Part 2 - THE INVESTIGATION
第二部 調查報告
【切換到《中譯版》】
SEVEN
第七章 神秘的昴宿星團
一
On the clear blue afternoon of June 24, 1947, along the high, snow-covered ridges of Mount Rainier, Washington, a bolt of bright light hit a small mountain plane flown by Kenneth Arnold so suddenly that Arnold thought he was about to collide with another plane. Instead, he spied a formation of nine luminescent objects, bright enough to be seen a hundred miles away, skimming the mountaintops at extraordinary speed. Arnold thought he was watching a test flight of new and secret jet planes, but as they came closer, he could see no tails on any of the craft.
1947 年 6 月 24 日一個晴朗的下午，在華盛頓州白雪覆蓋著的瑞尼爾山（Mount Rainier）脊，一道白光射向肯尼士．阿諾德（Kenneth Arnold）所駕駛的一架山區小飛機，使得他突然覺得將要與另外一架飛機相撞。此時，他發現九個一組的發光體編隊，在百英里之外的山頂上，以超快的速度飛行。阿諾德以為他看到的是一項極先進又機密的噴射機試飛，但當他們彼此更接近時，他發現那些飛行體上沒有任何尾翼。
The strange objects closed at right angles to Arnold's plane, flying like nothing he had ever seen: The echelon formed a pinnacle with the lead craft at the top, the others trailing behind and below, the reverse of military air formations. And their flight was erratic. As Arnold wrote later in his book, The Coming of the Saucers, "It was like speed boats on rough water or similar to the tail of a Chinese kite that I once saw blowing in the wind." The craft fascinated him with the way they "fluttered and sailed, tipping their wings alternately and emitting those very bright blue-white flashes from their surfaces."*
這些奇異的太空船以直角的排列方式向阿諾德逼近，它們的飛行方式是阿諾德從未見過的：一架太空船在頂端領導而形成一個尖峰形的編隊，其餘的太空船尾隨在它的後方及下方，這與軍方的空中編隊方式正好顛倒，而且他們的飛行方式極為怪異。阿諾德後來在他寫的一本名為《迎面而來的碟狀物》（The Coming of the Saucers）書中描述道：“它就像是在大浪中行駛的快艇，也像是我曾看過的在風中飄蕩的中國風箏。”而令他感到非常震撼的是：“這些太空船像是以鼓動它們的碟緣來航行的，它們交替地傾斜碟身，從表面發出那些非常亮眼的藍白光線。”［註］
*Arnold timed the lead craft from the southern edge of Mount Rainier all the way to Mount Adams, a distance of 39.8 miles, which the disk flew in one minute and forty-two seconds. In the summer of 1947, the fastest experimental aircraft on earth was thought to be the U.S. Army's X-1, developed by Bell Aircraft Corporation. A bullet-shaped fuselage with a rocket engine, the X-1 was powered to exceed the speed of sound, 760 miles an hour, but no pilot had yet been able to fly it that fast. Chuck Yeager would not break the sound barrier in the X-1 for another four months. Yet Arnold's figures, trimmed conservatively, had the shiny metallic disks traveling almost Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.
［原著者註：根據阿諾德對頂頭的太空船所作的計時，這些太空船從瑞尼爾山的南緣飛往亞當斯山（Mount Adams）（距離約 39.8 英里）時共飛行了 1 分 42 秒。在 1947 年的夏天。一般都認為當時世界上飛得最快的實驗飛機當屬美國空軍的 X-1 了，該架飛機是由貝爾（Bell）航空公司所研發的，機身為子彈型．採用火箭引擎，速度超過音速，每小時可達到 760 英里，但是截至當時為止，還沒有一位駕駛員可以把它開到這麼高的速度，直到此事件發生的四個月之後，才由查克．葉格（Chuck Yeager）駕駛 X-1 超過音速的極限；但是根據阿諾德保守的估計，那些發光金屬碟狀物飛行速度的馬赫數幾乎為 2，也就是音速的兩倍。］
When Arnold landed in Pendleton, Oregon, he attempted to locate a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he talked to other pilots at the airport about what he had seen; then, local reporters heard of the sighting, and within two days, Arnold's story had hit 150 newspapers. He told the press the craft flew "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water," prompting one reporter to coin the term "flying saucer."
