"It was a difficult time after the incident. For years afterward, I would hear the stories within military circles and I never commented on it in any way at all. Nor did I ever speak to any UFO researchers or members of the media. Still, I noted with some disconcertment all of the untruths being discussed, especially in the media starting in the mid-eighties after the Halt memo was released through the Freedom of Information Act. I read accounts quoting people who claimed to be primary witnesses -- and they weren't -- saying certain events happened, which they didn't. "I think the fact that that memo was discovered and released was a complete oversight. In fact, when the word got out, I think it suprised the federal government and a lot of people within the U.S. Air Force. That has got to be the last thing they expected. Especially on this case. They thought damage control was complete. They had effectively contained the situation, they thought. Then comes this memo on official USAF stationery and signed by the deputy base commander, and it reads like something out of a science-fiction novel. It caught the Air Force with its pants down, and they didn't know how to react. It was definitely an embarrassment for the U.S. government because, in effect, it showed that they had basically been lying about never investigating anything having to do with the UFO phenomenon. Which is, of course, ridiculous. UFOs are not all that uncommon; it's just that we called them bogies and always came up with a prosaic answer as to their identities before. But this caught them in a lie. That and the fact that it happened outside of a NATO installation just did not make the Air Force look very good. "I was extremely upset by the memo's release, because the story being leaked as a result included my name and I was being tied into it. I had been assured by my senior officers at Bentwaters that at no time would my name or whatever be used or released outside official U.S. channels. Of course, they hadn't released it, but the next thing I know, it's being covered on CNN and Unsolved Mysteries and in books and magazines. Fortunately, I was still in the service and managed to duck them all. But I was confused. I thought -- and I had been told -- that this was a top secret incident. And now all this. "I had no interest in anything like this before 1980. I always thought that anybody who had seen strange lights or claimed to have seen UFOs in the sky was crazy. I am a logical person. Even to this day, I am still trying to rationalize from previous experience what that craft was, what happened. But there it is: I mean, I am standing out in the clearing in the middle of the forest and there is this craft, clearly triangular in shape, looking like nothing I have ever seen or ever heard about, and it doesn't make any sound, and it's got lights, and I walk around it and take pictures of it and I even touch it, and nobody, no country, is claiming it. I am 99 percent certain of one thing and that is, this craft was definitely not of USAF origin or at least not that I know of, and nobody I know has ever heard anything about a craft like this then or now. And what other country might have such a craft that has those capabilities of maneuvering in tight conditions in the middle of a forest and all with no sound? That disturbed me then, and it disturbs me now."

The next thing I know, it's being covered on CNN and Unsolved Mysteries and in books and magazines.

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Special Report: Into the Night
[ Introduction ]
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