I ended up badly puzzled. The evidence was more impressive than I had suspected. It was plain that many reports had been entirely suppressed, or at least kept out of the papers. There was something ominous about it. No matter what the answer, it was serious enough to be kept carefully hidden. If it were a Soviet missile, I thought, God help us. They’d scooped up a lot of Nazi scientists and war secrets. And the Germans had been far ahead of us on guided missiles. But why would they give us a two-year warning, testing the things openly over America? It didn’t make sense. CHAPTER IV I went to the Pentagon the next morning. I didn’t expect to learn much, but I wanted to make sure we weren’t tangling with security. I’d worked with Al Scholin and Orville Splitt, in the magazine section of Public Relations, and I thought they’d tell me as much as anyone. When I walked in, I sprang it on them cold. “What’s the chance of seeing your Project ‘Saucer’ files?” Al Scholin took it more or less dead-pan. Splitt looked at me a moment and then grinned. “Don’t tell me you believe the things are real?” “Maybe,” I said. “How about clearing me with Project ‘Saucer’?” Al shook his head. “It’s still classified secret.” “‘Look, Don,” said Splitt, “why do you want to fool with that saucer business? There’s nothing to it.” “‘That’s a big change from what the Air Force was saying; in 1947,” I told him. He shrugged that off. “The Air Force has spent two years checking into it. Everybody from Symington down will tell you the saucers are bunk.” “That’s not what Project ‘Saucer’ says in that April report.” “That report was made up a long time ago,” said Splitt. “They just got around to releasing it.” “Then they’ve got all the answers now?” “They know there’s nothing to it,” Splitt repeated. “In that case,” I said, “Project ‘Saucer’ shouldn’t object to my seeing their files and pictures.” “What pictures?” “That one taken at Harmon Field, Newfoundland, for a starter.” “Oh, that thing,” said Splitt. “It wasn’t anything—just a shadow on a cloud. Somebody’s been kidding you.” “If it’s just a cloud shadow, why can’t I see it?” Splitt was getting a little nettled. “Look, you know how long it takes to declassify stuff. They just haven’t got around to it. Take my word for it, the flying saucers are bunk. I went around with Sid Shallett on some of his interviews. What he’s got in the _Post_ is the absolute gospel.” “It’s funny about that April twenty-seventh report,” I said, “the way it contradicts the _Post_.” “I tell you that was an old report—” “I wouldn’t say that,” Al Scholin put in. “The Air Force doesn’t claim it has all the answers. But they’ve proved a lot of the reports were hoaxes or mistakes.”