65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Serial 130

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

4. At the time, since my attention was divided and absorbed among the subjects mentioned, my reaction was simply that "a light passed by," and I gave no further thought to the matter until some moments later, when the thought came to me that I had never seen such an object before, and that although the first explanation would have been that a meteor had fallen toward earth in that direction, it did not have the appearance of any meteor or "shooting star" I had ever seen. Thinking of the then-prevalent talk of flying disks, I reflected that probably some such thing as I had just seen was the source of a large amount of newspaper and radio publicity on the subject. The next morning I jestingly announced in the office that I saw a flying saucer the night before and thought that it was enroute to Alexandria, where some of our officers live. I then went on to say that I supposed it was a shooting star, but that it did look somewhat peculiar. After we had discussed the general topic for some time, I dropped the subject, not wishing to add to the supposed rumors, which I envisioned as a source of serious panic over the country.

5. A description of the light, or object is almost impossible, since observation of it was so limited. As shown in Illustration No. 2, the object appeared to pass in closest proximity to me at the time it came into view. All of my mental calculations were based upon some impression or conception of its distance at the closest point, (AC). I had no way of judging this, except in the form of very crude depth-perception. If this by any chance were correct, and instead of a distant meteor some object had passed near-by, I would assume for purposes of description that the distance AC on the sketch was some three quarters of a mile. One factor which I could judge quite reliably was the angular elevation. This must have been approximately 3 or 4 degrees; at any rate, the light was intermittently behind the tallest trees forward of my position as it passed, and these trees are of a normal height, perhaps sixty or eighty feet at a distance several blocks. Based upon a mild assumption as to distance, and a reasonable assumption as to angular elevation, the object would be at a low altitude, considerably below 500 feet, and of a size approximating a small airplane, say 30 feet across. The shape may have been round, oval, discal, or irregular; at the speed with which it travelled, I could only perceive it as a "blob." I do not consider the distance mentioned to be less than 3/4 mile, because had it been, I feel sure that, late in the evening and with all my windows open, I would have heard some sound, which I definitely did not in this case. It might be well to point out here the relative similarity in size, altitude and airspeed of a firefly at a distance of 30 feet, an airplane at about 3/4 mile, and a meteor at several hundred miles. Most of us are familiar with this illusion.