GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘You knew Ruppelt?’ Stanford asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Gardner said. ‘You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that. We worked for a time together, we respected one another, and even when he left, when those bastards pushed him out, he still came to see me now and then, very quiet, just for old time’s sake. Ruppelt was a believer. I’ve no doubts about that at all. He was a believer and he died a believer, no matter what his book said.’

  ‘You mean the revised edition,’ Stanford said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Gardner said.

  Stanford studied Gardner’s face, the hollow cheeks, the bloodshot eyes, taking note of the stubble on his chin and his badly stained teeth. Something had happened to Gardner – something not very nice – and now the former Air Force hero was a wreck, always drunk in his own bar.

  ‘I thought Ruppelt was a career man,’ Stanford said. ‘I’m surprised that he went against the grain by insisting – at least before that revised edition – that the UFOs were real.’

  ‘He believed in the Air Force,’ Gardner said. ‘And the Air Force believed that.’

  ‘I always thought they believed the opposite.’

  ‘That was bullshit, Stanford. Public Relations diarrhoea. The Air Force believed in the reality of the UFOs from as far back as 1947.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, really. I was with the Air Technical Intelligence Center at the time – then based at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio – and believe me, we were in a state of near panic. And why? Because contrary to their own publicity, the military was being plagued with their own sightings: first over Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, then, to our horror, over the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico – right smack in the middle of our A-bomb territory. Finally, what really got us going was a whole series of sightings in early July, 1947 – I think it was the eighth – over Muroc Air Base – now Edwards AFB – our top secret Air Force test center in the Mojave Desert.’

  ‘I know about those sightings,’ Stanford said. ‘They really were something.’

  ‘Fucking A,’ Gardner said.

  He put his glass to his lips, had a drink, topped up the glass, cursed the noise of the blaring jukebox, then put his glass back on the table. Stanford topped his own glass up, glanced around the crowded bar, taking note of the Stetsons and boots and girls in tight dresses.

  ‘I’m told that those sightings led to Project Sign.’

  ‘They did,’ Gardner said. ‘No less a luminary than General Nathan Twining, commander of the Air Material Command, wrote to the commanding general of the Army-Air-Forces stating that the phenomenon was something real, that it wasn’t visionary or fictitious, and that the objects were disk-shaped, as large as conventional aircraft, and controlled. Shortly after that, about December ’47, we established Project Sign, gave it a 2A classification, and handed it over to WrightPatterson Air Force Base.’

  ‘That was just before the death of Captain Mantell.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gardner said. ‘A famous case.’

  ‘I’m told he died chasing a UFO, but the Air Force denies it.’

  ‘Right. Those fuckers tried to wipe it out. But that case, and a lot of other unknown sightings, really shook the hell out of us.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Stanford said.

  Gardner had another drink, licked his lips and glanced around him. He waved at a couple of friends and then looked back at Stanford.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it prompted Project Sign to write an official, top secret Estimate of the Situation – and we didn’t piss around when we did it. That Estimate traced the whole history of UFO sightings, included the fireballs and ghost rockets and American sightings before 1947, and concluded, I kid you not, that the UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin. We then sent the report through channels, all the way to the Chief of Staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, but the good general, to our amazement, sent it back with instructions to bury it.’

  Sipping his bourbon, Stanford saw a girl at the bar, blonde hair tumbling to her shoulders, her firm breasts pointing at him. He smiled at the girl, she smiled right back, and he placed his glass back at the table, then scratched his right ear.

  ‘You run a good bar,’ he said. ‘Lots of action, I notice.’

  ‘I do my best,’ Gardner said.

  ‘General Vandenberg sounds pretty odd to me. He must have caused you some problems.’

