Page Content (OCR)
151 Like most rural Westerners, he knew what a weather balloon looked like, having picked up more than one and turned it in for the small reward, as per a notice listed on the device. Then, when the disc/balloon remains were first seen by military people, how could the "misidentification" have been compounded? Could the intelligence officer of one of the Army Air Forces' elite units have been so foolish as to fail to recog- nize a common balloon? Maj. Jesse Marcel didn't hold his prestigious, responsible position because he was some senator's son-in-law. He was the intelligence officer of the world's only atomic bombing outfit because he knew how to deal with difficult situations and with unexpected events without jump- ing to baseless and thus potentially dangerous conclusions. Brazel and Marcel knew that what they had seen wasn't even a distant relative of a weather balloon, or anything else famil- iar. But they were effectively silenced, as were all the others who could have let the cat out of the bag. Many of the military people saw enough of the recovered wreckage and bodies to realize that something terribly important was going on. It ap- pears that those who were not needed for the analysis of the materials and bodies were shipped out to separate bases many thousands of miles away, where there would be no one to talk to about crashed flying saucers. At least, no one who could be counted on not to laugh. Those who had to be entrusted with sensitive details of the shocking secret were those who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. The two groups that might have gotten wind of the true story and learned enough about it to pose a threat to govern- ment secrecy were the press and the scientific community. Their cooperation—conscious or not, voluntary or other- wise—would have been absolutely vital if the bizarre nature of UFOs was to be kept secret from the American people. If the press began paying undue attention to reports of UFO sightings, that would lead to more published reports and to more widespread serious interest and then to a loss of confi- dence in the government's handling (or apparent mishandling) of the situation. Only if the great majority of members of the KEEPING THE SECRET