I'm going to tell you an eerie story, labeled a "rumor" by the Air Force, which you haven't heard before. The fact that you haven't heard it - haven't been allowed to hear it - is as frightening as the story itself.
         On April 8, 1964, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration launched from Cape Kennedy the first two-man Gemini capsule, a crucial step in our effort to land an astronaut on the moon. The capsule went into its planned orbit around the earth, and sensitive instruments began gathering data that would reveal flaws and point out possible improvements in the design. This first test flight was a great success. You read about it next morning in your paper. But there was something you didn't read. This report was given to me confidentially by two scientists present at the test. The Gemini capsule was still in its first orbit when four spacecraft of unknown origin flew up to it. While startled radar trackers watched their screens in open-mouthed amazement, the four took up positions around the capsule - two above it, one beneath, one aft. Whoever was inside those strange craft appeared to be inspecting the capsule minutely and with care. They drew close to the capsule and paced it for a full orbit of the earth. Then, apparently finished with their scrutiny, they pulled away and vanished into the unknown.
         What were these four mysterious space travelers? Where had they come from? What mission had brought them into the earth's space neighborhood? What people, what beings, were at the controls? I fervently wish I could answer those questions. And I wish I could satisfactorily answer one other: this eerie episode, this incident so fraught with implications for all who live on earth - why was it kept secret? How do I know? I'm going to tell you how. I'm going to submit documented case histories to you, evidence that can hardly be doubted, reports signed by sober, reliable men whose very livelihoods depend on their ability to see things clearly and note facts with minute accuracy. But first let me tell you a little about myself and the basis on which I ask your credence. I am a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Before and during World War II I was a flying officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. My whole life has been involved with aircraft, either flying them or writing about them. I mention this to show that I'm in a position to assess the facts when a pilot tells me about something he has seen in the air. I'm familiar with mirages, sundogs and other optical phenomena encountered by pilots, and I know which optical illusions fool you and which don't, and when.
         After the war I became a writer on technical aspects of aviation. One day I was approached by the editor of TRUE. He wanted me to investigate the so-called flying saucers that were just then beginning to get into the news. Frankly, I was skeptical. Flying saucers were just illusions. I thought. But I investigated anyway, out of curiosity. And after talking to scores of people who had sighted UFO's - government officials, pilots, scientists - I came away convinced that UFO's are in truth what they seem to be: visitors from somewhere else in the universe. I was so thoroughly convinced that I became director of an organization called NICAP, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, whose sole purpose is to get to the bottom of the UFO mystery. NICAP now has some 5,000 members in 50 states and 30 foreign countries.
         The members of NICAP include veteran officers of all the services including many from the intelligence branches. Other members are pilots, astronomers, space and rocket experts and scientists. Many top scientific minds are on the board of NICAP and others serve as advisers to the organization. I myself have carried on extensive research in the UFO field over the past 15 years and have written a number of books on the subject. Over the years NICAP has become a kind of central collecting point for UFO sighting reports. People who are afraid to report to the Air Force or to newspapers, fearing public ridicule, report to us. People under news-blackout orders often report to us in secret. This is how we learned about the Gemini episode, for example. The news cover-up has leaks, and they often flow quietly in NICAP's direction.
         Consider another leak. In our files is a photocopy of an official tracking log from Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy), covering operations on January 10, 1961. A Polaris missile was fired that day. According to the log, the missile was on its way up when an "unidentifiable flying object" came in over the range. The UFO was evidently so big and maneuvered so close to the Polaris that automatic tracking radar on the ground, set to follow the Polaris, locked onto the UFO by mistake. The UFO eventually flew out of the radar's "sight." It took trackers 14 minutes to find the Polaris again. Did you read about this in your paper? Certainly not.
