William E. Smith Interview, 25 August 2001(b)
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| WS: | Not that I know of. But no, it was too far away for us to have had that happen in our area. And I would have known about it, of course, immediately. If they were in my area they would have reported via radio "Look, here's what's happened to us." We were told also, after, and I'm not sure who gave me the briefing, I know I was debriefed by somebody within our command structure on base, and I was also debriefed, or not debriefed but talked to by somebody from Operation Blue Book that came out. But in our command structure the next day, or when we came back, I'm not sure when we got back, but we were told that we were not to talk to anybody about it, not to talk to any of the press especially about this incident, that people would be coming and checking with us and all those things. The only people we could talk to were people within our chain of command. And so when the person, I think he was a Lieutenant Colonel, that's what I remembered, but for some reason I guess I thought he had come from some other—because I didn't know him. He interviewed me and from what I understand some of the people, I was briefed on this, were going to be coming out and setting up campers. Some of our Camper Crews had told us, and some of our officers had told us that they had seen lights up at Oscar-2. A lot.
So when I briefed him on that, he literally took a camper and went out there for a while. I think he spent some time on some of our sites. So we were told that he would be out near our sites, to be aware that he's there and don't bother him. We could identify him if we wanted to, but as long as he was not on the property he was OK. And I think he spent some time up near Oscar-2, because we'd had some sightings up there. | |
| JK: | He was a Lieutenant Colonel you say? | |
| WS: | He was a Lieutenant Colonel. | |
| JK: | OK was it the same person? | |
| WS: | That I don't know. Since I didn't know him, when they talk about Operation Blue Book, I assumed that he had come from Wright-Patterson or something. I don't know where he came from, I know he was on our base, I just assumed that he was— | |
| TT: | Nobody came from Wright-Pat, but apparently some days after the event, a group came from Washington and they reviewed the radar film with the radar operator. You had no contact with that group? | |
| WS: | No. But I just remember, I was debriefed by our security people, I talked to this Colonel and I remember him saying something about Operation Blue Book— | |
| JK: | He was reporting to them. | |
| WS: | That's where I got my information then. That makes sense 'cause we were just told not to talk to anyone else, and this would be something we would keep quiet and not discuss it. | |
| JK: | Now you went out again the next day? | |
| WS: | Went out and met an officer on one of the sites, and I'm not sure who the officer was. I remember he was a Lieutenant and he indicated to me he was investigating the incident that happened out there and he wanted to find out what happened and how—and of course I was aware of what had gone down as far as the site being open and that kind of thing. |
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