Back went a snappy reply:  Everything is under control; each new report is being thoroughly analyzed by our experts; our vast files of reports are in tiptop shape; and in general things are hunky-dunky.  All UFO reports are hoaxes, hallucinations, and the misidentification of known objects.

Another wire from Washington:  Fine, Mr. Bob Ginna of Life is leaving for Dayton.  He wants to check some reports.

Bedlam in the raw.

Other magazines had printed UFO stories, and other reporters had visited ATIC, but they had always stayed in the offices of the top brass.  For some reason the name Life, the prospects of a feature story, and the feeling that this Bob Ginna was going to ask questions caused sweat to flow at ATIC.

Ginna arrived and the ATIC UFO “expert” talked to him.  Ginna later told me about the meeting.  He had a long list of questions about reports that had been made over the past four years and every time he asked a question, the “expert” would go tearing out of the room to try to find the file that had the answer.  I remember that day people spent a lot of time ripping open bundles of files and pawing through them like a bunch of gophers.  Many times, “I’m sorry, that’s classified,” got ATIC out of a tight spot.

Ginna, I can assure you, was not at all impressed by the “efficiently operating UFO project.”  People weren’t buying the hoax, hallucination, and misidentification stories quite as readily as the Air Force believed.

Where it started or who started it I don’t know, but about two months after the visit from Life’s representative the official interest in UFO’s began to pick up.  Lieutenant Jerry Cummings, who had recently been recalled to active duty, took over the project.

Lieutenant Cummings is the type of person who when given a job to do does it.  In a few weeks the operation of the UFO project had improved considerably.  But the project was still operating under political, economic, and manpower difficulties.  Cummings’ desk was right across from mine, so I began to get a UFO indoctrination via bull sessions.  Whenever Jerry found a good report in the pile—­and all he had to start with was a pile of papers and files—­he’d toss it over for me to read.

Some of the reports were unimpressive, I remember.  But a few were just the opposite.  Two that I remember Jerry’s showing me made me wonder how the UFO’s could be sloughed off so lightly.  The two reports involved movies taken by Air Force technicians at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico.

The guided missile test range at White Sands is fully instrumented to track high, fast-moving objects—­the guided missiles.  Located over an area of many square miles there are camera stations equipped with cinetheodolite cameras and linked together by a telephone system.