BETWEEN THE PEOPLE and government today lies a double standard of morality. Anything remotely scientific has become by government definition a matter of military security first; hence of secrecy, something which does not breed security but fear. If we see anything unusual, even in the skies, we the people must either freeze our lips, like a Russian peasant at the sight of a commissar, or give our names, addresses, business connections, and testimony to be screened and filtered by anonymous intelligence officers.
Feared and respected by many people, these anonymous creatures can deny what we say, ridicule what we say, and sometimes (and in an increasing number of countries) jail us for what we say especially if our timing does not match to the second their intended official pronouncements on the subject.
Just as the communists have made a god of their Uncle Joe, we have begun to deify our faceless spokesman. Both should be fought by free men as word oppressors. Without going into it at too great a length, this all ties up with the loss of faith in formal religion, which forces people to cling to the New Sublimation.
The only way for a free people to fight such encroachments on free inquiry is to say in advance, "What I am telling you will be denied," or "This is true but those who say so now will be branded as dreamers, and if they persist, as liars."
It completely destroys American sportsmanship standards when we, the people, stick to the rules while an opposing team of censors who have usurped our rights are permitted, by their own handpicked referee, to pull rabbit-punches on defensive play, hamstring us from the rear if we seem to be running well in an open field, and even machinegun the ball in midair if we are kicking an almost certain field goal.
There is only one thing to do under such a setup. Expose their tactics. Show that more offenses are committed under the word "defense" than this world dreams of. Insist that what we say is the whole truth, and what they say is not the whole truth.
That may seem a dreadful way to treat our own flesh and blood, our commissioned sons who have been trained for combat but have been assigned in peacetime to espionage and counter espionage. But since our sons in uniform do not report to us, the people, but to Central Intelligence (which as far as we can make out reports to nobody and is answerable to nobody), how otherwise can we get our current findings to our own friends?
Scientists believe they have suffered more than any other group from the postwar loyalty hysteria but writers cannot be far behind them. The "thread of intolerance" which runs through our history has now become as thick as a noose to hang us. Under the circumstances, to write a book, knowing not only that you will be ridiculed, but also knowing who will do the ridiculing, and not have a counteroffensive ready, is to be starry eyed and unrealistic.
Rather than be rated dreamers by such obvious interior proof that we are dreamers, it is a good deal smarter to swing first and say that all bureaucrats, whether in tweeds or bogged down with salad dressing, are incompetent time servers, hanging on the public payroll till pensioned or rewarded with a stuffed shirt job in private enterprise (privately endowed universities, naturally, included) and are truth trimmers to boot.
In order to regain this lost freedom we will have to say "a pox on both your houses" and cease to be brushed off by the perpetual hocus-pocus involved in such phrases of these spokes men as "top secret," "secret and confidential," "restricted," and, "withheld for reasons of security."
Such brush-offs are almost invariably followed by a statement from another department of the defense arm, that what we are hiding isn't really worth concealing, that we are defended by old and obsolete equipment, and that, finally, unless we grant them an additional billion dollars for new equipment overnight, we are dead ducks, saucers or no saucers!
Propaganda has made true―and--false practically obsolete in our language. In fact, if a spokesman has served time in intelligence, it may fairly be said, the truth is no longer in him. Spies cannot even buy or sell lies with skill. If so, why are they being arrested all over the world and almost invariably getting a sentence of fifteen years? Has that become the fair trade practices act on the international level?
Perhaps it would be clearer to readers if I illustrated with a few samples of this dismal wallpaper pattern. On June 24, 1947, businessman Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho, flying his own plane, first reported he had seen several flying saucers in the area of Mt. Rainier, Washington. Reports of other saucers from other areas followed.
Then on August 9, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Springer, assistant to the chief of staff of the Fourth Air Force, decided to stop the nonsense. Despite the fact that his command had an unsolved mystery on its hands concerning molten material claimed to have fallen on Maury Island, and the death of two army pilots who were transporting the material for further examination, Colonel Springer said, as far as he was concerned, there was no basis for belief in flying disks in the Tacoma area "or any other."
Newspapers took this as some sort of hint and piped down on the subject. With what result? That by January, 1948, six months after Colonel Springer's dismissal of the subject, the Pentagon set up Project Saucer to investigate the hundreds of reports that had been coming in. Fate devoted almost half of its first issue to flying saucers and led off with an article by Kenneth Arnold entitled "I Did See The Flying Disks."
Project Saucer proceeded in a quiet unhysterical way for eighteen months before issuing even a preliminary report. The Saturday Evening Post apparently got the idea that the report was going to be negative, so it had Sidney Shalett prepare two articles on the subject for almost simultaneous release with the Air Force report. The articles turned out to be rather long winded recapitulations of various flying saucer case histories previously explored, and the general impression left after reading them was that believers in the actuality of flying saucers appeared as not quite bright.
Shalett's first article appeared in the Post issue dated April 30; the second, May 7. The April 30 issue was on the newsstands several days before April 30, of course. In fact, it was on sale when the Air Force issued its April 27 preliminary report. The Air Force report crossed up the Post. This was in line with the pattern I have previously outlined of making fools of collaborators.
Far from confirming Colonel Springer or the Post, the official report held that there was something to the flying saucer stories after all. It even entertained the idea that the saucers might be from another planet. It left many of its case histories with no solution, as far as this earth or Air Force Intelligence was concerned, but promised more light on these later.
Having thus proceeded to lure the Post into "fronting" for a negative approach, the Air Force proceeded to accentuate the positive. This naturally opened the door to those rival editors who thought they saw a new trend. True magazine figured it could cash in on the Post's loss of face. Its publisher, editor, and a contributor reassembled much of the Fate and Post material and told the tale again, except that instead of casting doubt on all believers in aerial disks, True followed an older party line established by Fate in the spring of 1948 and declared in December, 1949, "Flying Saucers Are Real."
Hardly had True's copies reached the newsstands when Air Force Intelligence denied True's position from beginning to end. Its spokesman announced on December 27, 1949, that Project Saucer had been closed. It classified believers in flying saucers practically as psychopaths or hoaxers. It left no other way open as an escape hatch for True or anybody else.
This Machiavellian pattern of inflating and deflating those who agreed or disagreed with the military on flying saucers continued and was not likely to be altered even if, and when, the whole truth came out. The formula seemed to be: "Play ball with us and we'll let you have it between the eyes."
Though I have not the slightest interest in what the military may or may not say about this book, I want my readers to under stand my position. I have never seen a flying saucer. I have never had a hallucination that I have seen a flying saucer. I have never joined in any mass hysteria on the subject, and to the best of my knowledge and belief I have never participated in the perpetration of a hoax on flying saucers.
I have talked to men of science who have told me they have not only seen them but have worked on several. I have tried to the best of my ability to find flaws in their stories. But to date I have not succeeded in placing them in any of the three categories laid down by the Air Force.
Scientists do not want to go to war with the Army over the issue. They have to get essential materials for research, and certain branches of the Department of Defense might find it difficult to find such essential materials for scientists who will not cooperate. Do they make themselves clear?
Is it any wonder therefore that I advise readers to treat any official comment as no more to be considered than old news papers blowing in the wind? In fact, if such faceless men should say that the objects are (a) newspapers or (b) not newspapers but fragments of flying saucers, they are not to be believed either way. Not until we, the people, we who, have names, addresses, and the courage of our convictions, not until we say there are such things as flying saucers, is it authentic. And we have been saying it for sometime.
Now read Behind The Flying Saucers and throw in the fire unread all the Pentagonic denials from this day forward.
Decoration Day 1950 Frank Scully
