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define "threat" in this way. The fact that the FAA instructs its employees not to report this particular potential threat lies in contradiction to this basic formula. Maybe it's time to change the FAA manual and provide employees aoa with the proper reporting forms. U.S. government reticence about addressing the problem of UFOs seems to have infected all departments that could potentially house a new agency for investigations. Yet we can overcome these obstacles through a rational, commonsense approach. Some authorities have suggested specific ways forward, based on their direct experience. In the late 1980s, John J. Callahan was head of the FAA's Accidents, Evaluations, and Investigations Division, an extremely high-level position just one rank below federal positions appointed by Congress. When working with military agencies, Callahan's rank (GM15) was equal to that of general. anne 4 . own One day in early 1987, he was unexpectedly faced with the problem of managing a UFO case—a dramatic, thirty-minute sighting by three Japan Air Lines pilots of a giant UFO over Alaska. Previously, Callahan had never given the slightest thought to the subject of UFOs. When he first heard about the JAL case, he requested the extensive data be sent to him immediately and he brought it to the attention of FAA administrator Admiral Donald D. Engen. Admiral Engen set up a briefing, which, according to Callahan, included members of President Reagan's scientific staff, as they were described to him at the time. It also included three CIA agents. Callahan did not say anything publicly about his role in the incident until 2001, thirteen years after his retirement. While talking to some close associates in his community who had probed him for information, he decided that it was time to speak out. The data from this case had been shipped to his home office when he retired, and had languished in his barn for all those years. A few charts were even nibbled on by mice, he discovered later. Fiery and blunt with a somewhat folksy style and a biting sense of humor, John Callahan makes no bones about the fact that he is not happy with the way the FAA conducts itself regarding UFOs. Nor is he in favor of withholding information about the subject from the public, and he's armed with the evidence, the experience, and the authority to make a very strong case. So far, no one else has come forward who attended the debriefing at the FAA's Washington headquarters described by Callahan. I made a FOIA request to the FAA for Admiral Engen's log of appointments and schedule during this time, but was told no such records exist (Engen has since died). I called Callahan's boss at the time, Harvey Safeer, now retired in Florida. Safeer remembered the Alaska incident, but had no recollection of any such meeting taking place. John Callahan's wife, J. Dori Callahan, was a major player at the FAA in her own right at the time of the incident. Initially an air traffic