The article was typical of the many flying saucer stories that were to follow in the later years of UFO history, all written from material obtained from the Air Force.  Shallet’s article casually admitted that a few UFO sightings couldn’t be explained, but the reader didn’t have much chance to think about this fact because 99 per cent of the story was devoted to the anti-saucer side of the problem.  It was the typical negative approach.  I know that the negative approach is typical of the way that material is handed out by the Air Force because I was continually being told to “tell them about the sighting reports we’ve solved—­don’t mention the unknowns.”  I was never ordered to tell this, but it was a strong suggestion and in the military when higher headquarters suggests, you do.

Shallet’s article started out by psychologically conditioning the reader by using such phrases as “the great flying saucer scare,” “rich, full-blown screwiness,” “fearsome freaks,” and so forth.  By the time the reader gets to the meat of the article he feels like a rich, full-blown jerk for ever even thinking about UFO’s.

He pointed out how the “furor” about UFO reports got so great that the Air Force was “forced” to investigate the reports reluctantly.  He didn’t mention that two months after the first UFO report ATIC had asked for Project Sign since they believed that UFO’s did exist.  Nor did it mention the once Top Secret Estimate of the Situation that also concluded that UFO’s were real.  In no way did the article reflect the excitement and anxiety of the age of Project Sign when secret conferences preceded and followed every trip to investigate a UFO report.  This was the Air Force being “forced” into reluctantly investigating the UFO reports.

Laced through the story were the details of several UFO sightings; some new and some old, as far as the public was concerned.  The original UFO report by Kenneth Arnold couldn’t be explained.  Arnold, however, had sold his story to Fate magazine and in the same issue of Fate were stories with such titles as “Behind the Etheric Veil” and “Invisible Beings Walk the Earth,” suggesting that Arnold’s story might fall into the same category.  The sightings where the Air Force had the answer had detailed explanations.  The ones that were unknowns were mentioned, but only in passing.

Many famous names were quoted.  The late General Hoyt S. Vanden-berg, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, had seen a flying saucer but it was just a reflection on the windshield of his B-17.  General Lauris Norstad’s UFO was a reflection of a star on a cloud, and General Curtis E. Le May found out that one out of six UFO’s was a balloon; Colonel McCoy, then chief of ATIC, had seen lots of UFO’s.  All were reflections from distant airplanes.  In other words, nobody who is anybody in the Air Force believes in flying saucers.

Figures in the top echelons of the military had spoken.