當阿諾德在奧勒崗州的潘得頓（Pendleton）著陸時，他企圖與聯邦調查局的代表聯繫，但卻無法成功。所以他就與機場的其它飛行員談論他所看到的；結果地方記者聽說了他的見聞，僅僅兩天阿諾德的故事就登上了 150 家報紙。他告訴報社，太空船的飛行“就好像一個碟形物滑躍在水面上”，一位敏捷的記者就取了「飛碟」（flying saucer）這個名字。
In the midst of a cold war with the Soviet Union, intelligence analysts in the United States suspected the Communists of conceiving ingenious and extravagant plots to spread their propaganda, even among the American populace. When the story of Arnold's sighting appeared in print, his politics, finances, business, and reputation in the community were investigated by Military Intelligence, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Internal Revenue Service, each hoping to discover that Arnold was unstable, publicity-conscious, given to exaggeration, or linked to the Communist Party. But not only was Arnold considered an excellent mountain pilot with a cool head, calm hand, and 20/15 vision, his general reputation in the community and as a family man was impeccable.
與蘇聯冷戰時期，美國一些情報分析家懷疑有共產主義者運用欺騙的手段及不當的謀略，在美國一般民眾中散佈謠言，以製造社會恐慌。當阿諾德的見聞見報時，他的政治、經濟、事業及社會名譽皆被軍方情報機構、聯邦調查局、中央情報局及國稅局等政府部門列入調查，這些單位都希望能夠發現阿諾德有情緒不穩，表現狂、過度誇大渲染，或與共產集團掛勾的嫌疑。但調查顯示阿諾德不僅被公認為是一位做事沉穩、頭腦冷靜、視力敏銳的優秀山區飛行駕駛，而且他在社會上及家庭中的名聲都很好。
Then, other reputable citizens, many of them pilots, reported strange aircraft penetrating hundreds of miles inland from the West Coast, aircraft that appeared supersonic, sophisticated, and unconventionally designed. Newspapers reported each of the new sightings, and the public wanted to know what they were.
之後陸續有一些頗負名聲的百姓（大多為飛行員）也都看到了罕見的飛行體，它們由西海岸貫穿飛到數百英里外的內地，這些飛行體具有超音速、複雜及非傳統設計的特色。報紙詳細報導了每一件目擊事件，使得越來越多的人對此深感好奇。
Hallucination, said the Air Force. There was no need for an investigation into the presence of these flying saucers because all of the sightings were due to hallucination. Secretly, they wondered if perhaps Communist sympathizers, attempting to frighten the American public, had reported bogus sightings to increase cold war jitters. Or was the intention to get the Air Force so soft on responding to myriad reports of lights in the night sky that waves of Soviet bombers could penetrate our air defenses unchallenged?
空軍說這些都是幻覺，所有這些目擊都是幻覺造成的，因此沒有必要對這些飛碟的存在進行調查。私底下，他們懷疑可能是共產主義的支持者企圖恐嚇美國民眾，因此報導一些虛假的見聞來增加冷戰的恐慌；或者是企圖在空軍營造一種“蘇聯的轟炸機群能夠輕易地貫穿我們的空防”的懦弱形象。
But then, their own pilots, navigators, generals, and advanced radar detectors began reporting strange flying craft that could stop on a dime, hover, ascend and descend in a straight line, turn at right angles, make no noise, and then take off at speeds into the thousands of miles an hour. If it was the Soviets, why had no bombs been dropped, no missiles been deployed or overt strategic action taken by these craft? They would simply appear at all times of the day and night, in all parts of the country, dazzle their onlookers with their incredible speed and maneuverability, and then disappear. No one considered what later came to be known as the extraterrestrial hypothesis, the possibility that such technology might originate on worlds trillions of miles into our galaxy or even beyond.
