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thing first appeared. It would have been read by radar as a single incoming target, descending rapidly from a high altitude, with a high infrared heat signature At first it would have looked like it was headed for the New England area, possibly even Washington, D.C. Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire, the Strategic Air Command's B-52 Base located at Loring, Maine, and the U.S. naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, were only a few of its possible destinations. When it showed up on radar, American and NATO bases would have been put on alert. Long-range interceptor aircraft all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe would have been scrambled. Missile silos throughout the United States might have been notched up to a defense condition (DefCon) somewhere between two and three, on a scale of one to five, with one being the most serious "launch missiles" oy condition. And this almost happened. A knowledgeable air force source informed me that during the Shag Harbor time frame, North Bay scrambled fighters to intercept what was originally thought to be an incoming missile. He was advised that the object was traveling at 7,500 miles per hour, which is about Mach 10. In 1967 we had no aircraft that could move that fast, and we still don't today. Suddenly it stopped and hovered for some moments, then continued on its course at 4,400 miles per hour before slowing to a moderate speed and impacting into Shag Harbor. All over the continent military commanders must have been calling base personnel back to their posts. Scrambled phone conversations would have been flying around the world in an effort to bring everyone up to readiness. The President would have been contacted and made aware of the situation and the military's defense condition. There is a protocol in place for this sort of thing. It had begun fifteen years earlier, after the famous Washington, D.C., saucer invasion in July of 1952. The CIA got involved after receiving several reports, one of which was submitted by Edward Tauss, acting chief of the Weapons and Equipment Division. He recommended that the CIA continue to monitor UFOs, although no concern or interest should be shown by the agency at the public level, so as not to give legitimacy to the phenomenon. Essentially, the military, ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center), and the CIA treated UFO phenomena as a possible smokescreen created by the USSR to interfere with North American radar and communications prior to an attack. At the very least they might use UFO flaps as a cover for low-level bomber attacks on the members of the NATO alliance. Smaller aircraft would be dispatched in advance c was 4 awa vad a4 corsa The proposed scenario was that UFO reports would begin flooding in to the authorities and the air force would investigate and then dismiss them. After that the USSR could launch its real attack of military aircraft, so that the second wave would not be taken seriously, at least until it was too late, thereby giving the USSR the advantage. As silly as this idea seems now, in the early fifties it was a very real concern. This was taken so seriously, in fact, that in December of 1953 the Joint Chiefs of Staff took measures to plug the UFO information flow to the public. They implemented what was known as Joint Army Navy just like that of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). to create confusion, well-lit planes that could be mistaken for UFOs.