Prologue: To 1947

He who desires to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted andcapable of maintaining itself to the satisfaction of everybody, must at least retain thesemblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been nochange in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they wererealities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those thatare.

—Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Chapter XXV

UFOs Before World War Two

It is quite possible that UFOs have existed for millennia. A steady stream of reports—storiesmight be a better word—appears through the centuries, some of them suggestiveof modern reports. Of course, most of these stories were not about spaceships, althoughsome of them were. Rather, people interpreted what they saw in the terms and conceptsthey knew best: they saw fiery wheels or chariots in the sky, conversed with fairy folk, orhad visions of God, angels, and demons. While the accounts are certainly worthcollecting, there is not much we can do with them other than reflect on the possibilitiesthey suggest. Ultimately, they remain just stories.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the number of these stories spiked upward.Whether this means that more weird events were really taking place, or simply that morepeople were noticing them, is anybody's guess. Even today, some of these reports makefor interesting reading. The London Times of September 26, 1870, for example, describeda strange elliptical object that crossed the face of the moon. In November 1882,astronomer E. W. Maunder, a member of the Royal Observatory staff at Greenwich, noted"a strange celestial visitor" in his observational report. Others also saw this object, whichthey described as torpedo- or spindle-shaped. Years later Maunder said the object lookedexactly like a zeppelin, except that there were no zeppelins in 1882. Sightings werewidespread for the rest of the decade, occurring in Mexico, Turkey, Nova Scotia (a five-minutesighting in which shipmates saw a huge red object rise from the ocean, pause, andfly off rapidly), New Zealand, the Dutch East Indies, and elsewhere.

In 1897, the United States experienced the first modern wave of sightings. These were the"airships" which first appeared in San Francisco in late 1896 and moved eastward.Thousands of people, including astronomers, saw them, which typically had lights (usuallyred, green, or white), moved slowly, and seemed to be under intelligent control.Sometimes voices could be heard, whether in English or something unintelligible. On afew occasions, people claimed to see their occupants, and even to speak with them. Suchoutlandish sightings got some press. The New York Herald-Tribune described a sighting inChicago on April 9, 1897, that lasted from 8 P.M. until 2 A.M.:

Thousands of amazed persons declared that the lights seen in the northwest were thoseof an airship, or some floating object, miles above the earth.... Some declared that theycould distinguish two cigar-shaped objects and great wings.

Two giant searchlights apparently illuminated the object. Other, far stranger, incidentsoccurred. Explanations included many of the standard culprits of later ages: masshallucination and hysteria, experimental aircraft (private, not military), opium-induceddreams, hoaxes, or all of the above.

The 1897 airship sightings were the most remarkable of the pre-1940s era. But othernoteworthy UFO events also took place, including one in western China in 1926 by theparty of explorer Nicholas Roerich. In his book, Altai—Himalaya, Roerich described thesighting as an "interesting occurrence." As he related, his party noticed a high-flying shinyobject. The group brought "three powerful field glasses" and watched a "huge spheroidbody shining in the sun, clearly visible against the blue sky, and moving very fast." Roerichand his party were certain they saw something real. What was it? What would be flyinglike that in the western China desert—in 1926? No answer ever emerged.

These early reports are intriguing, but offer few avenues for further research. UFOsappeared sporadically, elicited minimal response from the public and authorities, and werepromptly forgotten. One wonders, in any event, what kind of response would have beenpossible?

The Second World War changed all this. Before the war, airplanes were scarce and radarnonexistent—by the war's end, both were global. In other words, it became much, mucheasier to detect strange aerial phenomena after 1940. Since military personnel were themain users of radar and airplanes, they might naturally be expected to encounter moreUFOs than the average person—and they most certainly did. Let us take a moment toreview some key developments of the American military and national securityestablishment.

The National Security Connection

When UFO skeptics claim that hiding something as significant as alien visitation isimpossible, they should study some of the secrets that were kept for many, many years. Averitable secrecy industry exists in the modern world, complete with its own standardoperating procedures and tricks of the trade.

The granddaddy of all secret projects was the Manhattan Project, the program to designand build an atomic bomb during the Second World War. More than any other program, ithelped to forge the American military-industrial establishment, and served as a model forfuture secret projects. One of its key contributions was its secret—or black—budget.When President Roosevelt learned that such a weapon might be feasible, the best guesswas that it would cost $100 million. The actual cost ballooned to a mammoth $2.19 billion,over twenty times the original estimate. Getting that much money through traditionalmeans (i.e., congressional approval) raised the dual problem of asking Congress toauthorize outlays that were unprecedented while at the same time alerting the enemy tothe Allies' most important military weapon. The money, therefore, had to be hidden fromCongress. Roosevelt told his science advisor, Vannevar Bush, he could draw upon hiddenfunding, "a special source available for such an unusual expense." Most of the money forthe project was disguised in two line items in the military budget, and the rest was buriedin other appropriations. The secrecy of the Manhattan Project was so remarkable thatwhen the scientists at Los Alamos laboratory exploded an atomic device on U.S. soil inJuly 1945, the most decisive scientific achievement in human history, no one in thecountry knew a thing.