奇怪的是，空軍自己的飛行員、領航員、官員、高級雷達偵測員也陸陸續續發現了怪異的飛行體，它們可以暫停、搖曳、垂直上升及下降、直角轉彎、無雜音，甚至以每小時數千英里的速度起飛；如果是蘇聯的飛行器，為何未曾投過炸彈、沒有任何飛彈部署跡象，或有明顯的戰略行動發生呢？它們能夠在白天晚上任何時刻、美國的任何地方出現，先以強光照亮目擊者再展現不可思議的速度及操控性能，然後又突然消失。沒有人會想到這些就是後來所知的外星物體，更無法想像極先進的科技早已存在於距離我們的銀河有好幾兆英里遠的外太空世界。
二
During World War II, American and British pilots had reported seeing strange objects that flew at fantastic speeds and glowed from orange to red and white, and back to orange again. They named them "foo fighters." One pilot saw fifteen of them during the day, describing them as five-foot golden spheres that shone with a metallic glitter. Near Truk Lagoon in Japan, B-29 bomber crews reported the balls came up from below their cockpits, hovered over their tails, winked their lights from red to orange, then back to red, then to white. One pilot said they glowed with eerie red phosphorescence and had no wings, fins, or fuselage. Allied fighter pilots thought they were secret German experimental devices designed to cause fear and confusion. Intelligence officers figured they were radio-controlled objects launched to baffle radar. The Germans and Japanese thought they were secret weapons launched by the Allies. Scientists in New York surmised everyone had been seeing "Saint Elmo's lights," small balls of luminescence often connected with metal during electrical storms. The Army Air Forces dismissed the whole episode as a result of "war nerves" and "mass hallucination."
在第二次世界大期間，美國及英國的飛行員都曾報告發現奇怪的物體，以極快的速度飛行，且會發出橙光，然後變成紅光及白光，再轉回橙光，他們稱之“戰狐”（foo fighters）。有一位飛行員曾在一天之內看到 15 架，他說它們是閃爍著金屬光的五腳發光球體。載著原子彈的 B-29 轟炸機群在飛至日本楚克群島（Truk Lagoon）時，曾發現一群球狀物體從他們的座艙下方飛到高過他們的尾翼，這些球體閃爍著紅光，之後轉為橙光，然後又回到紅光，再變為白光。一位飛行員曾說，它們發出陰森的紅色磷光，且沒有翼、翅及機身。盟軍的戰鬥機駕駛員認為它們是德國的秘密實驗設計，目的是用來製造恐懼與困惑的；情報官員認為它們是由無線電波控制的物體，目的是要干擾雷達；而德軍及日軍方面又認為這是盟軍發射的秘密武器。紐約的科學家們則將每個目擊者看到的，總結為“放電現象”（Saint Elmo's lights）以為那是雷雨時金屬製品上時常產生的發光小球體。陸軍航空隊更將所有的描述歸納為“戰爭焦慮症”及“過度幻覺症”所造成的。
The summer before Arnold's sighting, hundreds of people in Scandinavia had watched flights of "ghost rockets" in the night sky, speeding balls of light that resembled meteors but behaved in what was described as "unmeteor-like fashion." American intelligence suspected the source might be Russian experiments at the captured German missile center at Peenemünde, but no evidence existed, and eventually, the ghost rockets ceased flying without offering a clue as to what they were or from where they came.
就在阿諾德目擊到飛行物體的前一年夏天，斯堪地那維亞（Scandinavia）有好幾百人在夜晚的天空曾目睹“幽靈火箭”，那是一些看起來很像隕石的快速飛行球體，但是它們的飛行路徑又與隕石不同。美國情報機構懷疑是蘇聯在從德國佩訥明德（Peenemünde）擄掠來的飛彈中心所作的實驗，但是也沒有明確證據，而那些幽靈火箭對於它們是為何而來，以及由何處飛來都沒有留下半點線索。
But in 1947, Arnold's sighting captured the world's imagination. Only three months later, such sightings had become so frequent that General Nathan Twining, head of Air Materiel Command, wrote a letter to the commanding general of the Air Force that concluded: "The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious... The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically, or remotely."
