"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.

A few hoaxes and crackpot reports rounded out Mr. Shallet's article.

The reaction to the article wasn't what the Air Force and ATIC
expected. They had thought that the public would read the article and
toss it, and all thoughts of UFO's, into the trash can. But they
didn't. Within a few days the frequency of UFO reports hit an all-
time high. People, both military and civilian, evidently didn't much
care what Generals Vandenberg, Norstad, Le May, or Colonel McCoy
thought; they didn't believe what they were seeing were
hallucinations, reflections, or balloons. What they were seeing were
UFO's, whatever UFO's might be.

I heard many times from ex-Project Grudge people that Shallet had
"crossed" them, he'd vaguely mentioned that there might be a case for
the UFO. This made him pro-saucer.

A few days after the last installment of the _Post_ article the Air
Force gave out a long and detailed press release completely debunking
UFO's, but this had no effect. It only seemed to add to the confusion.

The one thing that Shallet's article accomplished was to plant a
seed of doubt in many people's minds. Was the Air Force telling the
truth about UFO's? The public and a large percentage of the military
didn't know what was going on behind ATIC's barbed-wire fence but
they did know that a lot of reliable people had seen UFO's. Airline
pilots are considered responsible people--airline pilots had seen
UFO's. Experienced military pilots and ground officers are
responsible people--they'd seen UFO's. Scientists, doctors, lawyers,
merchants, and plain old Joe Doakes had seen UFO's, and their friends
knew that they we