The Manhattan Project showed that the U.S. defense establishment could keep a secret.There were several others, such as its research into biological weapons, the interceptionof domestic cable transmissions, the wiretapping and bugging of First Lady EleanorRoosevelt, and much more. But the military had no monopoly when it came to spyingagainst American citizens. Indeed, no organization had the kind of open-ended mandatebequeathed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1940, Roosevelt authorized the FBI,directed by the obsessively paranoid J. Edgar Hoover, to engage in electroniceavesdropping against political spies, saboteurs, or merely suspicious individuals. Thisorder became the basic document that permitted later presidents to wiretap. Thirty-fiveyears later, Attorney General Levi testified that the FBI installed 2,465 microphones (bugs)against American citizens from 1940 to 1975, nearly all of which required break-ins. Thistotal derives only from the FBI files that remained intact after Hoover's death in 1972—muchhad been destroyed. Hoover also systematically collected blackmail informationagainst members of Congress, a substantial and secret effort that lasted for decades.

Compared with the wartime activities of the military or FBI, the birth of the Office ofStrategic Services (OSS) might seem a humble affair. It was not. Forerunner to the CIA,the OSS owed its existence to the great failure of American intelligence: the bombing ofPearl Harbor. Roosevelt established it on June 13, 1942, and placed Gen. William "WildBill" Donovan at its head. The mission of the OSS was to gather intelligence, but it soonbecame famous for its success in special operations, just as the CIA did in the post-warperiod. The OSS earned its romantic reputation from a long list of wartime successes,including its work with resistance movements in France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, andelsewhere.

The OSS successes prompted Donovan in late 1944 to plan the creation of an Americancentral intelligence authority headed by himself. Hoover, however, saw the plan as athreat to his own ambitions (at the time, he was running intelligence operations throughoutthe Western Hemisphere). Hoover obtained copies of Donovan's memo and leaked themto a Chicago Tribune reporter in January 1945. End of plan. Donovan also facedopposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which pigeonholed his plan. The OSS was anupstart, and with so many competitors in the American intelligence community, the birth ofthe CIA was no foregone conclusion.

Secretive, competitive, lawbreaking, and at times paranoid—into precisely this world wasthe UFO problem thrust. The very organizations of the new national security apparatusbecame those groups responsible for dealing with UFOs. Often the same people wereinvolved, a pattern that recurs throughout the scope of this study.

Closely related to the world of intelligence was the world of science. The Second WorldWar changed forever the relationship of professional scientists to the state. Shortly afterits conclusion, half of all scientists and technical personnel in America were working forthe Defense Department. The result was not only the most incredible leap in weaponsdevelopment in human history, but a leap in power for scientists themselves. Men whohad had to scrape for money in the 1930s now found themselves in positions of prestige,often above that of military leaders.

"Power scientists" were actively involved not only in the Manhattan Project and othersecret projects such as Paperclip (which imported German scientists after the war), but inthe UFO problem. Scientific names that cropped up in connection with one project wereoften tied to another. Names like Bush, Berkner, Bronk, Teller, Sarnoff, Page, Robertson,and Goudsmit would soon intersect with the UFO problem at some key juncture, and allwere involved in other projects involving extreme levels of secrecy, always in closecollaboration with military groups.

It is a matter of significance that such men of science, power, and secrecy would becomeinterested in the problem of unidentified flying objects.

Foo Fighters

Even today, little is known about foo fighters, the bizarre aerial phenomena encounteredby pilots of all countries during the war. Still, researchers over the years have collectedenough information to describe some strange goings-on. Perhaps the earliest foo fighterreport, a tame affair, dates from September 1941. In the early morning hours of a clearnight out in the Indian Ocean, a sailor aboard the SS Pulaski, a Polish vessel convertedfor the British military, saw "a strange globe glowing with greenish light about half the sizeof the full moon as it appears to us." He alerted a gunner, and the two watched the objectas it followed them for the next hour.

