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Skeptics would dissect every word and debate the man’s frontier seman- tics. We must stop asking: Can these things be? And begin asking: Why are there these things? Misguided souls might make up stories about wonderful spaceships from Mars. But would they make up stories about seemingly conventional airplanes and helicopters? Yes, we have phantom helicopters, too! On Tuesday, October 11, 1966, a brilliant flying light bobbed over the Wanaque Reservoir in New Jersey. There had been many unusually close sightings in the area prior to this one, but this incident had an addea twist. A formation of mystery helicopters turned up minutes after the object left. “This thing was so bright that it blinded me so bad I couldn’t find my car,” Wanaque police sergeant Ben Thompson, one of the many wit- nesses, told Dr. Berthold Schwarz. ‘‘It was all white, like looking into a bulb and trying to see the socket, which you can’t do.... I was totally blinded by that light for about twenty minutes.”’ Within fifteen minutes after the glowing object departed, a formation of seven helicopters appeared and circled low over the area. They were accompanied by ten or twelve jet airplanes. Lines of cars were parked all around the reservoir, filled with eager UFO watchers. They knew a helicopter when they saw one. But they were all baffled by this unexpected group of choppers. Police sergeant Robert Gordon discussed his own bewilderment: ‘‘I’ve never seen seven helicopters at one time in this area before in all my life.... And I’ve lived here for forty years.” Science writer Lloyd Mallan investigated the Wanaque incidents, and he checked with all the local Air Force bases, airports and even the Pentagon. All denied knowing anything about these planes and helicop- ters. The Civil Aeronautics Board was baffled, too. No one could throw any light on the mystery. Nor did it seem plausible that the Air Force could have acted so quickly, particularly because no one ever formally reported any of the Wanaque sightings to the Air Force directly. There are those, of course, who believe that the Air Force lies about everything connected with UFOs. But there aren’t seven helicopters available in- stantly and at one time at the McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey and the Stewart Air Force Base in New York, the two closest bases. Nor could slowmoving, short-ranged choppers have made it from those two points in fifteen minutes. 124 / Operation Trojan Horse The people at Wanaque were convinced they saw helicopters and jets