e H-
bomb test was canceled at the last minute because we couldn't get
space on an airplane. But the crews of Navy and Air Force security
forces who did go out to the tests were thoroughly briefed to look
for UFO's, and they were given the procedures on how to track and
report them. Back at Dayton we stood by to make quick analysis of any
reports that might come in--none came. Nothing that fell into the UFO
category was seen during the entire Project Ivy series of atomic shots.

By December work on the planning phase of our instrumentation
program was completed. During the two months we had been working on
it we had considered everything from giving Ground Observer Corps
spotters simple wooden tracking devices to building special radars
and cameras. We had talked over our problems with the people at
Wright Field who knew about missile-tracking equipment, and we had
consulted the camera technicians at the Air Force Aerial
Reconnaissance Laboratory. Astronomers explained their equipment and
the techniques to use, and we went to Rome, New York, and Boston to
enlist the aid of the people who develop the Air Force's electronic
equipment.

Our final plan called for visual spotting stations to be established
all over northern New Mexico. We'd picked this test location because
northern New Mexico still consistently produced more reports than any
other area in the U.S. These visual spotting stations would be
equipped with a sighting device similar to a gun sight on a bomber.
All the operator would have to do would be to follow the UFO with the
tracking device, and the exact time and the UFO's azimuth and
elevation angles would be automatically recorded. The visual spotting
stations would all be tied together with an interphone system, so
that as soon as the tracker at one station saw something he could
alert the other spotters in the area. If two stations tracked the
same object, we could immediately compute its speed and altitude.

This visual spotting net would be tied into the existing radar
defense net in the Albuquerque-Los Alamos area. At each radar site we
proposed that a long focal-length camera be synchronized to the
turning radar antenna, so that any time the operator saw a target he
could press a button and photograph the portion of the sky exactly
where the radar said a UFO was located. These cameras would actually
be astronomical telescopes, so that even the smallest light or object
could be photographed.

In