A not-so-tame incident occurred in Los Angeles on February 25, 1942. That night, anumber of unidentified craft flew over the city and seemingly caused a blackout. At least amillion residents awoke to air raid sirens at 2:25 A.M., and U.S. Army personnel fired1,430 rounds of antiaircraft shells to bring down what they assumed were Japaneseplanes. But these were not Japanese planes. George Marshall wrote a memorandum toPresident Roosevelt about the incident, which remained classified until 1974. Marshallconcluded that conventional aircraft were involved, probably "commercial sources,operated by enemy agents for purposes of spreading alarm, disclosing locations ofantiaircraft positions, and slowing production through blackout." Despite the barrage ofAmerican antiaircraft fire, none of these "commercial" planes were brought down, althoughseveral homes and buildings were destroyed, and six civilian deaths were attributed to thebarrage. Considering the carnage, the military's explanation was meager. U.S. NavySecretary Knox even denied that any aircraft had been over the city; he called the incidenta false alarm due to war nerves. The local press, needless to say, did not take this verywell. The Long Beach Independent noted that: "There is a mysterious reticence about thewhole affair and it appears some form of censorship is trying to halt discussion of thematter." It is noteworthy that for thirty years, until the release of the Marshallmemorandum, the Department of Defense claimed to have no record of the event. Fiveyears before Roswell, the military was already learning to clamp down on UFOs.

The very next day after "The Battle of Los Angeles," the crew of the Dutch Cruiser Trompin the Timor Sea saw "a large, illuminated disc approaching at terrific speed." The objectcircled above the ship for three or four hours, then flew off at an estimated speed of 3,000to 3,500 mph. Obviously, the officer on duty could not identify the object as any knownaircraft.

Many similar, baffling sightings occurred throughout the war. An RAF bomber over ZuiderZee in Holland in March 1942 saw a luminous orange disc or sphere following the plane,about one hundred or two hundred yards away. The tail gunner fired some rounds—noeffect—and the object departed at 1,000 mph. On August 12, 1942, a U.S. Marinesergeant in the Pacific saw a formation of about 150 objects, no wings or tails, wobblingslightly, not Japanese planes. He called it "the most awe-inspiring and yet frighteningspectacle I have ever seen in my life." On August 29, 1942, an Army Air Corps controltower operator named Michael Solomon in Columbus, Mississippi, saw two round reddishobjects descend near the AAC flying school, hover, accelerate, and speed away.

Such sightings continued through 1943 and 1944. In November 1944, a B-17 pilot inAustria reported being paced by an amber-colored, disc-shaped object. In January 1945,a pilot with the 415th Night Fighter Squadron was followed by three red and white lightedobjects which followed his evasive maneuvers. In France that month, an American pilotreported being paced by an object at around 360 mph before it "zoomed up into the sky."In March 1945, while in the Aleutian Islands, fourteen sailors aboard the U.S. attacktransport Delarof saw a dark sphere rise out of the ocean, follow a curved trajectory, andfly away after circling their ship.

The last significant foo fighter sighting occurred in the Pacific, and nearly brought down anAmerican plane. On August 28, 1945, less than three weeks after the atomic bombingsand Japanese surrender, twelve 5th Air Force intelligence specialists aboard a C-46 flewtoward Tokyo in advance of the occupation forces. As the plane approached Iwo Jima atten thousand feet, the crew saw three teardrop-shaped objects, brilliantly white—"likeburning magnesium"—and closing on a parallel course to the plane. The navigationalneedles went wild, the left engine faltered and spurted oil, the plane lost altitude, and thecrew prepared to ditch. Then, in a close formation, the objects faded into a cloud bank. Atthat moment, the plane's engines restarted, and the crew safely flew on. One of theplane's passengers was future UFO researcher Leonard Stringfield.

One would expect that events such as these warranted an investigation, and that is whatthey received. There were at least two official American investigations of foo fighters. TheU.S. 8th Air Force, under the command of General James Doolittle, conducted a study,although no copy of it has come to light. The report is said to have concluded that thesightings were possibly Axis experimental weapons, static electricity charges,misidentification of ordinary sights, or some kind of "mass hallucination." The young OSSalso investigated the phenomenon. At first its investigators believed the sightings to beGerman experimental craft, but soon discounted that theory. Donovan and his staffapparently settled on the notion that the objects, if that is what they could be called, wereunusual but harmless. The New York Times published a story on foo fighters on January2, 1945, under the title, "Balls of Fire Stalk U.S. Fighters in Night Assaults over Germany."The article suggested German "sky weapons" as the culprit. None of the Americaninvestigators knew that the Germans and Japanese had encountered the same unusualphenomena, and had explained them as secret Allied weapons.