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The radar at Brookley AFB was so located that part of the area that it scanned was over Mobile Bay. It was in this area that the UFO was detected. We thought of the
theory that the same inversion layer that bent the radar beam also caused the target to appear to be in the air, and we began to do a little checking. There was a
slight inversion but, according to our calculations, it wasn't enough to affect the radar. More important was the fact that in the area where the target appeared there
were no targets to pick up--let alone lighted targets. We checked and rechecked and found that at the time of the sighting there were no ships, buoys, or anything else
that would give a radar return in the area of Mobile Bay in which we were interested.
Although this sighting wasn't as glamorous as some we had, it was highly significant because it was possible to show that the UFO couldn't have been a lighted surface
target.
While we were investigating the sighting we talked to several electronics specialists about our radar-visual sightings. One of the most frequent comments we heard was,
"Why do all of these radar- visual sightings occur at night?"
The answer was simple: they don't. On August 1, just before dawn, an ADC radar station outside of Yaak, Montana, on the extreme northern border of the United States,
picked up a UFO. The report was very similar to the sighting at Brookley except it happened in the daylight and, instead of seeing a light, the crew at the radar
station saw a "dark, cigar-shaped object" right where the radar had the UFO pinpointed.
What these people saw is a mystery to this day.
Late in September I made a trip out to Headquarters, ADC to brief General Chidlaw and his staff on the past few months' UFO activity.
Our plans for periodic briefings, which we had originally set up with ADC, had suffered a bit in the summer because we were all busy elsewhere. They were still giving
us the fullest co-operation, but we hadn't been keeping them as thoroughly read in as we would have liked to. I'd finished the briefing and was eating lunch at the
officers' club with Major Verne Sadowski, Project Blue Book's liaison officer in ADC Intelligence, and several other officers. I had a hunch that something was
bothering these people. Then finally Major Sadowski said, "Look, Rupe, are you giving us the straight story on these UFO's?"
I thought he meant that I was trying to spice things up a little, so I said that since he had copies of most of our reports and had read them, he should know that I
was giving them the facts straight across the board.
Then one of the other officers at the table cut in, "That's just the point, we do have the reports and we have read them. None of us can understand why