The other interesting point made during this conversation was that the transmitters on the B-52 shut down. UFOs have often been associated with electromagnetic effects which seem to suppress electrical systems causing cars to stall, lights to dim and radios fade. But this is a selective suppression of the electrical system. The only problem is that the transmitters of the UHF radios ceased to transmit. Apparently all other electrical systems on the aircraft continued to function properly.
Werlich said, "My personal opinion is that it couldn't be a malfunction because they transmitted before and afterwards. The aircraft was not checked out afterwards because the transmission (sic) was working."
In a proper investigation, the transmitter should have been checked for a short. The coincidence of the close approach of the UFO might have been just that, a coincidence. But a short would show up again at some point. There is no indication from the Blue Book record that such is the case. Of course, if it did, there is no reason for Werlich, or anyone else at Minot to report that to Blue Book.
During the conversation, another of the Air Force's old standbys, a temperature inversion, was mentioned a couple of times. Lieutenant Marano "then explained about the many astronomical bodies that were over the area at the time and when there is quite an inversion they are magnified even greater."
The Air Force investigators were now suggesting that not only couldn't their personnel identify a B-52 when it flew over them, now they couldn't identify stars. These ill-trained ground personnel, for some unexplained reason, began to see flying saucers all over the skies above Minot on October 24.
Then on November 1, 1968, in a memo for the record, it is reported, "Talked to Mr. Goff [whoever that is]… who is quite familiar with air-borne radars. Mr. Goff said that from the evidence at this time it would appear to him that the sightings may have been precipitated by some type of ionized air plasma similar to ball lightning. He felt that a plasma could account for the radar blip, loss of transmission and some of the visual sightings…"
This, to me, sounded like a reasonable solution to the problem. But it also sounded like someone trying to find an explanation for a case where none existed, so I called a friend who teaches physics at a major university. The first comment he made was most telling. If this is true, then why isn't the phenomenon reported more often?
What he was saying was that if plasma was a good explanation for this particular sighting, then we could expect to see similar things around other aircraft all the time. We could expect to have many reports of intermittent failures of transmitters, airborne radars plagued with plasma images, and reports of glowing plasmas following other aircraft. Yet this simply isn't the case.
During my discussion with the physicist, I kept asking about the glow, and how bright it would be. It began to sound as if we were talking about two different phenomena. What he was attempting to say was that plasmas don't glow unless there is another feature. I mentioned the glow around high power lines, and he said that the electricity could excite the plasma to make it glow, but that they didn't glow on their own. In other words, unless there was another mechanism there causing a glow, those on the ground, and in the plane, wouldn't have been able to see anything. The plasma, that is, the ionized air, would be the color of air.
The idea of the plasma causing the sightings seems to have impressed many of the people involved here. In a teletype message from Quintanilla to Colonel Pullen at SAC, he wrote, "It is my feelings, after reviewing preliminary information submitted by Monot [obviously Minot], that UFO painted by B-52 on radar and also observed visually by IP [pilot] and personnel on the ground is probably a plasma of the ball-lightning class. Plasmas of this type will paint on radar and also affect some electronic equipment at certain frequencies."
He then made a statement that is contradictory. "Plasmas are not uncommon, however, they are unique and extremely difficult to duplicate in the laboratory."
Quintanilla finished with, "Also, because of durations, feel strongly that some security guards and maintenance crew were observing some first magnitude celestial bodies which were greatly magnified by the inversion layer and haze which was present at Minot during the time of the UFO observations… consider the UFO reports as fairly routine, except for the plasma observation which is interesting from a scientific point of view. We will study this report in more detail when we receive the raw data from Minot."
Of course, the question springs to mind, "Why?" You have an answer and you certainly aren't going to change it. We've already seen how the facts of a case make little impact on the solution for it. Besides, by November 13, Quintanilla had his final solutions. He wrote, "The following conclusions have been reached after a thorough study of the data submitted to the Foreign Technology Division. The ground visual sightings appear to be of the star Sirius and the B-52 which was flying in the area. The B-52 radar contact and the temporary loss of the UHF transmission could be attributed to a plasma similar to ball lightning. The air visual from the B-52 could be the star Vega which was on the horizon at the time, or it could be a light on the ground, or possibly a plasma… No further investigation by the Foreign Technology Division is contemplated."
Let's see if we understand all of this. The trained men on the ground, some of whom have been in the Air Force for a long time, saw Sirius through the inversion layer and were fooled by it. Some of the others saw a B-52 on a routine training mission and were unable to identify it as a B-52. Others still saw some stars through the inversion and failed to identify them.
Apparently the radar sightings from the ground were not investigated because I see nothing in the file to indicate that Blue Book officers ever identified the "weathers" radar. Had anyone at Blue Book asked, I'm sure the officers at Minot would have been able to identify the sight. It is interesting that, according to the file, no one ever followed this particular lead.
And, let's see if we understand the explanation for the B-52 sighting. It could be Vega, a star seen through the inversion layer that magnified its size and brightness. Or, it could be a light on the ground, fooling the bomber crew because of the inversion layer. Or, it could be a plasma which might explain the radar return and the failure of the radios to transmit, if we can figure out how the plasma could selectively suppress the radio without affecting the other electronic equipment.
The answers provided in this case are no answers whatsoever. It is a combination of new buzzwords such as plasma, a belief that Air Force personnel, including bomber crews, are unable to recognize stars, and a suggestion that many of these same people can't recognize a B-52 when they see it. Here was a case that deserved more investigation but got none of that. And here is the proof for which we had been searching. Blue Book wasn't interested in investigating UFOs, they were interested in resolving UFO sightings. Once again, they made no on-site investigation but conducted it from their offices at Wright-Patterson.
In fact, that is pointed out in one of the memos for the record. Colonel Werlich called Blue Book and said, "Thursday I called, with the personal opinion that we needed technical assistance at that time and that is what we requested and we didn't get it and we have tried to do what we could."
The Air Force explanations offered are not very good. That was why I called the physicist. I wanted to know what he thought about the plasma idea. He said, "They're reaching here. This just doesn't make good sense."