The reason that this particular flight got on to the front pages when others had been ignored was not simply that this time there had been a series of observations which plotted its track; it lay more in the implications of the line that had been drawn. However, in spite of innuendo and direct suggestion, there was silence to the east. Ever since their hurried and unconvincing explanation which followed the first atomic explosion in Russia, her leaders had found it convenient to feign at least a temporary deafness to questions on such matters. It was a policy which had the advantages of calling for no mental exertion while at the same time building up in the minds of the general public a feeling that inscrutability must mask hidden power. And since those who were well acquainted with Russian affairs were not going to publish the degree of their acquaintanceship, the game of aloofness was easily able to continue.
The Swedes announced, with careful lack of particularizing, that they would take action against any similar violation of their sky, whoever might be the violators. The British papers suggested that a certain great power was zealous enough in guarding its own frontiers to justify others in taking similar measures to protect theirs. American journals said that the way to deal with any Russian aircraft over US territory was to shoot first. The Kremlin apparently slept.
There was a sudden spate of fireball observation. Reports came in from so far and wide that it was impossible to do more than sort out the more wildly imaginative and put the rest aside to be considered at more leisure, but I noticed that among them were several accounts of fireballs descending into the sea that tallied well with my own observation so well, indeed, that I could not be absolutely sure that they did not derive from my own broadcast. All in all, it appeared to be such a muddle of guesswork, tall stories, third-hand impressions, and thoroughgoing invention that it taught me little. One negative point, however, did strike me not a single observer claimed to have seen a fireball descend on land. Ancillary to that, not a single one of those descending on water had been observed from the shore: all had been noticed from ships, or from aircraft well out to sea.
For a couple of weeks reports of sightings in groups large or small continued to pour in. The sceptics were weakening; only the most obstinate still maintained that they were hallucinations. Nevertheless, we learnt nothing more about them than we had known before. No pictures. So often it seemed to be a case of the things you see when you don't have a gun. But then a flock of them came up against a fellow who did have a gun literally.
The fellow in this case happened to be the USN Carrier, Tuskegee. The message from Curacao that a flight of eight fireballs was headed directly towards her reached her when she was lying off San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Captain breathed a short hope that they would commit a violation of the territory, and made his preparations. The fireballs, true to type, kept on in a dead straight line which would bring them across the island, and almost over the ship herself. The Captain watched their approach on his radar with great satisfaction. He waited until the technical violation was indisputable. Then he gave the word to release six guided missiles at three-second intervals, and went on deck to watch, against the darkling sky.
Through his glasses he watched six of the red dots change as they burst, one after another, into big white puffs.
'Well, that's settled them,' he observed, complacently. 'Now it's going to be mighty interesting to see who squeals,' he added, as he watched the two remaining red dots dwindle away to the northward.
But the days passed, and nobody squealed. Nor was there any decrease in the number of fireball reports.
For most people such a policy of masterly silence pointed only one way, and they began to regard the responsibility as good as proved.
In the course of the following week, two more fireballs that had been incautious enough to pass within range of the experimental station at Woomera paid for that temerity, and three others were exploded by a ship off Kodiak after flying across Alaska.
Washington, in a note of protest to Moscow regarding repeated territorial violations, ended by observing that in several cases where drastic action had been taken it regretted the distress that must have been caused to the relatives of the crews aboard the craft, but that responsibility lay at the door not of those who dealt with the craft, but with those who sent them out apparently under orders which transgressed international agreements.
The Kremlin, after a few days of gestation, produced a rejection of the protest. It proclaimed itself unimpressed by the tactic of attributing one's own crime to another, and went on to state that its own weapons, recently developed by Russian scientists for the defence of Peace, had now destroyed more than twenty of these craft over Soviet territory, and would, without hesitation, give the same treatment to any others detected in their work of espionage
The situation thus remained unresolved. The non-Russian world was, by and large, divided sharply into two classes those who believed every Russian pronouncement, and those who believed none. For the first class no question arose; their faith was firm. For the second, interpretation was less easy. Was one to deduce, for instance, that the whole thing was a lie? Or merely that, when the Russians claimed to have accounted for twenty fireballs, they had only, in fact, exploded five or so?
An uneasy situation, constantly punctuated by an exchange of notes, drew out over months. Fireballs were undoubtedly more numerous than they had been, but just how much more numerous, or more active, or more frequently reported was difficult to assess. Every now and then a few more were destroyed in various parts of the world, and from time to time, too, it would be announced that numbers of capitalistic fireballs had been effectively shown the penalties that waited those who conducted espionage upon the territory of the only true People's Democracy.
Public interest must feed to keep alive; without fresh nourishment it soon begins to decline. The things existed; they buzzed through the air at high speed; they blew up if you hit them; but, beyond that, what? They didn't appear to do Anything at least nothing that anyone seemed to know about. Nor did they do anything to fulfil the sensational role they had seemed to promise.
Novelty waned, and an era of explaining-away set in. Presently we were back to something very like the St Elmo's fire position, for the most widely accepted view was that they must simply be some new form of natural electrical manifestation. As time went on, ships and shore-stations ceased to fire at them, and let them continue on their mysterious ways, noting merely their speed, time, and direction. They were, in fact, a disappointment.
Nevertheless, in Admiralty and Air Force Headquarters all over the world these notes and reports came together. Courses were plotted on charts. Gradually a pattern of a kind began to emerge.
At EBC I was still regarded as the natural silting-place for anything to do with fireballs, and although the subject was dead mutton for the moment I kept up my files in case it should revive. Meanwhile, I contributed in a small way to the building up of the bigger picture by passing along to the authorities such snippets of information as I thought might interest them.
In due course I found myself invited to the Admiralty to be shown some of the results.
It was a Captain Winters who welcomed me there, explaining that while what I should be shown was not exactly an official secret, it was preferred that I should not make public use of it yet. When I had agreed to that, he started to bring out maps and charts.