Kenneth Arnold, a fire-appliance salesman, took off from Chehalis Airport in Washington State to assist in the search for a Marine Air Transport C-46 that had disappeared in the Cascade Mountains. Mr. Arnold observed nine disk-shaped objects "skipping" through the air at a relatively high velocity. Over subsequent weeks there have been a large number of similar sightings, the best documented of which took place on July 4 . A United Airlines DC-3
passenger-type aircraft was passed by nine disks while flying over Idaho on a flight to Seattle, Washington. Both pilots and nineteen passengers observed the disks, which were described as being larger than the aircraft.
These and other sightings may possibly be related to the sightings that have been reported consistently since 1946 by B-29 crew on transarctic missions.
Photographs have been made, usually with gun cameras or ground reconnaissance cameras that suggest an intention on the part of the pilots of the devices to allow observation and/or photography to take place. Other objects are weather balloons distorted by a combination of wind and pressure effects at high altitude, flocks of birds reflecting the sun from their wings while flying in close formation, and clouds smoothed by wind.
Because of the substantial number of confirmed sightings and photographs, this estimate of the possible intentions of the craft occupants has been prepared.
Summary
It is possible that there is a relationship between a number of unsolved cases of disappearance and possible flying-disk activity, and that the flying disks could represent an extremely provocative and quite unusual phenomenon involving the permanent abduction of citizens into unknown conditions in a subterranean, undersea or outer space context. Should the occupants of the disks increase their level of activity, as it now seems apparent that they will, it is probable that the population will be terrorized, should large-scale disappearances occur and become known. The revelation that the government is helpless to act would then
lead to public panic and a permanent loss of governmental credibility.
Detailed Analysis
This analysis will cover a number of cases of an unusual nature that appear to be related to the presence of strange nocturnal lights and/or flying-disk activity.
At 3 :15 on the morning of 4 October 1871, an undertaker named William Robert Loosley awoke and took a walk in his garden in the town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. Mr. Loosley recorded subsequent events in a manuscript that was locked away until 1941. The ms. has been authenticated by British antiquarians. It probably represents an example of a "probe" from some sort of nonhuman intelligence.
When he went outside, Mr. Loosley observed a light like a star move across the sky. He then heard a clap of thunder, which, in view of the fact that the sky was clear, struck him as strange . The lighted object flew lower, stopped, then dropped in a "falling leaf" pattern into some nearby woods . This pattern of motion is also characteristic of modern flying disks .
The next morning Mr. Loosley went into those woods and observed something metallic in a pile of leaves . He soon uncovered a strange metal container approximately 18 inches long and covered with knobs.
The thing moved and, making a sound like a lock clicking, opened what appeared to be an eye behind a glass lens. Then another eye opened and emitted a beam of purple light. A third eye extended a thin rod.
At this point Loosley decided to vacate the area, and began to move away -
running, no doubt. To his considerable consternation the machine followed, leaving a trail of three small ruts. He observed that similar ruts crisscrossed a nearby clearing.
The metal box shot a claw out into the brush and grabbed a rat, which it killed with a flash of purple light. It then deposited the carcass in a panel that opened in the side of the machine.
The device then rushed after Mr. Loosley, who ran off in a panic, only to find himself being herded toward a larger machine, which appeared from a nearby clearing. He observed a "moon-like" device in the sky which seemed to be signaling with lights. He managed to escape from the machines and return home.
The next night he observed a light come down from the sky, then rise up again and disappear into the clouds.
The fact that this account was written in 1871 greatly diminishes the likelihood of hoax. Robots of the sort described are only just now being speculated about in circles considering methods we might employ to explore planets such as Mars and Venus. It may be that Mr. Loosley observed a robot on a reconnaissance mission, and that it has now been followed by a larger expedition. If so, we can anticipate that it will be exploratory in nature as well, and that it will almost certainly center on analysis of the human species, which would have been the most interesting discovery made by the earlier reconnaissance.
It may be that human beings have since been successfully taken by strange machines.
The first seemingly related case of disappearance in U. S . history took place on 2 3 September 1880 near the town of Gallatin, Tennessee. At approximately three-thirty on that sunny afternoon, Mr. David Lang, a farmer, dematerialized in front of five witnesses, including his wife , his two children, his brother-in-law and a local judge.
The brother-in-law and the judge had just pulled up in a carriage. Mr. Lang moved toward them across a field, followed by his family. Without warning, he simply ceased to exist. There was no cry, no sign of distress. Mrs. Lang, distraught, rushed up and pounded the ground where he had been walking. All that afternoon and into the night the field was searched. Subsequently the county surveyor determined that there were no hidden caves or sinkholes in the area of the disappearance .
The subsequent April, seven months later, the children heard their father crying distantly underneath the field. He seemed desperate and tortured , and was begging for help. His voice gradually died away and was not heard again.
Where he had last been seen, there was a circle of withered yellow grass twenty feet in diameter.
