Page:Miller - Flying saucers, fact or fiction.pdf/129

 Chiefs of Staff Joint Communications-Electronics Committee."

Under "Section III—Security," it stipulates:

"209. MILITARY AND CIVILIAN.

"a . All persons aware of the contents or existence of a CIRVIS report are governed by the Communications Act of 1934 and amended thereto, and Espionage Laws.

"(2) CIRVIS reports contain informa tion affecting the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of Espionage Laws, 18 U. S. Code, 793 and 794. The unauthorized transmission or revelation of the contents of CIRVIS reports in any manner is prohibited.”

What are CIRVIS reports?

CIRVIS reports, according to JANAP 140(B), include "Unidentified flying objects."

As for AFR_200-2, at least as applied by Norton AFB, it appears rather illogical that the Pasadena Filter Center should instigate a policy directing inquiries referring to UFO's to Norton, only to have the enquirer confronted with a regulation prohibiting the release of any such information. It is a hopelessly blind alley.

Is it any wonder then, that the news media do not more extensively disseminate UFO sightings (and subsequently authoritaive comments)? Is it any wonder that such objective civilian research groups as Project "A" of the Ohio Northern University have prematurely terminated—for lack of cooperation and sufficient data?

Is it any wonder that the public at large is apathetic, and is likewise inhibited by fear of ridicule to report UFO's when sighted?

Is it any wonder that more intensive efforts are not being advanced by more scientists and research societies to resolve the flying saucer anomaly?

No—apparently it is not any wonder.

But UFO reports are on the increase. According to many localized press accounts, Ground Observers throughout the country are constantly being alerted. Many Air Force and Naval Air Bases are on twenty four-hour alerts. John Pfeiller, a GOC skywatcher in Escondido, California, and a Lieutenant Commander (pilot) in the Naval Air Reserve, told the author on October 7, 1956, that all Navy pilots have been advised immediately to report UFO observations but were “cautioned" not to speak of these sightings in public.

As a Ground Observer Corps member, he added that forms issued of recent by the Air Filter Center have de-emphasized reporting instructions for some types of aircraft, but at the same time emphasized reporting procedure for UFO observations.

Summarizing “The Problems Today," the future does not look dismal. Truth has and shall continue to ultimately prevail. Modern technology will add a few problems (such as creating aircraft that are gradually approaching the reported characteristics of the UFO's) but conversely will also create new and improved methods of detection: longer range radar, faster interceptors, superior optical tracking and photographic devices, and a myriad of other innovations too numerous and complex to conceive at our relatively early stage of advancement.

But will this really solve anything? Aren't our problems primarily a matter of objectively examining the data accumulated to date? Are not people inherently apprehensive of the new and the unknown?

Perhaps a psychological self-analysis is in order.

In restricting UFO data from the public and various civilian investigative bodies, the Air Force has become a prime concern to the UFO researcher. Obviously—and admittedly by the Air Force itself—there is nothing essential to national defense in the bulk of these reports, and anything that was (such as intercept and radar tracking procedure) could easily be withheld.

But we may be our own inhibiting agent. How many of us objectively tread the path of ultimate truth and are not continually swayed into one extreme or another? We may have our heads in the clouds but it is inversely imperative that we should always keep our feet on the ground. But neither must we suppress new thought and concepts. A common constriction is our tendency to habitually apply an earthly solution to a relatively unearthly phenomenon.

Few can deny that the fantastic of today is the common place of tomorrow.

With diligent research, patient analyses, constructive investigation, and the ultimate cooperation of official investigative bodies, the UFO picture will slowly but surely resolve into something of which we may now perceive only turbidly.

And that day will come. Until then, we must continually evaluate and discriminate. Keep an alert eye and ear. And wait.

For as Albert Einstein said:

"Those people saw something."