  Gardner nodded his agreement. ‘It was there and then,’ he said, ‘when that report was sent back, that we realized just how shitty our job was. In fact, word soon filtered back to us that Vandenberg had described us as being mad – and the repercussions of that judgement were pretty rough. Fear of further offending Vandenberg eventually led to a whole new policy: in future all Sign personnel were to assume that all UFO reports were misidentifications, hallucinations or hoaxes. Not only that, but we had to check with FBI officers, and with the criminal and subversive files of police departments, looking into the private lives of the witnesses to see if they were reliable. No need to say it: that was fair warning to all of us that it wasn’t wise to open your mouth too wide… And shortly after that, the Project Sign Estimate of the Situation was incinerated.’

  ‘Then Project Sign became Project Grudge.’

  ‘Right. Can you imagine a more insulting name? A sure sign of General Vandenberg’s displeasure.’

  Glancing across to the bar, Stanford saw the girl with blonde hair, now talking to a heavily built brunette, both of them giggling. Turning her head, the blonde girl smiled invitingly at him, stroking her silky hair, then she turned away and whispered to the other girl and both giggled again.

  ‘I’ve heard bad stories about Grudge,’ Stanford said. ‘A real shitty assignment.’

  ‘Right. We were told to kill the whole affair. Now our job was to shift the investigation away from the actual UFOs and on to the poor bastards who reported them. Our task was to prove that the UFOs did not exist.’

  ‘That must have been pretty difficult. I mean, according to the Grudge Report, snow job though it was, a good twenty-three percent of your sightings were still classified as unknowns.’

  ‘Big deal,’ Gardner said. ‘That was obviously still too much for General Vandenberg. The same day we released that report, the Air Force announced the termination of the project, all the Grudge records were put into storage, a few officers walked the plank, and the rest of our personnel were widely scattered.’

  ‘But you remained.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You must have felt pretty bad.’

  ‘I surely did,’ Gardner said. ‘I began to suspect that the Air Force top brass was only making a pretence at investigating UFOs when in fact they didn’t want us to find out anything. I couldn’t figure out their attitude. It didn’t make sense to me. All I knew was that reporting unknowns could lead to really bad trouble.’

  Stanford studied Gardner’s face, saw the unfocused, bloodshot eyes, and was shocked by how far the man had fallen. It was best not to think about it. Men like Gardner were the victims. It was hard to think of Gardner as a highly decorated fighter pilot, hard to think of him working on Project Blue Book when that project was honorable. Gardner and Ruppelt had both paid the price. Now Gardner talked like a man without a future, still glancing fearfully behind him.

  ‘Tell me about Ruppelt,’ Stanford said. ‘There’s a really mystery there.’

  ‘No mystery, Gardner said. ‘Clear as glass. They just slipped the blade in.’

  He topped up his own glass, emptied the bottle and put it down, picked it up again and waved to the barman and demanded another. Stanford sat back and waited. He didn’t want to push too hard. This was supposed to be a casual conversation and it had to remain that way. Stanford glanced around the room. The air was dense with blue smoke. High-heeled boots stomped the floor, Stetsons clashed, the tight dresses were plentiful. Stanford saw the blonde girl. She smiled and raised her glass to him. Stanford thought she might soften up Gardner, so h
e nodded and grinned. The barman brought them another bottle. He slapped Gardner on the back. When he left, Gardner topped up both their glasses, then started talking again.

  ‘Ruppelt was assigned to the Air Technical Intelligence Center in January 1951. Like me, he was working under Lieutenant Jerry Cummings. Now, up to that time Ruppelt hadn’t paid too much attention to UFO reports, but what he read in our files turned him on. As I remember, he was particularly impressed by two reports that involved movies taken at the White Sands Proving Ground. Now bear in mind that the Proving Ground was fully instrumented to track highaltitude, fast moving objects – namely, the guided missiles – and had camera stations equipped with cinetheodolite cameras located all over the area. So, in two different days in June 1950, two UFOs were actually shot by two different cameras, and the guys who examined the results, by putting a correction factor in the data gathered by the two cameras, were able to arrive at a rough estimation of speed, altitude and size. According to their reports, those UFOs were higher than forty thousand feet, traveling at over two thousand miles an hour, and were over three hundred feet in diameter.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Stanford said.

