GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘Oh, God,’ Joanne said, her eyes again like saucers, ‘you hear that, they must be real. I mean, you hear that, they’ve got to be.’

  ‘Shit,’ Carol said. ‘It’s all shit. Let’s talk about something else. What about sex?’ She picked up her glass, had a drink, put the glass down, gave them all a look of mock disgust and then lit a cigaret, blowing smoke rings. Stanford smiled understandingly, reached out and stroked her cheek. ‘Sex,’ he said. ‘I like the sound of that. I think we might even try it.’ He sat back and smiled at her. His smile was returned. Joanne pouted in a theatrical manner and gave Gardner a hug. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said. ‘I think it’s really far out. I mean, you don’t hear stuff like this every day. I feel kind of shivery.’ Her breasts moved when she shivered. Gardner seemed a lot brighter. Stanford shrugged as if he didn’t really care, but he topped up their glasses.

  ‘I heard that the Pentagon was involved. Is that true, Mr Gardner?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s true,’ Gardner said. ‘Not many people know that. But the Pentagon, no matter what you’re told to the contrary, was involved all right. The Forth Monmouth sightings started it. All the witnesses were top brass. Those sightings caused a fucking sensation and really got the ball rolling. I mean, within hours of those sightings we received a call from the Director of Intelligence of the Air Force, Major General Cabell, telling us to get someone from the ATIC to Jersey immediately and find out what the hell was going on. Shortly after that call, the T-33 pilot and an Air Force major who had tried to pursue the UFO were on an airplane to New York where they were grilled by two of our best men. By the following day, our two men, Lieutenant Cummings and Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarten, were sitting down in the Pentagon, having words with Major General Cabell. Every word of that meeting was duly recorded – but according to our sources the recording was considered so hot it was later destroyed. No matter… Now totally convinced of the legitimacy of the UFO problem, Major General Cabell ordered the ATIC to establish a few UFO project. And since Cummings was due for release from active duty, Captain Ruppelt was put in charge of the operation. In April of 1952 Project Grudge was renamed Project Blue Book – and Ruppelt really took that project seriously.’

  This was what Stanford wanted to hear. More importantly, it was what Dr Epstein wanted to hear, and Stanford had to deliver.

  ‘Business,’ Carol said. ‘I’m fed up with all this shit. I think you two guys should make an offer. We’ve got a living to make.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Joanne said, ‘that can wait. I mean, we both need a break.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Stanford said. ‘Let’s just keep drinking. Don’t worry: Mr Gardner and I are here for the night – and we’re not short of cash.’

  Carol puckered her lips, glared at Joanne, then shrugged. Stanford quickly topped their glasses up, not forgetting Gardner.

  ‘This is amazing,’ he said. ‘I can hardly believe my ears. I mean, I never thought they took it that seriously. The Pentagon! Christ!’

  He was stroking Gardner’s vanity and the response was immediate: Gardner removed his arm from Joanne’s waist and leaned toward Stanford.

  ‘Not only the Pentagon,’ he said. ‘The goddamned CIA, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me right,’ Gardner said. ‘By June of that year Project Blue Book was really going strong and had received more official reports than in any previous months of its history. In fact, the number of reports coming in at that time was fucking astonishing – and Air Force officers in the Pentagon became frantic. In July, the ATIC received over five hundred reports – more than three times the number received in June – and then, when one of the top dogs in the CIA – and most of his guests – saw a silent, vertically ascending UFO over his home in Alexandria, Virginia, General Samford, Director of Intelligence, called Ruppelt to a secret meeting in Washington DC. At that meeting you had General Samford, members of his staff, intelligence officers from the Navy and, according to Ruppelt, more than a few CIA officers. That was the first time the CIA officially stepped into the picture. It was also the start of all our troubles.’

  ‘You mean that’s when Ruppelt started getting screwed.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Gardner said. ‘What finally burst the balloon was the unprecedented number of July sightings, peaking in the famous UFO invasion of Washington DC in 1952. After that, it was murder.’

  ‘I’m filing my fingernails,’ Carol said. ‘I’ve nothing else to do. I’m sitting on my ass turning numb, so I’m filing my fingernails.’

