The Roswell Report: Case Closed

Fig. 26. Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. (right), is shown here in 1962 with Dr. J. Allen Hynek while preparing for the project STARGAZER high altitude balloon flight. (U.S. Air Force photo)

According to the medical technician who arrived on the helicopter with the pilots, he had difficulty persuading a flight surgeon to attend to the injured pilots. SSgt. Roland H. "Hap" Lutz, now a retired Chief Master Sergeant, recalled when he first contacted the Walker AFB hospital explaining that he had three persons injured in a "gondola accident," the flight surgeon told him to "Go home and sleep it off." $ ^{222} $ Fulgham, the injured pilot, recalled that when they got to the hospital, "there was this controversy going on in the hospital about who in the hell we were...we weren't supposed to be there and nobody knew anything about Air Force officers flying balloons...we could have been...[trying] to penetrate the security." $ ^{223} $ Walker AFB security officials were satisfied of the pilots' identities when they spoke to Colonel Stapp, commander of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

## The "Red-headed Captain" and Dr. J. Allen Hynek

Captain Kittinger, the STARGAZER high altitude balloon pilot and project engineer, had extensive professional contact with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and STARGAZER project scientist. Additionally, Hynek was also one of the scientific consultants in the Air Force study of UFOs, Project BLUEBOOK. Hynek is best known, however, for his apparent endorsement of extraterrestrial theories concerning UFOs after concluding his associations with the Air Force.

When asked about his recollections of Hynek, Kittinger stated that when they were associated, from 1958 to 1963, they discussed UFOs at length. $ ^{224} $