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

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JK

That's not in the documents, but yes, I have heard about that. There was a lieutenant colonel who was the commander of the Combat Support Group—and you may have met him while you were filling the report form because he was the designated UFO investigation officer. His name was Arthur Werlich.

WS

Was he a full-bird colonel?

JK

He was a lieutenant colonel.

WS

Okay. I do remember a lieutenant colonel, yes. I dealt with a lieutenant colonel in my interview.

JK

Right, that would have been him. And he collected the sighting forms and wrote the reports to the Foreign Technology Division, which was the parent of Project Blue Book—at Wright-Patterson. Now, he has passed away but both of his daughters who were living with him on base at the time are alive. I located both of them and spoke with both of them. They clearly recall him getting a call in the middle of the night. And you know, being either on the line or at some point talking to O'Connor or Isley who were at N-7, because they were the first guys to see it, according to everything I can find.

WS

Right.

JK

And they reported it, and it kind of spread, and they patched O'Connor and Isley through to various people, including, I assume your capsule and others and the tower. Because they were talking to the B-52 that happened to be in the area.

WS

Right.

JK

One of those daughters recalls Colonel Werlich speaking about radiation at one of the sites, so that's all I really have on that; however, in the documents, there is information. Werlich reported that there was a break-in at one of the Oscar sites.

WS

We had alarms that went off. We responded to it, and our gate was open. And we couldn't find, you know, we did the proper thing you do for sites and everything was buttoned down, as we could tell. Well, the next day one of our investigators, I think it was on officer, and I think it was a second lieutenant or first lieutenant or something of that nature came out and did an inspection. I think he had, and I don't know why— when I say one of our people, I think he was a missile member, maintenance person. And he came out with a team, as a matter of fact, and I don't know why, but they did have a Geiger counter.

JK

Now, in one of Werlich's reports, he said that he wanted to go out there with a Geiger counter. But it doesn't say that he did.

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