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service. On February 24 of that year a B-47 bomber had crashed near Hurley, Wisconsin, about sixty miles northwest of Eagle River. Another B-47 crashed on May 2 only two miles from the site of the February accident. The pilot of the second plane was later quoted in the press as saying that, “‘I felt this weightlessness—I was hanging by my straps,”’ just before his craft went out of control and headed for the ground. There were numerous other incidents and UFO sightings in the area during that period—which was the “‘lull’”’ from 1959 to 1963. So once again we have a series of sightings and incidents that corroborate an unusual story. But, unfortunately, we also had those four miserable pancakes. Simonton tumed one over to a local judge named Carter who, incidentally, vouched for his honesty and reliability, as did everyone else who knew him. Dr. J. Allen Hynek was given the second one, and a third went to the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, which turned it over to a New York researcher, Alex Mebane. Simonton held onto the fourth one. He said he took a nibble out of it, and ‘‘it tasted like cardboard.” Were the pancakes made out of exotic Martian mush? Of course not. They were plain old cornmeal, salt, and hydrogenated oil. Simonton’s story got a big play in the national press, and NICAP capitalized on the publicity by issuing statements about their “thorough investigation” which was “‘under way,” etc. But when the press interest died, NICAP dropped the whole thing. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigators stuck with it, however, and when an Eagle River business- man made a joking reference to Simonton having been hypnotized (he later denied this), some leaped on that as the explanation. Cecile Hess, APRO’s man in nearby Rhinelander, Wisconsin, didn’t buy the hypno- tized theory. “It I ever saw a sincere and honest man, it was Simonton,” Hess commented. “If it happened again,” Simonton told a UPI reporter in early May, “J don’t think I'd tell anybody about it.” Simonton was a bewildered victim of the artifact game. Scores of contactees have been given pieces of junk metal, scraps of paper, and, in many cases, chunks of crystal or tektites (pieces of glass). The contactees display these materials almost proudly as proof of their experiences. One would assume that outright hoaxsters would try to construct better, more impressive, artifacts to support their stories of encounters with the wonderful “‘space people.” Another fascinating game, which the ufonauts play with a vengeance, is the “repair”? gambit. Beginning in 1897, there has been an endless 158 / Operation Trojan Horse