William E. Smith Interview, 11 July 2001(a)

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WS

Absolutely. And things, as we have been talking, as you can understand, things have been coming up almost like I am regurgitating things here as my mind, you know starts kicking in.

JK

There is one thing I did want to ask. Now, one guy out at November-7, there was some kind of a cooler problem or something like that so there was two maintenance guys out there. Now, they were patched into this whole thing because Isley was reporting to the base minute by minute on his radio. So what was that was probably part of that patch that you were hearing through your capsule crew. Now he says, and only he says, that there was two F-106s scrambled, and that they blasted right over the top of them. Anything like that in your memory?

WS

No. The only aircraft that I am aware of would have been the B-52 that was in the air, it was diverted. We went out after things sort of quieted down. I went out, as I said before, with a couple of my guys. We started checking sites in the local vicinity, and we saw some lights that were glowing, and one guy nearly put a round through the vehicle because he was so dog-gone afraid. He had an M-16 fully loaded and nearly shot a hole in the vehicle, he was so upset. I had to calm him down, but I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was the Bagjier guy we were talking about who was driving, and another guy was just so upset, and we finally realized -- I had them drive closer and closer, and it was a light, but there was a plastic tarp or something that was out there covering hay and a farmer had put his light out there so that the animals could feed at night, I guess. So they covered it up, and this light had, this plastic thing had blown over the light in such a way that it glowed, just almost like the light that we saw. We thought we were approaching one and I wanted to go up to it and they were trying to stop me, and I said "We're going to go up there," so I gave them an order to drive closer until we saw what it was.

JK

Yeah. Well, this other guy has got to be Vennedall because that's in your report.

WS

Yeah.

JK

And that's what's in the other documents too.

WS

I tell you what. I'll continue to do a search here as well through my sources and through people. Those guys, some of them went onto Vietnam and if they stayed around we should be able to find them.

JK

Well, that would be great if you can look in that directory from the security police organization.

WS

I'll do that.

JK

And gosh, if you have any old documents with any of the names or anything, crew photos, that would be wonderful.

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