  Everyone glanced at her. She wasn’t filing her fingernails. Men and women were dancing close to the table and the jukebox was wailing. Joanne shook to the rhythm, grinned at Stanford and winked. Stanford smiled, but kept his gaze fixed on Gardner, hoping to keep him pinned down.

  ‘That Washington sightings were incredible,’ he said, ‘but what went on in the background? I mean, what was the connection with Ruppelt? I think you said it affected him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gardner said, ‘it did. Ruppelt wasn’t in Washington during the night of the sightings, but he sure caught most of the flak. In fact, Ruppelt hadn’t even been informed of the sightings; he only found out about them when he bought a newspaper at the Washington National Airport Terminal Building when he got off an airliner from Dayton, Ohio. He rushed immediately to the Pentagon, where he had an urgent meeting with Major Dewey Fournet and Colonel Bower, an intelligence officer from Bolling AFB. They told him that throughout the night, the restricted air corridor around the White House had been filled with interceptor jets trying to chase UFOs, that the UFOs had been radar tracked all around Washington, that an analysis of the sightings had completely ruled out temperature inversions, and that the radar operatives at Washington National Airport and Andrews AFB – plus at least two other veteran airline pilots – had all sworn that their sightings were caused by the radar waves bouncing off hard, solid objects.’

  ‘So,’ Stanford said, ‘what happened to Ruppelt?’

  ‘On behalf of the Air Force, Al Chops gave the press an official “No comment” on the sightings. In the meantime, Captain Ruppelt had been trying to set up a thorough investigation, but was shafted wherever he turned. He planned to go all over the area, to every sighting location, but he hardly got his foot out of the Pentagon. First, he called the transportation section for a car – and was refused. Next, he went down to the finance office to see if he could rent a car – and was refused. Next, he was reminded that he was supposed to be on his way back to Dayton, and that if he didn’t leave he would be technically AWOL. Ruppelt gave up in disgust and returned to Wright-Patterson in Dayton.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the Air Force deliberately got rid of their most experienced investigator?’

  ‘Well, what do you think it sounds like?’

  ‘Okay,’ Stanford said. ‘So within a week to the hour of the first major flap, a second UFO invasion took place over Washington DC.’

  ‘Correct. And this time it was even more impressive… At about thirty after ten on the evening of July 26, the same radar operatives who had seen the UFOs the week before picked up several of the very same objects… and this time the UFOs were spread out in an immense arc around Washington – from Virginia to Andrews AFB. In short, they had Washington boxed in.’

  Stanford glanced at Carol and saw her filing her fingernails, but when he turned to the bare-bellied, blonde Joanne, he received an excited grin.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘the White House took the invasion seriously.’

  ‘Damned right,’ Gardner said. ‘Throughout that night there was chaos in Washington. The press was furious because all reporters and photographers had been ordered out of the radar rooms at the time the interceptors were chasing the UFOs. However, once the press were gone, arguments really blew up in all those radar towers and in the Pentagon itself. According to Dewey Fournet, the Pentagon liaison man, everyone in the radar rooms had been convinced that the targets had been caused by solid, metalli
c objects and couldn’t possibly have been anything else. And whatever those things were, they could literally hover in the air, then abruptly accelerate to at least a couple of thousand miles an hour.’

  ‘Lord have mercy,’ Joanne said, looking even more excited. ‘And to think I actually read about those saucers! Is it true President Nixon actually saw them?’

  ‘It was 1952,’ the brunette Carol reminded her. ‘You’ve mixed up your presidents.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gardner said. ‘When I was there, word came down the grapevine that President Truman himself had almost gone apeshit when he saw UFOs skimming right around the White House. That story was quickly squashed by some of the President’s aides, but shortly after, about ten that morning, the President’s air aide, Brigadier General Landry, called Intelligence at Truman’s insistence to find out what the hell was going on. Ruppelt, having returned to Washington, took that call, but he had to hedge his answers because he couldn’t explain the sightings at all.’

  Carol opened her shoulder bag, dropped her nail file into it, then stared at each of them in turn, her lips puckered distastefully.

