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152 press (and through them, of course, the public) believed the government's lame explanations for UFO sightings, would it remain possible for knowledge of the importance of UFOs to be held in check. It would take only one or two leading columnists or commentators to wreck the structure being built to contain the UFO mystery. The scientific community, like the press, played a much bigger role in this than anyone could have realized at the time. As long as there wasn't a single important spokesman for sci- ence displaying any enthusiasm for UFO reality, it would be easy for the government to support its position that UFOs amounted to nothing that would interest intelligent people. But if even one major scientist was willing to speak out in favor of the serious study of UFOs (apart from whatever was being done by the military behind closed doors) the ability to main- tain an atmosphere of foolishness would be in great danger. The press cooperated, though almost certainly without real- izing it was doing so. It ridiculed flying saucers and implied that those who thought they were anything more than hallu- cinations or mistakes were simply not worth paying any atten- tion to. This fed upon itself, so that no newsman wanted to risk ridicule from his fellow newsmen by showing interest in the subject. And it was subtly fed by the government with a stream of summary reports, statistics, and blanket denials, all of which stressed the total lack of substance to UFO reports. With the government saying it was a lot of fuss about nothing, and no reliable source providing contradictory information, what was a reporter to do but go along with the official line? The scientific community cooperated just as fully, and prob- ably was no more aware of its complicity than was the press. Here, as well, the government was faced with the dual chal- lenges of the scientist's avowed intellectual and moral obli- gations to uncover the truth. To reduce the chances that scientists would embark on their own UFO investigations and perhaps learn more than the government thought was advisable, the services of one of their own were enlisted. Dr. Donald Menzel, respected veteran of Harvard's observatory CRASH AT CORONA