Alien Agenda: Why They Came, Why They Stayed Page 4

  The briefing deteriorated into a lively discussion of what should be done and how things should be investigated.

  Numerous airplane pilots have seen strange things in the sky every day since the radar sightings on 19 July. The problem is growing, and the Air Force is trying to determine what, if anything, to tell the public.

  The few in the know, the illuminati of Roswell, conducted numerous, nervous meetings. All existing projectors were ordered to military bases around Washington, and pressure to link the projector to radar-controlled firing was redoubled. But it was all too little, too late. At 10:30 PM, 26 July, all hell broke loose.

  Below is a transcript of an article that appeared in the Washington Post on 29 July, 1952. Most of what is known to the public about these events is included. The scary part, the part that would panic Americans, is to this day the government’s most-guarded secret.

  Seen by Radar and Eyes

  ‘Saucer’ Outran Jet, Pilot Says Air Force Puts Lid on Inquiry

  By Paul Sampson Fort, Reporter

  Military secrecy veils an investigation of the mysterious, glowing, aerial objects that showed up on radar screens in the Washington area Saturday night for the second consecutive week.

  A jet pilot sent up by the Air Defense Command to investigate the latter objects reported he was unable to overtake glowing lights moving near Andrews Air Base.

  Air Force spokesmen said yesterday they could report only that an investigation was being made into the sighting of the objects on the radar screen in the CAA Air Route Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport, and on two other radar screens. Methods of the investigation were classified as secret, a spokesman said.

  The same source reported an expert from the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, Dayton, Ohio, was here last week investigating the objects sighted July 19. It may be more than a month before this inquiry is evaluated and the information released, it was said.

  The expert has been identified as Capt. E. J. Ruppelt. Reached by telephone at his home in Dayton yesterday, Ruppelt said he could make no comment on his activity in Washington.

  Capt. Ruppelt confirmed that he was in Washington last week, but said he had not come here to investigate the mysterious objects. He recalled he did make an investigation after hearing of the objects, but could not say what he investigated. The captain said he had been informed of the latest sightings of the lights.

  Another Air Force spokesman said here yesterday the Air Force is taking all steps necessary to evaluate the sightings.

  “The intelligence people,” this spokesman explained, “sent someone over to the control center at the time of the sightings, and did whatever necessary to make the proper evaluation.”

  Asked whether the radar equipment might have malfunctioned, the spokesman said radar, like the compass, is not a perfect instrument and is subject to error. He thought, however, the investigation would be made by persons acquainted with the problems of radar in the area that picked up the objects. An employee of the National Airport control tower said the radar scope there picked up very weak “blips” of the objects. The tower radar, however, is for short ranges and is not as powerful as that at the center. Radar at Andrews Air Force Base also registered the objects from about 8:30 PM until midnight. Andrews’ radar located them about seven miles south of the base.

  On Screen till 3 AM

  The objects, “flying saucers” or what have you, appeared on the radar scope at the airport center at 9:08 PM. Varying from four to 12 in number, the objects were seen on the screen until 3 AM, when they disappeared.

  At 11:25 PM, two F-94 jet fighters from the Air Defense Command squadron at Newcastle, Del., capable of attaining 600-miIe-per-hour speeds, took off to investigate the objects.

  Airline, civil and military pilots described the objects as looking like the lighted end of a cigarette or a cluster of orange and red lights.

  One jet pilot observed four lights in the vicinity of Andrews Air Force Base, but was not able to overtake them, and they disappeared in about two minutes.

  The same pilot observed a steady white light 10 miles east of Mount Vernon at 11:49 PM. The light, about five miles from him, faded in a minute. The lights also were observed in the Beltsville, Md., vicinity. At 1:40 AM, two other F-94 jet fighters took off and scanned the area until 2:20 AM but did not make any sighting.

  Visible in Two Ways

  Although unidentified objects have been picked up on radar before, the incidents of the last two Saturdays are believed to be the first time they have been spotted on radar—while visible to the human eye.

