Comment for Part Three:

Just for the record, this week's edition is an hour late in posting. Sorry about that.

As for the content, I believe the piece by Joseph and Stewart Alsop is particularly enlightening as to the little-acknowledged fact that it was the flying disc wave of 1947 which really focused the attention of the powers that be on the need for early warning systems.

And I am particularly pleased with the "This Week" piece on Gordon Cooper, which I believe represents the only time those two incidents have been quoted in their entirety (though based on past experience with Saturday Night Uforia material, that won't last long).

On a more personal note, this is Memorial Day Weekend in the U.S., and the last two items in this weekend's Newsroom, along with the story "I Was Looking Forward To A Quiet Old Age" represent a meager attempt to acknowledge and remember the sacrifice of untold millions.

Direct links for above Thread: Russian Space History, Sotheby's 1993 and 1996 and Vostock Capsule Auction Catalogue (10 meg PDF).

I've been collecting books and articles (many from the NASA archives linked from this site!) about the space program both here and in the former Soviet Union that was so very important to my childhood.

How truly wonderful to know. It's the whole idea of providing the library, after all.

This showed that they trusted the American people to support them as long as they were out front with everything from launches to personalizing the astronauts.

Plus it was all part of the spirit that we were all in this together. You know, back in the days when NASA had cache and there was almost nothing cooler than being an astronaut.

And maybe I'm wrong but the breathe of sightings over this time period is just too much for any one single "psychological" theory to explain.

Exactamundo. But that didn't stop some from trying.

So very glad to hear you enjoyed it.

And so very true about "human beings drawing on paper or painting on canvas." And they had the power to fire up imaginations in a way I personally haven't experienced in decades (remember the cities of the future, and the flying cars?)

And whether it's an old quote or a new one, it captures the tenor of the times just right.

I had never considered that the *secrecy* with which The Bomb was developed might have seemed even more disturbing than the existence of The Bomb itself! Keep in mind these comments were being made by a journalist and a psychologist *in the year 1947*. That the realization of secrecy was upsetting to the general populace is not speculation: this journalist and this psychologist are telling us what they have observed in people living at that time...

But then, after a time, it would dawn on people that this almost "supernatural" weapon had been developed without a word leaking to the general US public.

If so, what else might be hidden?

That struck me right between the eyes as well when I first read it.

During the war it was understandable when troop movements and specific operations were kept secret. But none of those portended anywhere near the monumentality of the development of the atomic bomb (love your phrasing, "almost supernatural weapon".)

And this shocking development came after many years when the government and the people seemed to be partners, first through such programs as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration, and then throughout the war through the buying of war bonds, the donation of scrap metal and other items to go towards armaments, and even through cultivating victory gardens.

I'm sure Americans understood the need for secrecy around the A-bomb, but I agree it forever redefined the relationship between government and the governed.

And on a personal note, I'm especially pleased to see that such series as this and It Seemed Impossible - But There It Is do indeed contribute to a better understanding of the times and the context in which all this occurred.

I'm loving this "as it happened" approach.

Glad to hear it, and I feel the same. And it's so nice to have the luxury of taking my time with this.

That's an noteworthy report out of Missouri...

Two groups of people 10 miles apart, reporting "dozens of discs" which "traveled in groups of two and three".

And yet you won't find it in Project Sign/Blue Book files or in the NICAP "chronology". One reason I believe series such as this matter a great deal.

And the case from Tulsa, with a pilot and a crew chief separately witnessing something and describing it quite similarly.

I found the description particularly evocative:

...what appeared to be a ring of light, resembling a circular lamp moving in a north-easterly direction at approximately 800 miles per hour

There's Charles Fort again.

Good catch.

Comment for Part Two:

Well the articles speak for themselves, so nothing much to add. On a personal note, I personally very much like the analysis and opinion articles.

On other fronts, having had a very full schedule, this week is the second or third time in 40 or so weeks that there's been nothing else added to the site.

Was he unimpressed by the mystery, or convinced by someone that it was the military's concern?

Neither. Hoover threw a hissy fit after seeing the following in an internal Air Force memo:

"The services of the FBI were enlisted in order to relieve the numbered Air Forces of the task of tracking down all the many instances which turned out to be ash can covers, toilet seats and whatnot."

And the more I think about it the more I realize how simple it was back then for the military/government/FBI/CIA to put the kabash on any really interesting events...

Actually it was extremely early days for Dolan's 'National Security State'. Though the National Security Act of 1947 realigned the military forces and established the CIA and NSC at about that time, the CIA was originally supposed to be a simple coordinator of intelligence gathered from the various branches, and didn't actually become a spook agency itself until the '50s. And the rivalries amongst the various intelligence services as well as the FBI kept much information compartmentalized. I don't believe there was quite the ability to quash information in the late '40s as would eventually develop.

And the Walter Winchell article is a scream.

The thing that immediately struck me is that it sounded like an early variant of the Philadelphia Experiment.