that no other aircraft except the Cub were in the area.  Gorman could still see the light so he decided to find out what it was.  He pushed the F-51 over into a turn and cut in toward the light.  He could plainly see the Cub outlined against the city lights below, but he could see no outline of a body near the mysterious light.  He gave the ’51 more power and closed to within a 1,000 yards, close enough to estimate that the light was 6 to 8 inches in diameter, was sharply outlined, and was blinking on and off.  Suddenly the light became steady as it apparently put on power; it pulled into a sharp left bank and made a pass at the tower.  The light zoomed up with the F-51 in hot pursuit.  At 7,000 feet it made a turn.  Gorman followed and tried to cut inside the light’s turn to get closer to it but he couldn’t do it.  The light made another turn, and this time the ’51 closed on a collision course.  The UFO appeared to try to ram the ’51, and Gorman had to dive to get out of the way.  The UFO passed over the ’51’s canopy with only a few feet to spare.  Again both the F-51 and the object turned and closed on each other head on, and again the pilot had to dive out to prevent a collision.  All of a sudden the light began to climb and disappeared.

“I had the distinct impression that its maneuvers were controlled by thought or reason,” Gorman later told ATIC investigators.

Four other observers at Fargo partially corroborated his story, an oculist, Dr. A. D. Cannon, the Cub’s pilot, and his passenger, Einar Neilson.  They saw a light “moving fast,” but did not witness all the maneuvers that Gorman reported.  Two CAA employees on the ground saw a light move over the field once.

Project Sign investigators rushed to Fargo.  They had wired ahead to ground the plane.  They wanted to check it over before it flew again.  When they arrived, only a matter of hours after the incident, they went over the airplane, from the prop spinner to the rudder trim tab, with a Geiger counter.  A chart in the official report shows where every Geiger counter reading was taken.  For comparison they took readings on a similar airplane that hadn’t been flown for several days.  Gorman’s airplane was more radioactive.  They rushed around, got sworn statements from the tower operators and oculist, and flew back to Dayton.

In the file on the Gorman Incident I found an old memo reporting the meeting that was held upon the ATIC team’s return from Fargo.  The memo concluded that some weird things were taking place.

The historians of the UFO agree.  Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major and a professional writer, author of The Flying Saucers Are Real and Flying Saucers from Outer Space, needles the Air Force about the Gorman Incident, pointing out how, after feebly hinting that the light could have been a lighted weather balloon, they dropped it like a hot UFO.  Some person by the name of Wilkins,