但發生在 1947 年的阿諾德見聞迅速地引起了世人的注意。三個月後，這一類的見聞便時常發生，美國空軍物料司令部主管諾頓．吐恩（Nathan Twining）將軍寫了一封信給空軍司令官指出：“飛碟現象的報導有其真實性，不是幻想或編造的… 報導中的一些特性，如極速爬升、操控性能（特別是滾轉回路），以及被友軍飛機或雷達發現時所採取的閃躲行動，使我們相信這些物體可能是以人為、自動或遙控等方式操控著。”
Quickly and quietly, the Air Force established Project Sign, which began officially two weeks after an F-51 fighter pilot, Thomas Mantell, died chasing a UFO near Louisville, Kentucky. Mantell's last words were: "It's metallic and it's tremendous in size. Now it's starting to climb." A few seconds later: "It's above me and I'm gaining on it. I'm going to 20,000 feet." It was not yet three o'clock in the afternoon. Mantell was not heard from again; an hour later, the tower lost sight of the UFO and learned that Mantell's F-51 had crashed.
美國空軍悄悄地迅速成立了「符號計畫」（Project Sign），這計畫是在一位 F-51 戰鬥機駕駛員湯瑪斯．曼特爾（Thomas Mantell）飛在德州路易維爾（Louisville）附近因為追逐一架不明飛行體致死兩週後正式成立的。曼特爾最後的留言是；“它是極為巨大的金屬物，它現在正開始爬升，”數秒鐘後，“它在我上面，我快要追逐到它，而我將要飛到 2萬英尺高度了。”當時還不到下午三點，以後就再也聽不到曼特爾的聲音了；一小時後，塔臺的雷達已經看不見不明飛行物體了，而曼特爾的 F-51 也已墜毀。
［中文編輯者註：以上事件就是著名的「曼特爾幽浮事件」（Mantell UFO incident）］
Before the wreckage had cooled, the Air Force offered a solution that seemed to satisfy press and public alike - Venus. For thirty minutes, Mantell had chased the planet, even climbing without oxygen beyond the point of blackout, to get a better look at Venus. He had died in pursuit of a planet millions of miles away. Though Venus indeed would become the solution to many of the sightings, on that day, at three o'clock in the afternoon over the state of Kentucky, Venus was a pinpoint of light so faint it could not be seen by the human eye. Even the secret report filed by Project Sign investigators concluded: "The mysterious object which the flyer chased to his death was first identified as the Planet Venus. However, further probing showed the elevation and azimuth readings of Venus and that object at specified time intervals did not coincide. It is still considered 'Unidentified.'"
在失事案平息之前，空軍提供了一個似乎可以滿足新聞界及大眾的說法，“一切都是金星造成的。失事前的三十分鐘曼特爾曾追逐此行星，他為了能更清楚地看到金星，甚至在缺氧的狀況下爬升而超出了管制點。他是因為追逐數百萬英里以外的一個行星而死的。”雖然金星也的確可能變成許多類似事件的解答，但是那一天，在德州的下午三點鐘，金星模糊得幾乎是肉眼所無法看到的光點。連「符號計畫」所提出的機密調查報告都記載著：“飛行員因為追逐而致死的神秘物體原先被認為是金星，但是經過更進一步的探討顯示，此神秘物體在此特定時間區間內的俯仰及偏航資料，與當時測量到的金星資料並不吻合，它仍然被認為是‘不明’。”
Project Sign drew only high-level intelligence specialists, and period correspondence reveals that amid a great deal of confusion bordering on panic, they developed two categories of theory: earthly and non-earthly. In the earthly category, the Russians outdistanced our own Navy, XF-5-U-1, a circular craft nicknamed the Flying Flapjack. In the non-earthly, "space animals" placed second behind interplanetary craft.