  Besides the pilots who last Saturday saw the lights, a woman living on Mississippi Ave. told The Post she saw a “very bright light” streaking across the sky toward Andrews Base about 11:45 PM. Then a second object, with a tail like a comet, whizzed by, and a few seconds later, a third passed in a different direction toward Suitland, she said.

  Radar operators plotted the speed of Saturday night’s “visitors” at from 38 to 90 miles an hour, but one jet pilot reported faster speeds for the light he saw.

  The jet pilot reported he had no apparent “closing speed” when he attempted to reach the lights he saw near Andrews. This means the lights were moving at least as fast as his top speed—a maximum of 600 miles per hour.

  One person who saw the lights when they first appeared in this area did not see them last night. He is E. W. Chambers, an engineer at Radio Station WRC, who spotted the lights while working early the morning of July 20 at the station’s Hyattsville tower.

  Chambers said he was sorry he had seen the lights because he had been skeptical about “flying saucers” before. Now, he said, he sort of “wonders” and worries about the whole thing.

  Leon Davidson, 804 South Irving St., Arlington, a chemical engineer who has made an exhaustive study of flying saucers as a hobby, said yesterday reports of saucers in the East have been relatively rare.

  Davidson has studied the official Air Force report on the saucers, including some of the secret portions never made public, and analyzed all the data in the report.

  Davidson, whose study of saucers is impressively detailed and scientific, said he believes the lights are American “aviation products”—probably circular flying wings, using new-type jet engines that permit rapid acceleration and relatively low speeds. He believes they are either new fighters, guided missiles or piloted guided missiles.

  He cited some of the recent jet fighters, including the Navy’s new F-4D which has a radical bat wing, as examples of what he thinks the objects might resemble.

  Davidson thinks the fact that the lights have been seen in this area indicates the authorities may be ready to disclose the new aircraft in the near future. Previously, most of the ‘verified’ saucers were seen over sparsely inhabited areas, Davidson explained, and now, when they appear here, it may indicate that secrecy is not so important any more.

  END ARTICLE WASHINGTON POST 29 JULY 1952

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The article in the Washington Post provides a fairly accurate account of the known events of that night.

  The military was not entirely forthcoming about the events of that night. The sin of omission is such a small one, especially if it is for our own good. Here’s the rest of the story. Mea culpa.

  At 1:00 AM, 27 July, 1952, UHF radios in F-94s flying over Washington, DC and at Andrews Air Force base began receiving messages of unknown origins. The messages were in code. The message repeated itself every minute until 2:00 AM. When the transmission recording was played back, it sounded like long beeps at various pitches. The tapes were sent to the Armed Forces Security Agency, a short-lived branch of the military with the responsibility of monitoring and decoding foreign transmissions.

  General Twining took command of security for the tape. He authorized one copy to be made and kept in the safe in his offices. The original was to be used by AFSA and kept in their safe at all times when not in use. A j
unior officer from Twining’s staff was assigned to be with the tape at all times when it was outside the safe, and round-the-clock guards were posted while the tapes were in the safe at night.

  The cryptologists at AFSA went through the usual deciphering steps, including slowing the tape down and playing it backwards, which produced only longer, deeper beeps. Then, on the second day, they decided to play the tape on a special player that allowed them to control the speed to as slow as it would play. It worked.

  The message was a series of letters, numbers, and apparently random spaces. But they made no sense. It was a code within a code. The chief cryptologist wrote the code on a blackboard and called a brainstorming session. An hour later, a teletype operator came in to request a signoff on the receipt of a high-priority intercept. He waited at the back of the room until there was a break in the conversation. Then he softly stated what was obvious to him: “That message is for SIGABA.”

  The room fell deadly silent.

