FBI file: UFO, UFO Part 03

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Upon hearing this response, I turned the aircraft broadside to the object, pulled back the plexiglass covering to avoid any distortion, took my camera from the map case, and exposed about 10 seconds' duration of eight millimetor motion picture film. During the time the camera was at eye level, I could not see the object because of minuteness of scope introduced by the optical view finder with which the camera, an f.1.9 Eastman, was equipped.

Taking the camera away and once again centering my gaze on the object, I observed it to roll so that its edge was presented to me. At this time it flashed once in the sunlight. It then appeared as a thin black line. It then performed a maneuver which looked as if it had begun a slow roll, or a barrel roll, which instead of being completed, was broken off at about the 160-degree point. The object rolled out of the top of the maneuver at this point, and I lost right of it.

This entire performance was observed against the background of clouds previously forming over the Gomaz Prairie. The object appeared to me, relatively, as the size of a twenty-five cent piece. I do not know how far away it was. I do not know, nor can I truthfully estimate its speed. I can only say it was not an airplane, and if it was at a very great distance from us, its speed was great, taking into consideration that apparent speed is reduced to the viager if an object is a very great distance away.

I forget to look at my clock to determine the exact time I saw the object. The CAA's log of radio contacts shows first contact to have been made at 12:17 hours. But a few seconds elapsed between the time I first saw the object, and the time I called the CAA's station.

I subsequently related over the radio a description of that I 66 say, and communicator may remember it. The control tower may have a recording of the conversation. I have not checked to determine.

The purpose of my relating over the air that I saw was to enable rapid transmission of the report to the newspaper, for at that time I was on assignment and energies thenceforth were devoted to (1) transmitting the information and (2) conducting a further search, which I did after landing for fuel and to make some telephone calls.

The next search, begun within half an hour after landing from the first one, consumed another two hours, but was negative. I explored thoroughly the region where I saw the object.

I immediately after sighting the object, I asked if there were other aircraft in the area. There was a F-51 of the 100th equestron practic ing maneuvers in the vicinity of Luna, but that was behind me. A G-1C passed over Loise, but I saw that aircraft go beneath us by some 2,000 feet. The F-51 in the vicinity of Luna proceeded to the area where I saw the object, at my request, and conducted a search. It was negative. During the afternoon, flights of P-51s were sent out to cover the area, and equal of than flies high altitude missions on oxygen. These searches were negative.

I was subsequently informed that personnel on both the United Air Lines side of down field, and on the national guard side, observed a glacier object maneuvering in front of the same cloud formation, which by now had grown so that the clouds reached a probable height of 19,000 or 20,000 feet from a mean base of 13,500 or 14,000 feet, mean sea level. Three of these men were national guard personnel and I talked to them,