         Nor did you read about the weird events of May 3, 1964. So puzzling were these events that they caused a flurry in the U.S. State Department, and the State Department felt it necessary to send a report on the affair to the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Army and the Navy. The security lid clamped down before the facts got to you, but here they are: Just before dawn that day, near Canberra, Australia, several observers on the ground saw a large white-glowing object traveling northeast across the dark sky. It moved with a peculiar wobble as though losing power or partly out of control. The gaping observers then saw a smaller object, visible with a faint red light, hovering not far ahead. The big white craft flew right up to the smaller one and appeared to strike it. Then the large UFO turned, no longer wobbling, and streaked out of sight. The small red light sputtered briefly and went out. Judging from the baffled observers' report the incident could have been either an attack by the big craft on the smaller object, or else some odd kind of mid-air refueling or recharging process.
         The observers' report was investigated by the Scientific Attache of the American Embassy at Canberra, Dr. Paul Siple, and two NASA engineers. They concluded, in the first place, that the observers had indeed seen what they said they'd seen. They also concluded that the mysterious objects were not earthmade craft of any known kind. The embassy reported all this to Washington, D.C., in Airgram A-894 - a copy of which was secured and deposited in NICAP's files.
         The Air force has also kept suspiciously quiet about scores of recent encounters between UFO's and aircraft. In 1962 and again in 1964, the Air Force alleged in various press releases and press interviews that the whole UFO investigation was finished: all sightings had been explained as balloons, hoaxes, illusions and other known phenomena, and the books were closed. This was a strange thing to say. For the Air Force, in effect, was denying that the following documented incidents ever happened:
         September 21, 1961: A British and an American jet liner, flying over the Pacific, independently saw a huge round craft fly above them at incredible speed.
         May 21, 1962: An Irish International Airlines plane encountered a round, metallic flying device at an altitude of 17,000 feet over England.
         December 22, 1962: At Ezezia International Airport, near Bueno Aires, a curious round machine appeared shortly before dawn and put down at the end of Runway 1-0-2-8, blocking a Panagra DC-8 jet that was preparing to land. After a while it took off and sped out of sight.
         July 18, 1963: Near Sunnyvale, California, four Air force jets tried to intercept a disc-shaped UFO in the air. According to a report signed by a qualified ground observer and filed at NICAP, the strange craft was much too fast for the jets. It "pulled up in a short arc and shot up out of sight in an estimated three seconds."
         This kind of thing has been going on throughout the 1960's. The Air Force persists in denying it, even though - as in the 1963 Sunnyvale incident - observers have clearly seen the Air Force's own planes chasing UFO's. The fact is, the Air Force seems seriously concerned about UFO's and is still investigating them intensively. The Air Intelligence group that is charged with checking up on UFO reports (its code name is Project Blue Book) is still in existence and still active, despite protestations that the book is closed.
         The truth is, there is no longer any reasonable doubt that alien spacecraft are visiting the earth. The statement may sound startling at first, but when you think about it, it actually becomes quite mundane. It is not much more startling than the statement that, if you stand on a street corner, sooner or later somebody will pass by. In the light of recent scientific calculations, it seems likely that several million of them have planetary systems, and at least some of these planets must support life. It would be arrogant of us to suppose that we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, and just as arrogant to think that we are the first to develop space travel. Civilizations far older than ours may have orbited their first satellites when human-kind was just learning to light fires. Such a civilization would eventually send its astronauts out to explore nearby space, and if they found a planet that harbored intelligent life - a planet such as our own - they would undoubtedly hang around and study it at length.
         The Air force is aware of all this. Back in 1949, in fact, before the decision was made to keep UFO facts secret, the Air Force issued a fascinating document called the Project Grudge Report. Project Grudge was the predecessor of Project Blue Book, and the 1949 report dealt with UFO sightings after World War II. The report pointed out that intelligent beings might conceivably exist on Mars or Venus. It speculated on the possibility that a civilization on one of those planets might have begun its technological advance thousands of years before ours did, and that the people of that civilization might now be interested in watching our own advance - out of scientific curiosity, perhaps, or out of fear of future aggression. "Such a civilization might observe." Said the report, "that on earth we now have A-bombs and are developing rockets….We should expect at this time above all to behold such visitations." As, in fact, we are. The alien visitors are evidently interested in anything we send up off the ground - airliners, missiles, satellites. When our first astronauts travel to the moon and planets, they will almost certainly see UFO's following them, watching, studying.