I gave him an unqualified “No.”  We wanted more positive proof, and until we had it, UFO’s would remain unidentified flying objects and no more.

The horizontal shaking of heads illustrated some of the group’s thinking.

We had plans for getting more positive proof, however, and I said that just as soon as we returned to Major Sadowski’s office I’d tell them what we contemplated doing.

We moved out onto the sidewalk in front of the club and, after discussing a few more sightings, went back into the security area to Sadowski’s office and I laid out our plans.

First of all, in November or December the U.S. was going to shoot the first H-bomb during Project Ivy.  Although this was Top Secret at the time, it was about the most poorly kept secret in history—­ everybody seemed to know all about it.  Some people in the Pentagon had the idea that there were beings, earthly or otherwise, who might be interested in our activities in the Pacific, as they seemed to be in Operation Mainbrace.  Consequently Project Blue Book had been directed to get transportation to the test area to set up a reporting net, brief people on how to report, and analyze their reports on the spot.

Secondly, Project Blue Book was working on plans for an extensive system to track UFO’s by instruments.  Brigadier General Garland, who had been General Samford’s Deputy Director for Production and who had been riding herd on the UFO project for General Samford, was now chief at ATIC, having replaced Colonel Dunn, who went to the Air War College.  General Garland had long been in favor of trying to get some concrete information, either positive or negative, about the UFO’s.  This planned tracking system would replace the defraction grid cameras that were still being developed at ATIC.

Thirdly, as soon as we could we were planning to gather together a group of scientists and let them spend a full week or two studying the UFO problem.

When I left ADC, Major Sadowski and crew were satisfied that we weren’t just sitting around twiddling our UFO reports.

During the fall of 1952 reports continued to drop off steadily.  By December we were down to the normal average of thirty per month, with about 20 per cent of these falling into the “Unknown” category.

Our proposed trip to the Pacific to watch for UFO’s during the H-bomb test was canceled at the last minute because we couldn’t get space on an airplane.  But the crews of Navy and Air Force security forces who did go out to the tests were thoroughly briefed to look for UFO’s, and they were given the procedures on how to track and report them.  Back at Dayton we stood by to make quick analysis of any reports that might come in—­none came.  Nothing that fell into the UFO category was seen during the entire Project Ivy series of atomic shots.