  ‘I’m finished,’ she said. ‘My fingernails are like new. I’m sitting here, trying to make a living, but I’m getting no action.’

  ‘Oh, Carol!’ Joanne snapped.

  ‘I’m just an ordinary working gal,’ Carol said. ‘I need to live, just like everyone else, but these two guys aren’t helping me.’

  ‘We have rooms,’ Gardner said.

  ‘I know that,’ Carol retorted.

  ‘Okay,’ Stanford said. ‘You have a deal. Just give us five more minutes.’

  Carol sniffed and then nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘As long as that’s settled. I mean, we have other clients.’

  Joanne smiled at Stanford. Gardner smiled at Joanne. Stanford winked at Joanne and then leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Gardner.

  ‘What do think it all meant?’ he asked.

  Gardner sighed. ‘It was the Washington invasion, more than anything else, that made all of us at Blue Book a bit suspicious of the Air Force’s stance on UFOs. In fact, we spent over a year investigating those sightings, and what we came across really shook us. For a start, when the tower operatives at Andrews AFB were interrogated about the, quote, “large, fiery, orange-colored sphere”, unquote, that they had reported over their radio, they completely changed their story and said that what they had seen was a star – and that their mistake was due to their excitement at the time. Now, apart from the blatant idiocy of highly skilled radio operatives describing a normal star as a large, fiery, orange-colored sphere right over their control tower, Ruppelt also found out that according to astronomical charts there were no exceptionally bright stars where the UFO was reported to have been seen. Ruppelt then found out, from what he claimed was a reliable source, that the tower operatives had been persuaded a bit by their superiors. Likewise, the pilot of an F-94C, who had told us about vainly trying to intercept unidentified lights, later stated in his official report that all he had really seen was a ground light reflecting off a layer of haze – an equally ridiculous statement, since both the pilot and the radar had confirmed that the lights had repeatedly disappeared and reappeared in the sky before finally shooting away. Then, regarding the Air Force’s continuing stance that the lights had been caused by temperature inversions, we checked out the strength of the inversions through the Air Defense Command Weather Forecast Center – and at no time during the flap was there a temperature inversion remotely strong enough to show up on the radar. Finally, no weather target makes a one hundred and eighty degree turn and flies away every time an airplane reaches it. So the Washington DC sightings, according to Project Blue Book, are still unknowns.’

  Stanford started to forget the girls. He felt a cold, clean excitement. He thought of Epstein in his office in Washington DC, waiting patiently to hear from him. Epstein had been right. The Air Force had covered up. Why they had covered up was a mystery that Stanford might yet solve.

  ‘As I said,’ Gardner continued, ‘it was the official reaction to the Washington DC sightings that made a lot of us suspicious of the Air Force. Too many people were telling us one thing and then changing their stories for their official reports. Also, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the top brass of the Air Force were trying to blind us with some dodgy maneuvers. After the Washington sightings, Ruppelt became convinced that pilots reporting UFOs were being intimidated into either changing their reports or simply remaining silent, that a lot of information was being withheld from Project Blue Book, and that the CIA was stepping into the picture for unexplained reasons.’

  ‘You were really worried about the CIA?’

  ‘Yep. The guy who worried us most during this time was General Hoyt Vandenberg. Bear in mind that it was Vandenberg who’d buried the original Project Sign Estimate of the Situation, who’d reportedly called us all mad, and who’d directly or indirectly caused the fear of ridicule that has ever since hindered all UFO projects. It was also because of Vandenberg that the Sign Estimate was incinerated and that Project Sign was insultingly renamed Project Grudge. Now, while none of us could be sure of just how much Vandenberg was influencing either the Air Force or the CIA, the knowledge that he had been head of the Central Intelligence Group – later the CIA – from June 1946 to May 1947, that his uncle had been chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee – then the second most powerful committee in the Senate – that Vandenberg obviously still had great influence in those areas, and that pressure was always coming from those areas to suppress knowledge of UFO investigations… well, all of that did nothing to make us trust him any more. If therefore came as no surprise when we heard that the CIA and some high-ranking officers, including Generals Vandenberg and Samford, were, against the objections of the Battelle Memorial Institute, convening a panel of scientists to analyze all the Project Blue Book data. And nor did it surprise us to discover that this panel was to be headed by Dr H. P. Robertson, director of the Weapons System Evaluation Group in the Office of the Secretary of Defense – and a CIA classified employee.’