  SIGABA was a mechanical ciphering machine developed by the US in World War II. In addition to operating like a teletype machine, it employed five discs that randomized characters when typed in or printed out on the paper tape. In order for this to work, every machine had to have each of the five discs individually set to a specific starting point. This starting point was changed every day.

  Once it sank in, the math-genius cryptologists followed the sergeant to his machine and handed him a sheet of paper with the code.

  The young man was no dummy. He flipped his calendar back to 27 July, reset his machine for that date, and typed. The tape printed out a series of numbers and regular spaces. The captain from Twining’s staff picked up a phone and called his boss.

  Twining arrived in the nick of time. The mathematically minded cryptologists had not yet figured out what the message meant, but they would have in another half hour. General Twining gathered everyone into the conference room. He walked to the blackboard and erased the original code.

  He addressed the audience in a soft but threatening voice. “You are to erase this from your minds. You are to give Captain Dolan your notepads, all copies of anything to do with this project, the original tape, and the teletype printout. What you have done here is to never leave this room. This is a matter of the highest national security. Do you understand?”

  The crowd answered to the affirmative with nods and whispers. The materials were gathered quickly, and Twining and his staff departed.

  General Twining returned to his offices, handwrote a report, then carried it to Truman.

  The president’s schedule is almost always full. To show up at the White House without an appointment is a waste of time—unless you are bringing vital and urgent information. Even then, the president has to juggle meetings to work the messenger in without upsetting foreign dignitaries, Congressional leaders, or whoever happened to be in the Oval Office at the time.

  Fortunately for Twining, Truman was not at the White House; he was in his temporary home across the street, The Blair House. The White House was undergoing major reconstruction. A piano leg had punched through the ceiling some months earlier, and it was decided the White House needed fixing up a bit.

  Harry and Bess Truman had elected to move into the Blair House, normally a multiunit residence used for visiting dignitaries. President Truman had claimed one of the upstairs rooms as his office, and would see most of his familiar visitors there.

  An eager Truman kept Twining waiting less than thirty minutes. Twining handed Truman his one-page summary as they sat on a sofa.

  The president read the heading: Coded Transmission from Flying Saucer Near Washington, 1 AM, 27 July 1952.

  “What do the numbers mean, Nate?” Truman asked, studying the paper with a down-turned mouth.

  “They are coordinates, Mr. President,” Twining replied, pointing to the first and last set of numbers. “See, sir, the sequence begins and ends with the same set. The entire transmission was this message repeated every minute.”

  “What does it mean?” Truman knew Twining would never have barged in if it weren’t of the utmost importance.

  “For one, our code is breached. This was broadcast with the correct code settings for the day and intended for our decoding machine.” Twining was flushing. The AFSA reported to the JCS, and he shared responsibility for the failure.

  Truman sighed heavily. During the Cold War, Soviet agents were thought to be everywhere, monitoring everything we did. If the Soviets cracked the code, it could be disastrous. But then Truman realized the Soviets would never let us know they knew.

  “The second thing is what the coordinates represent. The first and last one is the exact crash site for Roswell. The others are for every UFO we have shot down.” Twining let his words hang in the air.

  Truman looked him in the eye. “Hell,” he said. “They caught us with our hand in their cookie jar. Okay, they know a hell of a lot more about us then we do them.” Truman paused, looking at the coordinates written on the paper in his hand. “What’s your best guess?” he asked Twining.

  “They have a defense against the projector, which means they probably have offensive capabilities but haven’t yet used them.” Twining paused. His family had fought in every war in American history. His name, Nathan Farragut Twining, carried the military banner of his forefathers. He weighed what would be expected of him based on his answer to Truman’s question then continued. “They haven’t started shooting, so they must want to talk.”

  Truman looked over his wire-rimmed glasses, studying Twining as if making up his mind. “Okay, let’s do it. Figure out how to communicate to them that we want to talk. Get back to me tomorrow.”

