I was told that reporters just didn’t believe it when I tried to find out why the Grudge Report hadn’t been mentioned in the newspapers.  I got the story from a newspaper correspondent in Washington whom I came to know pretty well and who kept me filled in on the latest UFO scuttlebutt being passed around the Washington press circles.  He was one of those humans who had a brain like a filing cabinet; he could remember everything about everything.  UFO’s were a hobby of his.  He remembered when the Grudge Report came out; in fact, he’d managed to get a copy of his own.  He said the report had been quite impressive, but only in its ambiguousness, illogical reasoning, and very apparent effort to write off all UFO reports at any cost.  He, personally, thought that it was a poor attempt to put out a “fake” report, full of misleading information, to cover up the real story.  Others, he told me, just plainly and simply didn’t know what to think—­they were confused.

And they had every right to be confused.

As an example of the way that many of the better reports of the 1947- 49 period were “evaluated” let’s take the report of a pilot who tangled with a UFO near Washington, D.C., on the night of November 18, 1948.

At about 9:45 EST I noticed a light moving generally north to south over Andrews AFB.  It appeared to be one continuous, glowing white light.  I thought it was an aircraft with only one landing light so I moved in closer to check, as I wanted to get into the landing pattern.  I was well above landing traffic altitude at this time.  As I neared the light I noticed that it was not another airplane.  Just then it began to take violent evasive action so I tried to close on it.  I made first contact at 2,700 feet over the field.  I switched my navigation lights on and off but got no answer so I went in closer—­ but the light quickly flew up and over my airplane.  I then tried to close again but the light turned.  I tried to turn inside of its turn and, at the same time, get the light between the moon and me, but even with my flaps lowered I couldn’t turn inside the light.  I never did manage to get into a position where the light was silhouetted against the moon.

I chased the light up and down and around for about 10 minutes, then as a last resort I made a pass and turned on my landing lights.  Just before the object made a final tight turn and headed for the coast I saw that it was a dark gray oval-shaped object, smaller than my T-6.  I couldn’t tell if the light was on the object or if the whole object had been glowing.

Two officers and a crew chief, a master sergeant, completely corroborated the pilot’s report.  They had been standing on the flight line and had witnessed the entire incident.

The Air Weather Service, who had been called in as experts on weather balloons, read this report.  They said, “Definitely not a balloon.”  Dr. Hynek said, “No astronomical explanation.”  It wasn’t another airplane and it wasn’t a hallucination.