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

JK

Would that be referred to as a camper team?

WS

No, we did have a camper team—yes, a security camper team, but there was a targeting crew, there was a captain who vacated the capsule or vacated the actual targeting missile; he shut it up that night. And I recall that very well because I was off duty at five or six o'clock, but anyway, we kept talking about this, talking it up. The crew, capsule crew thought we were crazy. They said, "Come on, you guys." I said, "Sir, these lights are not acting correctly; they're just not. And they're too large, they're not aircraft." We'd already called—as a matter of fact, I called my missile control center, had them check to see if we had any aircraft out there. They said, "We have no aircraft out there flying right now tonight," but we still could see the light. So they got closer and closer, and now I am on the phone with the capsule crew, and they get in touch with their people, and so we're talking all on the line, we're all discussing this, and I keep telling them, "Sir, here's what it looks like. Now they're moving back and forth." So somebody mentioned, one of the control rooms, that there was an aircraft, that they were going to divert the B-52 from its approach and they were going to have it come up our way. And that's when—and I was on the phone with the capsule crews when all this went on.

JK

Right.

WS

So I was privy to that. They then started to believe us when a flight crew said, "Hey, wait a second, there is something out here." And from what I understood, it got fairly close. We were not privy to all the information, but I understood that this thing got fairly close, and the gunner—I don't know if you got anything from the gunner—but my understanding was that the gunner had a very, very good view of what the thing was and did describe it. We got some of that information back.

JK

That's unusual in two ways. The other folks that I have spoken to said they didn't hear much of anything back, but—

WS

I was on the line listening to the capsule crew as they were talking to their control center and our control center. We had three or four control centers on; they patched everybody on.

JK

Sure, you had command posts, security controllers and so on.

WS

Right. And I was sitting there listening to most of this, and now, it was pretty much out of my hands at this point, but as I recall, that was the sequence of events that happened. And the 52 crew, from what I understand, got probably the best view of all. Except, from what I understood, the targeting crew, the captain was called up on the camper and they vacated the site when they saw something that they were just frightened to death of.

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