shaped objects. The photo looked good, but there
was one flaw, the men weren't looking at the UFO's; they were looking
off to the right of them. I'm inclined to agree with Captain Hardin
of Blue Book--the photographer just fouled up on his double exposure.

Sightings spread across southern Europe, and at the end of October,
the Yugoslav Government expressed official interest. Belgrade
newspapers said that a "thoughtful inquiry" would be set up, since
reports had come from "control tower operators, weather stations and
hundreds of farmers." But the part of the statement that swung the
most weight was, "Scientists in astronomical observatories have seen
these strange objects with their own eyes."

During 1954 and the early part of 1955 my friends in Europe tried to
keep me up-to-date on all of the better reports, but this soon
approached a full-time job. Airline pilots saw them, radar picked
them up, and military pilots chased them. The press took sides, and
the controversy that had plagued the U.S. since 1947 bloomed forth in
all its confusion.

An ex-Air Chief Marshal in the RAF, Lord Dowding, went to bat for
the UFO's. The Netherlands Air Chief of Staff said they can't be.
Herman Oberth, the father of the German rocket development, said that
the UFO's were definitely interplanetary vehicles.

In Belgium a senator put the screws on the Secretary of Defense--he
wanted an answer. The Secretary of Defense questioned the idea that
the saucers were "real" and said that the military wasn't officially
interested. In France a member of parliament received a different
answer--the French military was interested. The French General Staff
had set up a committee to study UFO reports.

In Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, American Ambassador to Italy, said that
she had seen a UFO and had no idea what it could be.

Halfway around the world, in Australia, the UFO's were busy too. At
Canberra Airport the pilot of an RAAF Hawker Sea Fury and a ground
radar station teamed up to get enough data to make an excellent radar-
visual report.

In early 1955 the flap began to die down about as rapidly as it had
flared up, but it had left its mark--many more believers. Even the
highly respected British aviation magazine, _Aeroplane_, had
something to say. One of the editors took a long, hard look at the
over-all UFO picture and concluded, "Really, old chaps--I don't know."

Probably the most unique part of the whole European Flap was the
fact th