The scientist was not surprised that I hadn’t heard the story of the colonel’s group.  All the people involved, he said, had kept it quiet in order to avoid ridicule.  The scientist added that he would be glad to give me all the data he had on the sightings of his “mineral club,” and he told me where to get the information about the two astronomers and the colonel’s group.

Armed with the scientist’s notes and recorder tapes, I left for my office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton.

With the blessings of my chief, I started to run down the rest of the radiation information.  The data we had, especially that from the scientist’s “mineral club,” had been thoroughly analyzed, but we thought that since we now had access to more general data something new and more significant might be found.

First I contacted the government agency for which all of the people involved in these investigations had been working, the scientists who recorded the original incident, the scientist and his “mineral club,” the colonel’s group, and the rest.

The people in the agency were very co-operative but stressed the fact that the activities I was investigating were strictly the extracurricular affairs of the scientists involved, had no official sanction, and should not be tied in with the agency in any way, shape, or form.  This closed-door reaction was typical of how the words “flying saucer” seem to scare some people.

They did help me locate the report on the original incident, however, and since it seemed to be the only existing copy, I arranged to borrow it.  About this same time we located the two graduate astronomy students in New Mexico.  Both now had their Ph.D.’s and held responsible jobs on highly classified projects.  They repeated their story, which I had first heard from the scientist, but had kept no record of their activities.

On one occasion, just before dawn on a Sunday morning, they were on the roof, making some meteorological observations.  One of them was listening to the Geiger counter when he detected a definite increase in the clicking.

Just as the frequency of the clicks reached its highest peak—­almost a steady buzz—­a large fireball, described by them as “spectacular,” flashed across the sky.  Both of the observers had seen several of the green fireballs and said that this object was similar in all respects except that the color was a brilliant blue-white.

With the disappearance of the fireball, the counter once more settled down to a steady click per second.  They added that once before they had detected a similar increase in the frequency of the clicks but had seen nothing in the sky.

In telling their story, both astronomers stressed the point that their data were open to a great deal of criticism, mainly because of the limited instrumentation they had used.  We agreed.  Still their work tended to support the findings of the more elaborate and systematic radiation investigations.