  ‘Yeah, right. Now those reports really got Ruppelt going. He was hooked on the UFOs, started working like a beaver, and that’s when we really got together, going through the old files.’

  Gardner gazed around the room. He was clearly becoming restless. He owned the whole bar, it was his, and he wanted to use it. Stanford recognized the signs. Gardner seemed a little petulant. Stanford thought of Epstein waiting in Washington, and decided to push it.

  ‘What led to Project Blue Book?’ he asked.

  ‘The Lubbock Lights,’ Gardner said. ‘Those and the Fort Monmouth sightings. They really stirred the shit up.’

  ‘This must be boring you,’ Stanford said.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Let’s have a little company,’ Stanford said. ‘That blonde and brunette.’

  Stanford swiveled around in his chair, raised his glass to the blonde girl, then waved his free hand in an inviting gesture. The blonde glanced at the brunette, looked back at Stanford, feigned surprise, then pointed her finger at herself and observed Stanford’s nod of affirmation. Gardner looked on, surprised. He thought Stanford was pretty cool. The girls giggled and then walked across the room, holding on to each other. The jukebox was still shrieking. Couples danced without touching. The two girls pushed through the dancers, reached the table and stopped there, looked at Stanford and Gardner in turn and gave them broad, streetwise grins.

  ‘Hi,’ the blonde said.

  ‘Peace on Earth,’ Stanford said. ‘We thought you might like to share a bottle with two honorable men.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ the brunette said.

  ‘Don’t pray,’ Stanford said. ‘We don’t hold with religion on Friday nights. Just set yourselves down.’

  They both giggled and sat down. Up close they looked different. The blonde wore skin-tight jeans and halter, her tanned belly exposed, her breasts thrusting forward in sexual challenge, her nose upturned, eyes hard. The brunette was far heavier, less pretty, even harder, her loose dress hiding unwanted flesh, her face masked in thick makeup. Gardner looked suspiciously at them. He was probably thinking they were hookers. The girls flicked their eyes at Stanford, looked away, giggled again and then sighed in unison.

  ‘I’m Joanne,’ the blonde said. ‘This here’s my friend, Carol. We both live on the other side of the tracks. We’ve never been here before.’

  ‘I’m Stanford,’ Stanford said. ‘This gentleman is Mr Gardner. He owns this place. We’re both bored with the sound of our own voices and we thought you’d distract us.’

  The girls giggled again. ‘That’s a shame,’ Carol said. ‘You guys seemed to love one another. So involved with each other!’

  ‘What were you talking about?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘UFOs,’ Gardner muttered.

  ‘UFOs?’

  ‘Flying saucers,’ Stanford said. ‘Gardner’s an expert.’

  ‘Christ, they’re creepy,’ Carol said.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Joanne said. ‘One of my favorite subjects. Are you really an expert?’

  She stared straight at Gardner. Her blue eyes were like saucers. Gardner grinned and sat up in his chair, almost preening himself.

  ‘I guess so,’ he said.

  ‘He’s being modest,’ Stanford said. ‘This guy was chasing UFOs for the Air Force. He knows all about them.’

  Joanne moved closer to Gardner, her breasts brushing against his arm, her blue eyes very large and excited, her knee touching his knee. Gardner couldn’t resist it, acted more drunk than he was, putting his arm around the woman to hug her, grinning like an idiot.

  ‘Tell her about the Lubbock Lights,’ Stanford said. ‘Give her all the details. If UFOs are one of her favorite subjects, she’ll be fascinated.’

  Gardner’s dopey grinned widened. ‘Okay, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Let me give you a display of expertise that’ll boggle your mind.’

  Stanford poured them all drinks. Gardner drank and hugged Joanne. Carol, the brunette, shivered melodramatically and said, ‘Shit, this is gonna be creepy.’ Joanne giggled and snuggled into Gardner’s embrace. Gardner grinned at each of them in turn, then he started talking.