  ‘What do you know about the Robertson Panel?’ Stanford asked.

  Gardner glanced at the two hookers, stared at Sanford, licked his lips, now excited and wanting to continue, but nervous of doing so. He glanced again at the hookers. Joanne smiled back. Carol had her chin in her hand, her lips puckered in boredom.

  ‘I’m becoming impatient,’ she said. ‘I think you two are giving us a snow job. I don’t think you intend taking us upstairs. A pair of fags, we’ve got sitting here.’

  ‘I can’t afford you,’ Gardner said.

  ‘It’s on me,’ Stanford said. ‘I’ve got a pocketful of bread and I’m horny, so let’s fix something up.’

  ‘Jesus, thanks,’ Gardner said. ‘I mean, that’s really decent of you. Tell you what… Send the ladies up to the room and then we’ll finish our talk.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Joanne said.

  ‘The rest of this talk is confidential,’ Gardner said. ‘I wanna finish this story with my buddy here, so just wait for us upstairs.’

  ‘How long?’ Carol asked bluntly.

  ‘About ten minutes,’ Gardner said.

  ‘Here,’ Stanford said, withdrawing some ten-dollar notes from his jacket pocket. ‘It’s a deposit. Just to give you a little confidence.’ Carol took the money and pushed it into her shoulder bag. She stood up and looked down at Joanne and said, ‘Okay, darlin’, let’s go.’ Joanne sighed and stood up. ‘What room?’ she asked. ‘We have to know the room number. We can’t fuck in the corridor.’ Gardner told her the room number. He said the key was in the door. Carol sniffed, as if clearing her nostrils, and then walked away. Joanne grinned at both men, followed Carol across the dance floor; they both passed the howling jukebox and disappeared through a doorway beyond it. Gardner refilled his glass, had a drink and glanced around him, then he leaned across the table to get closer to Stanford.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘The only t
hing I really know about the Robertson Panel is that it was convened in secrecy in Washington DC in 1953, and that contrary to the evidence submitted by Project Blue Book it wrote a virtually negative report that led to the dissolving of our operation. First, the panel submitted its report to the CIA, the higher echelons of the Air Force and the Pentagon, but refused to give a copy to Ruppelt or any of the Blue Book staff. Next, Ruppelt and Captain Garland were summoned to CIA headquarters where it was explained to them that the Robertson Panel had recommended expanding Blue Book’s staff and terminating all secrecy in the project. Naturally, this encouraged Ruppelt, but his pleasure turned sour when he discovered that the CIA had been lying to him. In fact, it later transpired that the Robertson Panel had recommended a tightening of security, a mass debunking of the phenomenon, and a subtle ridiculing of UFO witnesses and the phenomenon in general.’

  Gardner studied his own busy bar. The room was smokey and packed. The jukebox was wailing in the corner, surrounded by dancers.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘When it became obvious that the CIA had lied to us and that the Air Force was in fact trying to strangle Project Blue Book, a lot of us at the ATIC became pretty nervous. Ruppelt himself began to feel that he was facing growing opposition from the Pentagon to his plans for expanding Blue Book’s activities. This feeling was confirmed when he asked for a transfer but agreed to stay on with Blue Book until a replacement could be found. He had asked for that transfer in December ’52, but by the following February no replacement had materialized. Nor were there any replacements when Lieutenant Flues was transferred to the Alaskan Air Command, when Lieutenant Rothstein’s tour of active duty ended, or when others on the staff either left or were transferred out. In short, Ruppelt departed from a drastically reduced Blue Book organization in February ’53, and by the time he returned, in July of that same year, he found that the Air Force had reassigned most of his remaining staff, that they had sent no replacements, and that Blue Book now consisted of only himself and a mere two assistants. In other words, Project Blue Book had been fucked.’