Copies of the pamphlet were mailed to eminent scientists throughout the country, members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, officers in the Air Force, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Secretary of Defense. The publication of such charges against an ordinary private citizen might easily have caused a suit for libel. The Air Force investigators, whatever their private reactions may have been, had no such recourse; their accusers could act with fair assurance of immunity from legal action. The document made a number of specific accusations. Because of the wide publicity given this attack, we shall discuss each point fully. Our comments, appended in brackets, are based on official records of the Air Force, the New York Central Railway, the United States Weather Bureau, and the United States Coast Guard. Most of these facts were available to the Akron Committee itself. _Charge 1._ Because of the position of the Fitzgerald house, the headlight of the train could not have shone into the bedroom windows. [Correct. But the point is irrelevant. The Air Force did not suggest that the train’s light shone into the window. The light could have shone into the yard, however, and would have been visible to a witness looking out of the window. The brilliant light that flashed in the window and roused the witness did not come from the train but from the spotlight of the Coast Guard cutter.] _Charge 2._ Events taking place on the lake could not have had any relation to the sighting because the shore was 3000 feet away and, because of intervening houses and trees, a witness in the Fitzgerald house could not see the lake. [Incorrect conclusion from the facts. The beam of a spotlight on a boat moving one or two miles offshore (as was the Coast Guard cutter at about 3 A.M.) could have been seen from the house. The beam of such a light can be visible for great distances. Reflected from the clouds and spread by the drops of moisture in the air, it could easily have flashed into the window with great brilliance.] _Charge 3a._ The spotlight used by the Coast Guard cutter was of a type that could not be focused like a searchlight; therefore the beam could not have been reflected from the clouds to the Fitzgerald house. [Incorrect. The spotlight used could operate with either a diffuse or a narrow beam, could be focused like a searchlight, and could have been reflected from the clouds to the house.]