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atmosphere, its tricks and its illusions.
When the March issue of True magazine carrying Commander McLaughlin's story about how the White Sands Scientists had tracked UFO's reached the public, it stirred up
a hornets' nest. Donald Keyhoe's article in the January True had converted many people but there were still a few heathens. The fact that government scientists had
seen UFO's, and were admitting it, took care of a large percentage of these heathens. More and more people were believing in flying saucers.
The Navy had no comment to make about the sightings, but they did comment on McLaughlin. It seems that several months before, at the suggestion of a group of
scientists at White Sands, McLaughlin had carefully written up the details of the sightings and forwarded them to Washington. The report contained no personal
opinions, just facts. The comments on McLaughlin's report had been wired back to White Sands from Washington and they were, "What are you drinking out
there?" A very intelligent answer--and it came from an admiral in the Navy's guided missile program.
By the time his story was published, McLaughlin was no longer at White Sands; he was at sea on the destroyer BristolMaybe he answered the admiral's wire.
The Air Force had no comment to make on McLaughlin's story. People at ATIC just shrugged and smiled as they walked by the remains of Project Grudge, and continued to
"process UFO reports through regular intelligence channels."
In early 1950 the UFO's moved down to Mexico. The newspapers were full of reports. Tourists were bringing back more saucer stories than hand-tooled, genuine leather
purses. Time reported that pickpockets were doing a fabulous business working the sky-gazing crowds that gathered when a plativolo was seen. Mexico's Department of
National Defense reported that there had been some good reports but that the stories of finding crashed saucers weren't true.
On March 8 one of the best UFO sightings of 1950 took place right over ATIC.
About midmorning on this date a TWA airliner was coming in to land at the Dayton Municipal Airport. As the pilot circled to get into the traffic pattern, he and his
copilot saw a bright light hovering off to the southeast. The pilot called the tower operators at the airport to tell them about the light, but before he could say
anything, the tower operators told him they were looking at it too. They had called the operations office of the Ohio Air National Guard, which was located