Project Blue Book documents on the Killian case, compiled by Dan Wilson

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

# 'Flying Saucer' Sightings Still Get Air Force Study

## By Ralph Chapman

When an American Airlines pilot, flying a DC-6 non-stop from Newark to Detroit, reported Tuesday night the sighting of three mysterious objects in the sky, the Air Force didn't exactly yawn but there was none of the excitement in the Pentagon that such a report might have engendered ten years ago.

The Air Defense Command, charged with the responsibility for investigating all UFO's (Unidentified Flying Objects) or "flying saucers," has developed techniques to the point where evaluation of such sightings has become almost routine. During the last six months of last year, according to an Air Force spokesman in Washington, 296 cases of "mysterious" things seen in the sky were investigated. Only two were classified as "unknown."

This is what people on the ground or in planes actually saw: 23 weather balloons, 60 aircraft, 96 astronomical objects (meteors, etc.). 4 manmade satellites, and 50 miscellaneous (birds, etc.). In the remaining sixty-one cases, there were insufficient data to show that anything had been seen at all.

The Day After

"There are always a certain number of cases where this

can't remember a thing when they sober up the next day," commented one officer daily.

He admitted, however, that most people who report actually have seen something. The trouble is that they don't have the knowledge to understand what they see.

Not too long ago there was the case of the soldiers at a Nike base in Maryland who "saw" a flying saucer land with lights full on. A UFO investigation team hurried to the base and found a quick explanation. A near-by dairy farmer had turned on flood lights at his barn during the early hours of a winter morning. During summer months, the lights were unnecessary.

nightings is complete.

The Air Force has learned also that there are cycles in sightings of flying saucers. These correspond almost exactly with the appearance of TV shows, movies, books or plays dealing with visitors from outer space.

## Look More. See More

A factor governing the number of reports is what has become known as "say awareness." In other words, more and more Americans are looking up, especially at night, as a result, they are seeing more shooting stars and other heavenly phenomena than ever before. Add cold wasp pitters and the recipe for flying saucer

Military authorities were themselves jittery, it is now admitted, in the years immediately after World War II. The whole business began on June 24, 1947, when a man named Kenneth Arnold, of Boise, Idaho, reported that, while flying his own plane, he had seen nine disk-shaped objects speeding at an estimated 1,700 miles an hour between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, Wash. He described the objects as "like a saucer slipping across water." A rush of new sightings followed. Within days, "saucers" were seen over England, South Africa, Australia and China.

Only they weren't always sutcers. Some were cigar-shaped, others were "blobs." still others looked "like a conventional aircraft." In the latter category, at least, the Air Force now insists that this is exactly what they were.

Outside the military, however, there are many who insist that interplanetary travel is a fact except for earthlings. There are some who do so far as to say that the Air Force is well aware of this but is keeping it quiet for fear of frightening people. This group has a considerable following.

"We know about these people," said the Air Force spokesman. "There is not a word of truth in what they say but they

know that they can sell books and magazine articles based on that line. They are making a very good thing of it."

From an obserive source out of 1959 States. Dr. Gustav Jung, world famous psychologist, comes the opinion that people see flying saucers just because they want to see them. "Many people today are in need of fantasy." he said in Zurich, Switzerland, recently.

Capit Peter Killian the pilot who reported the appearance of the strange lights during his flight to Detroit, thinks otherwise. A veteran of fifteen years of commercial flying, he ought to know. He was careful to draw the attention of his crew. thirty-five passengers aboard the plane, and the pilots of two other aircraft to the phenomenon.

## A. F. Investigation

In his Gyosset, I. I., home he told the Herald Tribune that all of these witnesses confirmed his own observations. Then he said: "I am sure there are people on other planets and that they have solved the problem of space travel . . . I sincerely believe that their vehicles are coming close to the earth."

The Air Force is investigating, but has still to report on, this latest sighting of flying saucers or whatever they may be.

In the above newspaper article the Air Force attempts to confirm their explanations by discrediting reliable witnesses through the implication they are either incompetent or drun Captain Killian took particular exception to this statement, pointing out that the Air Force is well acquainted with rules forbidding airline pilots from drinking before flights. "It's one of our strictest rules."

## HOW ROUTINE IS ROUTINE?

In this article the Air Force spokesman states also that the evaluation of UFO sighting has become almost routine. Could it be possible that the investigation of such sightings has become routine to the extent that the investigators don't even bother to investigate? Who or what was investigated in regard to the airline sighting? They did not interview Captain Killian, nor did they question Co-Pilot Dee, the stewardesses, the passengers or the ground observers. As far as is known, none of these people were at any time contacted by ATIC.

Does the allegation made by the Air Force spokesman about the truthful non-military opportunists who are "making a good thing of it" and who insist that interplanetary travel