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be re-educated to believe that the sightings were inspired by natural phenomena, misinterpretations of known objects, and so on. The Air Force files were buttoned up, and an order was issued to forbid Air Force personnel from discussing UFO data. The move inspired the cry of ““UFO censorship!”’ that persists to this day. There was even division within the government on the true nature of tha abannranaat the phenomenon! On the West Coast, a brilliant man named Dr. Meade Layne had launched his own UFO study in 1947, and he was soon exploring the then little-known contactee aspects. By 1950, he was issuing privately publish- ed books explaining and defining the paraphysical nature of the objects and the parapsychological elements of the contactee syndrome. The ET believers rejected his theories and continued their fruitless search for physical evidence. In England, the RAF had established a wartime UFO study project in 1943 under the direction of Lieutenant General Massey, but the results of that effort were never released. In 1944, a Chicago editor named Ray Palmer started to publish UFO-oriented fiction in his magazine Amazing Stories, and he was quickly inundated with thousands of letters from people who claimed to have seen the objects or had some kind of close experience with them. Palmer was later the cofounder of Fate magazine and devoted his life to the subject. Captain Ruppelt even accused him of “fnventing”’ flying saucers. He almost certainly did. [See ‘“The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers,”’ by John A. Keel in The Fringes of Reason, edited by Ted Schultz, Harmony Books, 1989.] Other thoroughgoing researchers started to move toward the para- physical concept in the early 1950s. The British science writer Gerald Heard published Js Another World Watching? in 1950, in which he examined the extraterrestrial theory pro and con and postulated his ‘‘bee”’ concept, suggesting that the objects might represent a mindless order organized by some larger intelligence. Another famous English science writer, Arthur C. Clarke, turned his attention to UFOs in 1953 and wrote articles pointing out that the general data suggested the objects were paraphysical and not too likely to be extraterrestrial. If there was an actual turning point in ufology, it occurred in 1955. ‘hat year the ‘“‘secret’? was widely and repeatedly published by many superbly qualified investigators. Many UFO students reviewed this well- documented material and quietly abandoned the subject, feeling that the mystery had been competently solved. A few held on until they were able to confirm the published evidence to their own satisfaction. Then they 34 / Operation Trojan Horse