The family moved away from the farm.
It can be surmised that Mr. Lang was not removed above ground, but rather was taken into the earth and kept alive there for some months, judging from the cries that were heard the next April. What the poor man suffered during that time, and what finally put him out of his misery, can scarcely be imagined. It may be possible that another robot machine was sent, which waylaid this man from underneath the earth, in view of the fact that the device sent in 1871
had failed to capture a human being by more straightforward means.
In 1909 a child of eleven, Oliver Thomas, disappeared upon walking out of a Christmas Eve party at his home in Wales. Other partygoers heard a scream that seemed to come from the air above the house. No trace of the child was ever found. Was this an example of ambush from above?
In 1924 two British pilots crashed in the desert not far from Baghdad. Their craft was located shortly thereafter, and footsteps were discovered leading away from it. The footsteps stopped in the sand. There were no signs of a skirmish. No trace of the pilots was ever located. In view of the fact that there were bandits in the area where this disappearance took place, it is possible that the pilots met with foul play. However, British colonial authorities investigated the case thoroughly over a period of months, and found absolutely no trace of the men. None of their equipment or personal effects ever appeared for sale in the souks . British authorities have not yet closed the case.
In the winter of 1930 a profoundly disturbing incident took place in Canada.
Trapper Arnaud Laurent and his son observed a strange light crossing the northern sky. It appeared to be headed for the Lake Anjikuni area. The two trappers describe it as being alternately bullet-shaped and cylinder-shaped.
It can be assumed from this that it was an object of irregular configuration that was tumbling as it moved.
Another trapper named Joe Labelle had snow-shoed into the village of the Lake Anjikuni people, and been chilled to discover that the normally bustling community was silent, and not a soul was moving in the streets. Even the sled dogs, which would normally have bayed welcome,were silent.
The shanties were choked with snow, and not a chimney showed smoke.
The trapper found the village ' s kayaks tied up on the shore of the lake.
Inside the shanties the trapper found a further surprise: there were meals left hanging over fires, long grown old and moldy, apparently abandoned as they were being cooked. The men's rifles were still standing by the doors.
This really frightened the trapper, because he knew that these people would never leave their precious weapons behind.
He reported his discovery to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who investigated further. They discovered that the town's dogs had died of hunger, chained beneath a tree and covered by a snowdrift. More disturbingly, the town graveyard had been emptied. The graves were now yawning pits. Despite the frozen ground, the graves had been opened and the dead removed.
The RCMP continues the case opened to this day. A check with their records department indicated that the matter remains unsolved, and despite a search of the whole of Canada and inquiries throughout the world, not a trace of the missing twelve hundred men, women and children has ever been found.
There are many other cases of disappearance in the air and at sea, but this small group appears to be the most unusual and the most likely to be related to an otherworldly presence.
Unfortunately we know nothing of the fate of most of these people . Only in the case of Mr. Lang can we even speculate. He was apparently left to languish in some sort of subterranean prison, presumably dying when his food and water ran out. Were the hardy Eskimos moved to some other world, to plant the human seed among the stars? Was Mr. Lang examined, tested and then abandoned to his fate? And what of the little boy, and the two pilots? Did they end up in machines similar to the one that menaced Mr. Loosley?
It is possible that we are observing the outcome of a scientific study of the human species that uses stea
lth to accomplish its end of obtaining human specimens.
The fact that human specimens are gathered at all indicates that the beings doing the study consider us animals. That they are not returned reveals that our lives are of limited value to the nonhuman beings, if that is what they are. That the whole process takes place only in secret indicates that the beings realize that we would resist if we knew the truth. In other words, they are doing this despite the fact that they know we are sentient creatures.
It is likely that the public will initially greet the appearance of aliens with welcome and delight. Should arbitrary abductions take place, however, the cheering will shortly become a collective scream of horror.
People will then demand protection, looking to the government—and specifically the Army Air Force—to provide it. Given our present lack of knowledge, the Air Force will in all probability fail to do so. This will result in a loss of faith on the part of the American public at least as great as that experienced by the Third Reich in the last quarter of 1944, when even the most propagandized population groups finally understood that Germany would lose the war.
Thus we will be faced with a dispirited and hostile public on the one hand, and cruel and all-powerful aliens on the other.
Conclusion
If these cases of disappearance are indeed related to the flying disks, the conclusion can be drawn that the strangers are interested in us but do not have any regard for us . This is obviously a dangerous and highly undesirable state of affairs, and steps should be taken to correct it at once.
Recommendations
1. The public should be insulated from any certain knowledge that the disks are real until such time as we have a clear understanding of the nature and motives of their occupants, and can effectively maintain control over our own land and airspace, offering the public the protection that it mandates .
2. Every effort should be made to obtain samples of a flying disk as soon as possible, barring only hostile military action. This should be viewed by the AAF as its number one worldwide priority.
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