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helicopters? We do frequently scramble jets to pursue ‘‘unidentifieds,” but I’ve talked with a lot of AF personnel and have never even come across any rumors about the use of helicopters. Helicopters are expensive machines, and they’re difficult to fly. The World War II predictions that there would be ‘‘a helicopter in every garage’’ never came to pass because of this. A UFO-chasing operation would demand that several helicopters were readied and fueled at all times, and that properly trained pilots were on constant alert and available to fly them. I’ve snooped around AF bases looking for evidence of such an operation—and have drawn a complete blank. I can only conclude that these unidentified helicopters fall into the same category as the ghost fliers of 1934 and the tiny aircraft of Calgary. They are part of the UFO activities, not part of our UFO-chasing operations. Thousands of UFO photos have been taken since 1882. Many of these are of indistinct blobs and streaks of light, but many are of apparently solid machines of some sort, with windows, fins and other clearly discernible features. There’s just one problem. With very few exceptions, no two UFO photographs are alike. I have received hundreds in the mail and have been shown hundreds more in my travels. Because photos are too easy to fake and too hard to authenticate, I usually avoid getting involved in an in-depth investigation of the pictures and their photogra- phers. I have yet to personally handle two exactly similar photos taken in two different areas. During these past three years I have conducted thousands of investi- gations in person, by telephone and by mail, and while many of the descriptions of the luminous, flexible “‘soft’’ objects are exactly the same, I have rarely heard two independent witnesses describe separate seem- ingly solid ‘hard’’ objects in the same terms. I have been told about tiny “buzz-saw”’ devices, whirling ‘chains’ over strip mines in Ohio, and gigantic gondola-shaped machines with “rows and rows of windows” hovering above the Kittatinny Mountains of northern New Jersey. There seem to be as many different kinds of objects as there are witnesses. Yet I have managed to reassure myself again and again that the witnesses were reliable and were describing the objects to the best of their abilities. Because the witnesses seem to be telling the truth, we must assume that UFOs come in myriad sizes and shapes. Or no real shapes at all. This leads us to the old psychological warfare gambit once more. If the 126 / Operation Trojan Horse Do Flying Saucers Really Exist?