The Flying Saucers are Real by Donald Keyhoe (best classic novels .TXT) 📕

to 250 feet in diameter. They were supposed to be pilotless—and harmless.

The second type was said to be a jet version of the Navy’s circular airfoil “Flying Flapjack.” It was credited with fantastic speed.

The “true disks,” however, were mainly Air Force devices, according to the report.

“Some are guided, others are not,” said the radio commentator who released this story. “They can stay stationary, dash off to right or left, and move like lightning. But they are utterly harmless.”

In these “harmless” disks there was supposed to be an

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explosive charge that destroyed them in mid-air at a predetermined time.

Within a few days after this story was broadcast, the United States News and World Report declared that the saucers are real, and identified them as jet models of Navy “Flying Flapjacks.” This magazine, which is not an official publication despite its name, mentioned the variable-direction jet principle that I had previously described in the True article.

These two flying-saucer “explanations” brought denials from the White House, the Navy, and the Air Force.

The Air Force flatly declared that:

1. None of the armed forces is conducting secret experiments with disk-shaped flying objects that could be a basis for the reported phenomena.

2. There is no evidence that the latter stem from the activities of any foreign nation.

Before this, President Truman stated he knew nothing of any such objects being developed by the United States or any other nation.

The Navy denial came immediately after the first broadcast story. It ran:

“The Navy is not engaged in research or in flying any jet-powered, circular-shaped aircraft.”

The Navy added that one model of a pancake-shaped aircraft, called the Zimmerman Skimmer, was built but was never flown. However, a small, three-thousand-pound scale model did fly and was under radio control during flight. This last device is now being rumored as the Navy’s unpiloted “missile,” said to have been launched over the country like the so-called “harmless” disks.

Even though all these accounts have been officially denied, many Americans may still believe they are true. I have no desire to criticize the authors of these stories; I believe that in following up certain guided-missile leads they were misled into accepting the conclusions they gave.

But these stories, particularly the accounts of huge unpiloted disks, may have planted certain fears in the public mind-fears that are completely unwarranted. For

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this reason, I have personally checked at Washington in regard to the dangers of unpiloted missiles. Here aye the facts I learned:

1. Neither the Army, Navy, nor Air Force has at any time staged any guided-missile competition as rumored.

2. No unpiloted missiles or remote-controlled experimental craft have been tested over American cities or heavily populated areas.

3. No unpiloted missile carrying dangerous explosives, whether for destruction of the device or other purposes, has been deliberately launched or tested over heavily populated areas.

In regard to the so-called jet-propelled “Flying Flapjack,” I have been assured by Admiral Calvin Bolster, of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, that this type of plane has never been produced. I concede that he might make this statement to conceal a secret development, but there is one fact of which every American can be certain: Neither this type, nor the radio-controlled smaller model, has been or will be flown or launched over areas where people would be endangered.

The three armed services are working on guided missiles. They are not risking American lives by launching such missiles at random across the United States,

Although most of our guided-missile projects are secret, it is possible to give certain facts about guided-missile developments in general.

The first successful long-range missiles were produced by the Germans. These were the buzz-bomb and. the V-2 rocket. But research in various other types was carried on during the war. Some of this was with oval and round types of airfoils. As already stated by Paul Redell, there is strong evidence that the disk-shaped foil resulted from German observations of either space ships or remote-control disk-shaped “observer units.” All the Nazi space-exploration plans followed this discovery that we were being observed by a race from another planet.

After the end of World War II, the international guided-missile race began, with the British, Russians, and ourselves as the chief contenders. Numerous types have been developed-winged bombs, small radar-guided

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projectiles launched from planes, and ground-to-plane plane-to-ground, and plane-to-plane missiles, equipped with target homing devices.

In certain recent types, the range can be stated as several hundred miles. So far as I have learned, after weeks of rechecking this point, not a single long-range missile has been identified as Russian.

Since this country is working closely with Great Britain on global defense problems, it is no violation of security to say that we have probably exchanged certain guided-missile information. In regard to the British long-range missile picture outlined to me by John Steele, I can state two major facts:

1. The British have categorically denied testing such long-range missiles over American territory, where they might endanger American citizens. There is convincing evidence that they are telling the truth.

2. There is no British missile now built, or planned, that could explain the objects seen by Captain Mantell, Chiles and Whitted, and witnesses in most of the major sightings.

The preceding statement applies equally to American-built missiles. There is no experimental craft or guided missile even remotely considered in this country that would begin to approach the dimensions and performance of the space ships seen in these cases.

There is concrete evidence that the United States is as well advanced as any other nation in guided-missile development. Certain recent advances should place us in the lead, unless confidential reports on Soviet progress are completely wrong.

If American scientists and engineers can learn the source of the space ships’ power and adapt it to our use, it may well be the means for ending the threat of war. The Soviet scientists are well aware of this; their research into cosmic rays and other natural forces has been redoubled since the flying-saucer reports of 1947.

The secret of the space ships’ power is more important than even the hydrogen bomb. It may someday be the key to the fate of the world.