There the matter should have ended. The puzzle was solved, and forgotten by all but a few saucer addicts. Some twelve months later, however, Major Donald Keyhoe reopened the case. As the new Director of the National Investigations Committee for Aerial Phenomena, commonly known as NICAP (see _Chapter_ XIII), he charged the Air Force with concealing the true facts of the incident, and himself tried to get in touch with Captain Ryan to obtain information to support the charge. Receiving no answer to letters or telephone calls, Major Keyhoe then gave his story to certain government agencies. Using as evidence a newspaper account[IV-7] and interpretations of Captain Ryan’s remarks in a TV interview, NICAP alleged that the object sighted on April 8, 1956, had been a UFO; that the captain, on orders from Griffis Air Force Base, had abandoned his scheduled route to chase the unknown craft, had lost it somewhere over Lake Ontario, had then turned back and landed at Syracuse and, finally, that his flight log must have been falsified to conceal the facts of this pursuit[IV-8]. The original question, the identity of an unknown object, was all but forgotten. In letters, telegrams, and telephone calls to various officials of American Airlines, Congress, the Air Force, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Civil Aviation Authority, NICAP requested an official investigation of the incident. The first requests evoked no response but continued efforts were successful. After hints of publicity and of possible senatorial interest, the beleaguered agencies at last yielded to NICAP pressure and reopened the case. Captain Ryan, a reliable officer with twenty-three years’ experience as a pilot, was subjected to official interrogation. Busy government bureaus were forced to invest further time, money, and energy to confirm facts that had never been in doubt. To the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Captain Ryan replied that he had observed an unidentified object, but that he had not altered the course of his flight. He repeated this explicit statement to officials of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and of American Airlines. Airline records provided independent confirmation. Since the scheduled time of the flight between Albany and Syracuse had been 49 minutes, and the actual time elapsed on the night in question had been 48 minutes, he could not possibly have spent time in making a detour over Lake Ontario as alleged. These declarations, according to NICAP, were worthless. They merely proved that Captain Ryan had given false answers to his questioners; that the government agencies involved knew the answers were false; and that a gigantic conspiracy existed to suppress the truth. Among those suggested as possible members[IV-8] were the American Airlines Company, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Civil Aviation Agency, the United States Air Force, and possibly even the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council!