參與「符號計畫」的只有高階的情報專家，根據一些期刊資料顯示，當時這些專家對當時充滿了恐慌引起的困惑，歸納出了兩種理論：地球的與非地球的。地球的論點認為．蘇聯已遙遙領先我們的海軍，他們早先就已進行了極機密的 XF-5-U-1 的實驗，一種被稱為“飛行鐵餅”的圓形太空船；而非地球的論點則認為是有“太空中的動物”所放出來的太空船。
Since the second theory was impossible to test, intelligence analysts sought initially to determine if captured German rocket and missile testing centers, now in Soviet hands, had produced these sophisticated aircraft. German aeronautical engineers had been developing several radical designs, and an intelligence rumor held that the Russians were continuing the experiments. Intelligence analysts studied every intelligence report dealing with German aeronautical research and computed the maximum performance that could be expected from the German designs. They even contacted the German engineers themselves. "Could the Russians develop a flying saucer from these designs?" they asked. The answer was that no aircraft could perform the reported maneuvers of the flying saucers. Such maneuvers and fantastic speeds would either tear apart or melt all aerodynamic materials known on earth. Even if such an aircraft could be built, the human body would not survive at the controls.
由於第二種論點不太可能獲得證實，因此情報分析家便開始試圖去瞭解當時已在蘇聯掌控中的德國火箭及飛彈測試中心，是否已經產製了這些複雜的太空船，因為德國航空工程師曾經發展出一些先進的設計，一些傳言皆顯示蘇聯仍在繼續這些實驗。於是，這些情報分析家研讀所有有關德國航太研究的報告，並且評估由德國的設計所能發揮的最大性能為何。他們甚至直接與德國的工程師接觸，他們的問題是：“蘇聯是否能夠從那些設計而發展出飛碟？”答案則是沒有任何飛行物體能夠具備報導中所述的飛碟操控性能，那種操控及不可思議的速度會使地球上已知的航空材料分解或融化，即使人類有能力建造出這種飛行物體，人類的身體也承受不了那種操控運作。
One strange sighting after another continued to baffle the Air Force. From 1948 into 1951 "green fireballs" flew over the supersensitive Atomic Energy Commission installation at Los Alamos, traveling an estimated maximum speed of 27,000 miles an hour. Dozens of scientists, Air Force special agents, airline pilots, military pilots, and Los Alamos security inspectors submitted over two hundred reports of seeing the objects - huge half moons, circles, and disks flying at extreme velocities and emitting a green light so bright it caused the contours of surrounding mountains to glow momentarily at night. Some of the witnesses reported watching flat, disk-shaped objects traveling at equally high speeds and varying in color from brilliant white to amber, red, and green.
一再發生的奇怪現象持續困擾著美國空軍。在 1948 年到 1951 年間，曾有“綠色的火球”以每小時最快約 2 萬 7 千英里的速度，飛過敏感的洛斯阿拉莫斯（Los Alamos）原子彈總署。很多科學家、空軍特勤人員、民間飛行員、戰鬥機飛行員，以及洛斯阿拉莫斯的安全人員提出了約兩百份的不明飛行物體報告，並且指出有巨大的半月形、圓形及碟形的物體以極快的速度飛行，並且發出極亮的綠光，使四周的山丘在晚上短暫地發出明亮的光芒。一些目擊者指出看到平的、碟形的物體以極高的等速度飛行，並由燦爛的白色變為琥珀色、紅色而綠色。
A private pilot flying one night north of Santa Fe encountered one of the fireballs and described it this way: "Take a softball and paint it with some kind of fluorescent paint that will glow a bright green in the dark. Then, have someone take the ball out about a hundred feet in front of you and about ten feet above you. Have him throw the ball right at your face, as hard as he can throw it. That's what a green fireball looks like."
一位民間飛行員有天晚上在飛越聖塔菲（Santa Fe）的北邊時遭遇到其中的一個火球，他的描述如下：“拿一個塗有螢光的壘球，叫人在離你面前約 100 英尺遠 10 英尺高之處，將球以極快的速度盡全力地擲向你的臉，綠火球看起來就是這個樣子。”
The Air Force hired Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, an expert on meteors, to solve the mystery, but LaPaz concluded the phenomena were not of meteoric origin. He thought the fireballs were guided missiles being secretly tested nearby. But the military and the FBI knew that no such secret experiments were under way in this country, and they had now been assured that the Russians were also incapable of conducting such experiments.
