◆ SpookStack

of the 11,000 sightings ‘since 1947, did have some ex- planations. “The mysterious flaming object in the East was “probably a meteor.”’ As for Michigan's much- publicized and plentiful unidentified flying objects, they turned out to be monkeyshines instead of moonships: ‘Unidentified college boys”’ playing pranks with flares to frighten the girls in the dormitories, came the august report from a distinguished astronomer called in by the Air Force to investigate the Hillsdale af-_ fair. Every report of a ‘‘flying saucer” had ostensibly been checked out by the Air Force’s special squad known as “Project Blue Book,” al- though the staff was woefully small. Of the 10,147 sightings Since 1947, the Air Force insisted that only 646 remain unexplained — and most of these because of insufficient information. The others have been attributed to planes, balloons, astronomical causes, missiles; swamp gas, meteors, fireworks and, in some cases, to hallucinations and psychological reasons. Ball Lightning? Philip Klass, avionics edi- tor of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, recently proposed some other explanations. Klass, an electronics engineer, said a form of ‘‘ball lightning,’’ gen- erated by high tension power lines, could explain the phe- nomena. Many of the sightings, said Klass, occurred along or very near high-tension lines where luminous balls of ionized air could be generated under certain conditions. ‘No Threat’ The main _ conclusions reached by the Air Force were: e “No unidentified flying objects reported, investigat- ed and evaluated by the Air Force have ever given any in- dication of a threat to our national security.”’ e@ “There has been no ev- “dence submitted to or discov- ered by the Air Force that sightings represent techno- logical developments or prin- ciples beyond the range of present day scientific knowl- edge.” © “There has been no evi- dence that sightings catego- rized as unidentified are ex- traterrestrial vehicles.” Major Donald Keyhoe, however, was unconvinced. Major Keyhoe, USMC (re- tired), director of the Nation- al Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NI- CAP), a private space watch- ing organization, accused the Air Force of conducting a long-term whitewash on the UFO question. It was Keyhoe’s theory that the Air Force was with- holding information for fear of causing public panic. UFOs, insisted the Major, who had never seen one, were of extraterrestrial origin an2 the Air Force feared that the Sea — — —=... vv public could not accept this knowledge. ‘“‘They won’t give so é you details,’’ he complained. “If they did, many of their explanations would fall flat.” And Keyhoe could also claim a powerful ally in Michigan’s Gerald Ford, the House Republican leader, who suggested it would be ‘‘a very wholesome thing” for Congress to look into uniden- tified flying objects. Such an investigation. Ford suggest- d. would make the Ameri- can people ‘feel better.” Study in Depth Whether or not that was so, the Air Force last week took definite steps to make itself feel better. Fed up with in- vestigating reports of glow- ing, flying, zooming, wink- ing, awesome, blinking, streaking, hovering things, the Air Force last week de- cided to bail itself out of all responsibility for future con- clusions concerning UFOs. The Air Force announced that it had commissioned the University of Colorado to conduct an ‘‘in-depth” study of flying saucers for the next 18 months. The director of the study (expected to cost $300,000) would be Dr. Ed- ward U. Condon, former di- rector of the National Bureau of Standards, and now a physics professor at Colora- 0. To satisfy the skeptics, and insure the study’s objectivi- ty, Colorado would select several other universities to take part in the independent investigation, with about 100 scientists participating, And in case that wasn’t enough, the National Acade- my of Sciences also agreed to appoint a panel to review the Colorado report. ; = ~~