men that I have equally as frequently been accused of keeping
prisoner, I turned my command over to Al/c Max Futch and walked out
the door into civilian life with separation orders in hand.

The UFO's must have known that I was leaving because the day I found
out that officers with my specialty, technical intelligence, were no
longer on the critical list and that I could soon get out of the
service, they really put on a show. The show they put on is still the
best UFO report in the Air Force files.

I first heard about the sighting about two o'clock on the morning of
August 13, 1953, when Max Futch called me from ATIC. A few minutes
before a wire had come in carrying a priority just under that
reserved for flashing the word the U.S. has been attacked. Max had
been called over to ATIC by the OD to see the report, and he thought
that I should see it. I was a little hesitant to get dressed and go
out to the base, so I asked Max what he thought about the report. His
classic answer will go down in UFO history, "Captain," Max said in
his slow, pure Louisiana drawl, "you know that for a year I've read
every flying saucer report that's come in and that I never really
believed in the things." Then he hesitated and added, so fast that I
could hardly understand him, "But you should read _this_ wire." The
speed with which he uttered this last statement was in itself enough
to convince me. When Max talked fast, something was important.

A half hour later I was at ATIC--just in time to get a call from the
Pentagon. Someone else had gotten out of bed to read his copy of the
wire. I used the emergency orders that I always kept in my desk and
caught the first airliner out of Dayton to Rapid City, South Dakota.
I didn't call the 4602nd because I wanted to investigate this one
personally. I talked to everyone involved in the incident and pieced
together an amazing story.

Shortly after dark on the night of the twelfth, the Air Defense
Command radar station at Ellsworth AFB, just east of Rapid City, had
received a call from the local Ground Observer Corps filter center. A
lady spotter at Black Hawk, about 10 miles west of Ellsworth, had
reported an extremely bright light low on the horizon, off to the
northeast. The radar had been scanning an area to the west, working a
jet fighter in some practice patrols, but when they got the report
they moved the sector scan to the northeast quadrant. There was a
target exactly where the lady repo