  The president walked Twining to the door. “I think I would feel better if they had shot back. Wanting to talk to us is, in a way,” Truman paused, “more frightening. It’s like we are the Indians meeting the Dutch on Manhattan Island. No matter what we do, we are going to get the short end of their stick.”

  Truman closed the door and went back to his desk. He wrote a note for his secretary to arrange a lunch meeting for tomorrow in his study.

  Twining slid into the backseat and his driver closed the door of his black Lincoln Town Car. He had decided to broadcast his message in the same code they had used to wake us up. He hoped that would be enough. He had commanded strategic bombers that took the war to the enemy’s heartland with unemotional, high-altitude precision. Diplomacy, with humans or aliens, was not to his liking. He was concerned about having a viable backup plan. He should not have worried.

  A clock, a gift from Josephine Bonaparte to President Madison and his wife Dolley, sat on the mantle in Truman’s study. The beautiful, gold casing originated in Paris; the workings were German. The clock survived the burning of the White House in the War of 1812 because Dolley thought Josephine a French tart in empress’s clothing and had the clock stored in a warehouse with other gifts from foreign dignitaries.

  Dolley’s clock sat on the mantle in the Truman Study in the Blair House the night Harry Truman from Missouri, the Show Me State, had his first close encounter of the fourth kind. The German part of the clock chimed the half hour before midnight.

  Truman usually turned in around 10:00 and rose before 5:00 AM. That night he was too anxious to sleep; he was busy worrying about his coming meeting with Twining and the rest of the Roswell illuminati. The clock’s soft chime did not break his concentration on the reports he read at his desk.

  The nausea did. A miserable wave rolled through him. Vomit rose. He felt cold, sweaty, clammy, pale, and flushed all at once. His vision blurred. There was ungodly ringing in his ears. Vertigo made the room spin sickeningly. He tried to stand but nothing worked. He slumped, helpless in his chair. He felt he was asleep, but he was not.

  The nausea subsided a bit and Truman opened his eyes. His chin rested on his chest so that his head cocked to the right. He had to roll his eyes up to see across his desk. There sat three men. Truman tried to focus. What he thought he saw were small
men, wearing trench coats buttoned at the neck and fedora hats pulled down in the front in the fashion of Roaring Twenties gangsters. Their faces were obscured by shadows, but he thought they wore glasses.

  They spoke directly to his mind, without sound, or the movement of lips. In the midst of this crisis, Truman thought of James Forrestal. “Oh God! Jim, Jim, what have I done?”

  He did not know how long he sat, paralyzed, listening to the little men’s odd accent. Hadn’t Jim Forrestal mentioned the peculiar accents of the men following him? Hadn’t Forrestal claimed they were small, ‘foreign’-looking men? He and the rest of the team believed Forrestal to be going insane. Forrestal did crack, but now Truman knew why, and he understood why Forrestal fought tooth and nail to stop all the post-Roswell activities. He sat for what seemed a very long time. He did not remember speaking with them, only listening, but surely he must have; they seemed to answer his questions.

  Another wave of nausea, a blinding bolt of a headache and, as he blacked out, he vividly remembered the problems of James Forrestal.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before I left for Mexico three years ago, I—with the help of a friend—made preparations for life on the run from the US government.

  Robert Cleburne is the genius who helped make my life on the lam possible. We met fairly early in our careers as civil servants.

  In the 1970s, Bob and I were programmers for the CIA. This was before the supercomputers; we started on Univac 1050-IIIs and dutifully typed our cobalt code into teletype-like machines that created punch cards that filled the trays that were fed into the computer in order for it to function. In those days, the computers we worked with were in a basement at Langley Field. The two computers took up most of a twenty-by-forty-foot room. The room was sealed and vented to make it dust free, and the temperature was never more than one degree off the ideal temperature of sixty-six degrees.

  Bob and I became good friends. Working with him made me an exceptional programmer for those times, but I never could hold a candle to Bob. He seemed to channel code from the higher power.