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44 "No," Blake said. "I figure it was some new type of guided missile. If it took as many G's as Chuck, my copilot, thinks, then it must have been on a beam and remote-controlled." Later, I found two other pilots who had the same idea as Chuck. One captain was afraid the flying saucers were Russian; his copilot thought they were Air Force or Navy. I met one airline official who was indignant about testing such missiles near the airways. "Even if they do have some device to make them veer off," he said, "I think it's a risk. There'll be hell to pay if one ever hits an airliner." "They've been flying around for two years," a line pilot pointed out. "Nobody's had a close call yet. I don't think there's much danger." When I left the Coast, I flew to New York. Ken Purdy called in John DuBarry, True's aviation editor, to hear the details. Purdy called him "John the Skeptic." After I told them tourtoagd mo4 w1o4 "One, the saucers don't exist. They're caused by mistakes, hysteria, and so on. Two, they're Russian guided missiles. Three, they're American guided missiles. Four, the whole thing is a hoax, a psychological-warfare trick." "Sure, to make the Soviets think we could reach them with a guided missile. But I don't think that's the answer--I just listed it as a possibility." "In the first place, you'd have to bring thousands of people into the scheme, so the disks would be reported often enough to get publicity. You'd have to have some kind of device, maybe something launched from highflying bombers, to give the rumors substance. They'd {p. 51} certainly do a better job than this, to put it over. And it wouldn't explain the world-wide sightings. Also, Captain Mantell wouldn't kill himself just to carry out an official hoax." "John's right," said Purdy. "Anyway, it's too ponderous. It would leak like a sieve, and the dumbest Soviet agent would see through it." what I had learned Purdy nodded. "What do you think the saucers are?" asked DuBarry. "They must be guided missiles," I said, "but it leaves some queer gaps in the picture." Ihad made up a list of possible answers, and I read it to them: "You mean a trick of ours?" said Purdy. DuBarry considered this thoughtfully.