空軍聘請林肯．拉巴茲（Lincoln LaPaz）博士（一位隕石專家）來解開這個神秘事件，但是拉巴茲認為此現象並不是隕石造成的。他認為火球是附近極為機密的導引飛彈測試。但是軍方及聯邦調查局部知道在這附近沒有此類的實驗在進行，此時，他們也確信蘇聯不可能有能力從事此種實驗。
In January 1949, a cable sent from the San Antonio field office to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover noted that at weekly conferences involving military intelligence the main topic was "the matter of 'Unidentified Aircraft' or 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,' otherwise known as 'Flying Discs,' 'Flying Saucers,' and 'Balls of Fire.' This matter is considered to be secret by Intelligence Officers of both the Army and the Air Forces [emphasis in original]."
1949 年 1 月，有一封由聖安東尼（San Antonio）戰地辦公室送往聯邦調查局局長胡佛（J. Edgar Hoover）辦公室的電文，文中指出，“本週軍事情報會議的主題是有關‘不明的飛行物體’或‘不明的空中現象’，也可以稱為‘飛盤’、‘飛碟’或‘火球’。陸軍及空軍的情報署均將其列為‘最高機密’（原件中特別強調）。”
Publicly, the Air Force maintained that flying saucers were nothing more than the sun reflecting off low-hanging clouds, or crystals from shattered meteors glinting in the sun's rays, or gigantic hailstones gliding through the atmosphere. But their intelligence analysts began to focus seriously on the possibility of extraterrestrial origin.
空軍對外仍然堅持飛碟並不存在，這些是低層的雲經太陽折射或粉碎的隕石結晶體因太陽照射而產生閃爍，亦或是巨大的冰雹滑穿過大氣層造成的。但是他們的情報分析家卻開始審慎地把重點集中在外太空生物的可能性上面。
In 1951, several reputable scientists speculated that the green fireballs over Los Alamos were unmanned test vehicles projected into our atmosphere from a "spaceship" several hundred miles above earth. About clipboard tracked a flat, oval-shaped object a hundred feet in length and whitish silver in color flying at an altitude of 296,000 feet and a speed of 25,200 miles an hour. One of the scientists, a naval commander, later wrote in an article cleared by the Navy, "I am convinced that it was a flying saucer, and further, that these disks are spaceships from another planet, operated by animate, intelligent beings."
1951 年，一些著名的科學家推測在洛斯阿拉莫斯上空的“綠色火球”是由地球上方數百英里以外的不載人測試載具投射出來的。與此同時，有三位在白沙的科學家用一架望遠鏡、馬錶及筆記板追蹤過一個扁平的橢圓形物體，該物體約有一百英尺長，銀白色，飛行高度約 29 萬 6 千英尺高，速度為每小時 2.52 萬英里。其中一位當時階級為海軍中校的科學家，後來在一篇由海軍發表的文章中寫道：“我確信它是飛碟，更進一步地說，這些碟狀物是來自別的行星的太空船，它們是由有生命力且高智慧的生物所操縱的。”
When an airline captain and his co-pilot sighted "a deep blue glow" along the underside of what looked like a wingless B-29 fuselage that came within 700 feet of their DC-3, intelligence analysts at Project Sign decided it was time to write an "Estimate of the Situation." The top-secret "Estimate" concluded that from all evidence collected, the presence of the mysterious flying objects could best be explained by visitations from advanced extraterrestrial societies. And this hypothesis might have formed the basis for all future UFO research if Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg hadn't adamantly refused to accept it. Instead, he fired the document back to Air Intelligence, where it was quickly declassified and burned, encouraging Sign personnel still bucking for promotion to drop their original hypothesis for an official new one: UFOs don't exist.
