Patrick D. McCaslin Interview, 25 February 2001
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| PM: | So, it was at that briefing that he wanted to know what we saw. And we told him as frankly as we could what we'd seen. That's, I think, where I learned—I may have heard at the initial debriefing in Base Ops what the pilots thought—their impression of what this thing looked like. But certainly by the time of that briefing and at that briefing it was described as an orangish, elliptically-shaped object—not perfectly circular, but elliptically-shaped, with kind of a halo—a boomerang-shaped exhaust, if you will, of the same color, slightly separated from the elliptical shape. I didn't see it, so I just go with what the pilot said, but that's what I was told. And that's my memory of what General Holland was told. | |
| INT: | Did they talk about the size of the object? | |
| PM: | Don't remember. Don't remember what they described for size. | |
| INT: | How big do you think the object was? | |
| PM: | I think it had to have been the size of a B-52, or a KC-135, or I wouldn't have seen the returns. | |
| INT: | Or bigger? | |
| PM: | Or bigger. Or bigger. Yeah. The return was as big or bigger than a KC-135 return. Which I understand can be done, you know, that can happen as a result of features on a surface. It can accentuate the amount of energy coming back, but still, it was big. | |
| INT: | What was the exchange in the debriefing? Was it casual? | |
| PM: | Casual. I mean nobody was standing at attention. Everybody was seated like we are now. General Holland was very informal. I'm just giving my impression. I have no idea what his intent was, but if he wanted to find out exactly what people think—what people thought at the time, he handled it about as well as you could have. He put us at ease and made it clear to us that he just wanted us to tell exactly what we saw, and there was no undue pressure on anybody to do other than that. Nobody was forced to stand at attention and give their debriefing or any of that salute. None of that. You sat there and told him what you thought. | |
| INT: | Did he express his particular interest? | |
| PM: | He gave me the clear impression he was interested. He didn't say, "Boy, I'm really fired up about this," or anything like that. I had the impression he was very interested in finding out exactly what went on. | |
| INT: | Why? |
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