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Nineteen hundred fifty-six was a big year for Project Blue Book. According to an old friend, Captain George Gregory, who was then Chief of Blue Book, they received 778
reports. And through a lot of sleepless nights they were able to "solve" 97.8% of them. Only 17 remained "unknowns."
Digging through the reports for 1956, outside of the ones already mentioned, there were few real good ones.
In Banning, California, Ground Observer Corps spotters watched a "balloon-like object make three rectangular circuits around the town." In Plymouth, New
Hampshire, two GOC spotters reported "a bright yellow object which left a trail, similar to a jet, moving slowly at a very high altitude." At Rosebury,
Oregon, State Police received many reports of "funny green and red lights" moving slowly around a television transmitter tower. And in Hartford, Connecticut,
two amateur astronomers, looking at Saturn through a 4-inch telescope, were distracted by a bright light. Turning their telescope on it they observed a "large,
whitish yellow light, shaped like a ten gallon hat." Many other people evidently saw the same UFO because the local newspaper said, "reports have been
pouring in."
In Miami, a Pan American Airlines radar operator tracked a UFO at speeds up to 4000 miles an hour. Five of his skeptical fellow radar operators watched and were
confirmed.
At Moneymore, Northern Ireland, a "level-headed and God fearing" citizen and his wife captured an 18-inch saucer by putting a headlock on it. They started to
the local police station, but put the saucer down to climb over a hedge, and it went whirling off to the hinterlands of space.
The 27th Air Defense Division that guards the vast aircraft and missile centers of Southern California was alerted on the night of September 9. In rapid succession, a
Western Airlines pilot making an approach to Los Angeles International Airport, the Ground Observer Corps, and numerous Los Angeles citizens called in a white light
moving slowly across the Los Angeles basin. When the big defense radars on San Clemente Island picked up an unknown target in the same area that the light was being
reported two F-89 jet interceptors were scrambled but saw nothing.
A few days later investigators learned that a $27.65 weather balloon had caused the many thousand dollars' worth of excitement.
The matter of scrambling interceptors has been a sore point with the UFO business for a long time. Many people believe that the mere fact the Air Force will send up
two, three, or even four aircraft that cost $2000 an hour to fly is proof positive that the Air Force doesn't believe its own story that UFO's don't