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

JK

Yeah, well, it's about that incident in October.

WS

Right.

JK

If you will allow me, I will explain to you how we came to be interested in this and how we got to this point. In January or February of last year, the copilot of the B-52 that was in the area that night went to a civilian UFO organization in Chicago called the Center for UFO Studies.

WS

Okay.

JK

CUFOS. He filled out one of their report forms on this incident and provided some detail that was not in the Blue Book documents. Some of the members of the group [SHG] that I work with are on the board of the Center for UFO Studies.

WS

Right.

JK

And so this case seemed to have elements to it that were of interest because there are so many witnesses, both ground and airborne visual sightings as well as radar and so on— that we wanted to see if we could document it further, and over the last six or seven months, my partner and I have been able to locate every one who was on board that B- 52 except one fellow who has passed away. He was the radar operator [Bomb Navigator Maj. Charles Richey]. But the radar navigator who sat beside him is with us.

WS

Right.

JK

And they granted us interviews, and like I said, it was the copilot that kind of started this thing off, and that copilot was so well respected by the other guys that they thought if he wants to go forward with this they were willing to talk with me about it. In fact, some of those guys have granted us video interviews.

WS

I see, okay.

JK

We have obtained a copy of the Blue Book documents and the sighting forms that were filled out at the time are in those records, and yours is one of those. And so since we have completed talking with the people who were in the B-52, we're working on the people on duty that night on the ground.

WS

Right.

JK

And we have located a couple of those people. The two maintenance guys at November-7—O'Connor and Isley. I found both of those folks and talked to them about the incident and they gave interviews, and James Bond who was the FSC at November-1. I located him and talked to him, and so since there was things that happened in the Oscar area—

‹‹ Previous Page — Next Page ››

2