  ‘The Lubbock affair began on the evening of August 25, 1951, when an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission’s supersecret Sandia Corporation – one with a top “Q” security clearance – looked up from his garden on the outskirts of Albuquerque to see a huge aircraft flying swiftly and silently over his home. He later described it as having the shape of a “flying wing”, about one and a half times the size of a B36, with six to eight softly glowing bluish lights on the aft end of its wings. That same night, about twenty minutes after the first sighting, four professors from the Texas Technological College at Lubbock observed a formation of lights streaking across the sky: about fifteen to thirty separate lights, all a bluish-green color, moving from north to south in a semicircular formation… Then, early in the morning of the following day, only a few hours after the Lubbock sightings, two different radars at an Air Defence Command radar station located in Washington State showed an unknown target traveling at nine hundred miles an hour at thirteen hundred feet and heading in a northwesterly direction. But it didn’t end there… On August 31, at the height of the flap, two ladies were driving near Matador, seventy miles northeast of Lubbock, when they saw a pear-shaped object about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of them, about a hundred and twenty feet in the air, drifting slowly to the east at less than the take-off speed of a Cub airplane. One of these witnesses was pretty familiar with aircraft – she was married to an Air Force officer and had lived near air bases for years – and she swore that the object was about the size of a B-29 fuselage, had a porthole on one side, made absolutely no noise as it moved into the wind, and suddenly picked up speed and climbed out of sight, seemingly making a tight, spiraling manoeuver. That same evening, an amateur photographer took five photos of a V formation of the same bluish-green lights as they flew over his backyard. And finally, a rancher’s wife told her husband – who related the story to Captain Ruppelt – that she had seen a large object gliding swiftly and silently over their house. That sighting was made about ten minutes after the Sandia Corporation employee saw his object, it was described as “an airplane without a body”, and the woman said that on the aft edge of the wing there were pairs of glowing bluish lights – the exact same description as the Sandia Corporation gave regarding his own sighting.’

  ‘Christ,’ Joanne said.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Carol said. ‘I mean, folks see things all the time. That’s not proof they exist.’

  ‘Well, listen to this,’ Gardner said. ‘We investigated all the Lubbock sightings thoroughly. First, we discovered that the Washington State radar lock-on was a solid target – not a weather target – and it was then easy to work out that an object flying between that rad
ar station and Lubbock would have been on a northwesterly course at the time it was seen at the two places – and that it would have had a speed of approximately nine hundred miles an hour, as calculated by the radar. Next, we analyzed the five photos taken by the amateur photographer. The lights had crossed about one hundred and twenty degrees of open sky at a thirty-degree-per-second angular velocity – and that corresponded exactly to the angular velocity carefully measured by the four professors from the tech college at Lubbock. Analysis of the photos also showed that the lights were a great deal brighter than the surrounding stars and that their unusual intensity could have been caused by the exceptionally bright light source that had a color at the most distant red end of the spectrum, bordering on infrared.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Joanne said, ‘you sound like Einstein. What the hell does that mean?’

  Gardner preened at her bewilderment, grinned at each of them in turn, then fixed his increasingly bleary gaze upon Stanford, now ignoring the ladies.

  ‘I think you know,’ he said. ‘Since the human eye isn’t sensitive to such a light, the light could seem dim to the eye – as many of the Lubbock lights did – but be exceptionally bright on film – as they were on our photos. And according to the Photo Reconnaissance Laboratory, at those days there was nothing flying that had those particular, almost magical, characteristics. However, what really knocked us out was the discovery that the lights on the photos were remarkably similar to the description given by the Atomic Energy Commission employee of the lights on the aft edge of the huge UFO that passed over his house.’

  ‘So,’ Stanford said, leaning forward, ‘did something fly over Albuquerque and travel two hundred and fifty miles to Lubbock at a speed of about nine hundred miles an hour? And did the radar station in Washington State pick up that same object?’

  ‘According to the witnesses,’ Gardner said, ‘and to our radar and visual tracking calculations, it did. Our Lubbock files were also studied by a group of rocket experts, nuclear physicists and intelligence experts, and they were all convinced that the Lubbock lights had to be of extraterrestrial origin.’