jet airplane because there was no sound. It was not a
searchlight because there were none on the air base. It was not an
automobile spotlight because a spotlight will not produce the type of
light the sergeants described. As a double check, however, both men
were questioned on this point. They stated firmly that they had seen
hundreds of searchlights and spotlights playing on clouds, and that
this was not what they saw.

Beyond these limited possibilities the sergeants' UFO discourages
fruitful speculation. The object remains unidentified.

The UFO reports made by the two colonels and the two master
sergeants are typical of hundreds of other good UFO reports which
carry the verdict, "Conclusion unknown."

Some of these UFO reports have been publicized, but many have not.
Very little information pertaining to UFO's was withheld from the
press--if the press knew of the occurrence of specific sightings. Our
policy on releasing information was to answer only direct questions
from the press. If the press didn't know about a given UFO incident,
they naturally couldn't ask questions about it. Consequently such
stories were never released. In other instances, when the particulars
of a UFO sighting were released, they were only the bare facts about
what was reported. Any additional information that might have been
developed during later investigations and analyses was not released.

There is a great deal of interest in UFO's and the interest shows no
signs of diminishing. Since the first flying saucer skipped across
the sky in the summer of 1947, thousands of words on this subject
have appeared in every newspaper and most magazines in the United
States. During a six-month period in 1952 alone 148 of the nation's
leading newspapers carried a total of over 16,000 items about flying
saucers.

During July 1952 reports of flying saucers sighted over Washington,
D.C., cheated the Democratic National Convention out of precious
headline space.

The subject of flying saucers, which has generated more unscientific
behavior than any other topic of modern times, has been debated at
the meetings of professional scientific societies, causing scientific
tempers to flare where unemotional objectivity is supposed to reign
supreme.

Yet these thousands of written words and millions of spoken words--
all attesting to the general interest--have generated more heat than
light. Out of this avalanche of print and talk, the full, factual,
tru