當一位民航機機長和他的副手也報導發現了一艘類似無翼翅的 B-29 飛機機身的物體，在距離他們的 DC-3 飛機僅 700 英尺以內，其下腹部發出深藍色的光芒；參與符號計畫的情報分析人員認為該是寫出“狀況評估”報告的時候了。在這個被列為最高機密的“評估報告”中指出：“根據所有的資料證據顯示，神秘飛行體存在的最好解釋是來自極先進的外星人族群。”雖然這些假說都可以用來支持未來所有的 UFO 研究，但空軍部長霍伊特．范登堡（Hoyt S. Vandenberg）將軍卻堅決拒絕接受此種說法，同時，他將此檔怪罪到空軍情報處身上，並且很快地將相關檔案予以管制銷毀，進而要求支援「符號計畫」的人都要放棄此種說法，而只承認一種新的官方說法 —— 就是飛碟並不存在。
三
Performing most of their security work late at night when corporate offices lay deserted, the Elders and Welch had become night people who functioned best in the early hours of the morning; Stevens could go either way, as long as he had a breakfast of sausage, eggs, and pancakes after midnight. When the Elders returned from Switzerland, the four of them spent hours in all-night coffee shops, eating breakfast or pie, drinking coffee or iced tea, and collectively scratching their heads over Meier. At 1 or 2 a.m., they might drive to Good's on Camelback Road or Carrow's on Thomas, tell the waitress, "We'll have iced tea, and leave us alone," then retire to a corner booth in the back of the restaurant to argue over Meier for the next two hours. "We became connoisseurs of iced tea," said Welch.
當辦公室在晚上結束工作後，愛德夫婦和維奇會執行他們的安全檢查工作，這使得他們成為夜貓子，精神最好的時間就在清晨前的幾個鐘頭。而史蒂芬只要在午夜之後有香腸、蛋及煎餅當早餐，就無所謂過的是日夜顛倒的日子還是正常的生活了。當李從瑞士回來之後，他們四個就經常待在通宵營業的咖啡屋吃早餐或餡餅，並喝咖啡或冰茶，聚在那裡苦思並談論著邁爾。到了清晨 l 或 2 點，他們會開車到康貝（Camelback）路的古特（Good's）屋或湯馬斯（Thomas）的卡洛（Carrow's）屋去，告訴侍者：“我們只要冰茶，不要招呼我們了。”然後坐到餐廳較隱密的角落，利用後面的兩個小時繼續爭論著邁爾的事。維奇說；“我們就是這樣經常飲用冰茶，幾乎都上癮了。”
Between bites of breakfast and sips of coffee, Stevens would shake his head. Sometimes he would even jump up and pace excitedly back and forth next to the booth, admitting openly he had lost all objectivity in the case. "I don't understand a lot of things about this," he would tell the others. "But I am convinced that something strange happened, and I am convinced that Meier could not fake the pictures, and I don't think there's anybody around him that could."
在吃完早餐要喝咖啡時，史蒂芬時而搖頭，時而跳腳或急躁地走來走去，並且公開地承認他對這個案子已經失去了客觀的立場了。他會告訴別人：“我有很多事情無法瞭解，但我也確信這裡面有些奇怪的事情，同時我也認為邁爾及他身邊的一些人是不可能偽造相片的。”
After one of the late-night sessions, Brit wrote in her diary, "Steve excited about stuff from Billy. Thinks we've got a 'real one.' Lee still skeptical, calling in favors, hopes to find good qualified people for analysis. Initial budget $10,000 set aside. Plan trip to L.A., try to dig into universities there, maybe turn in interesting stone."
在一次深夜的討論之後，佈雷特在她的日記中寫著：“史蒂芬對邁爾所提供的一些物品感到很興奮，並且認為我們獲得了一些‘真正有用’的東西；李卻仍然抱持懷疑的態度，而且希望能夠找到一些合格的人去分析。初步預算為一萬美金。他們計畫去洛杉磯的大學裡找尋有興趣又肯提供協助的人。”
Later, Brit admitted she pushed Lee hard to get involved in the Meier investigation. "He was reluctant. Deep down inside he liked Meier, they hit it off. But with Intercep and everything that was happening, it was hard to let go and start off in a new direction. But Lee's a very curious person, and this had too much to offer. He sat down and said, 'How did he create this hoax?' Steve was already committed, Lee was the balance."
後來佈雷特承認是她逼著李介入邁爾的調查的：“李很不情願，其實他很喜歡邁爾，他們兩人太像了，但是由於監聽公司的工作以及所有發生的事情，使他很難讓一切當作沒有發生過再重新開始。李太好奇了，而這個案子又有太多值得一查的地方了。李總是坐下來自言自語道：‘邁爾是如何創造這個騙局的呢？’史蒂芬的確已介入太深，李卻可以協助事情的平衡發展。”
Stevens's only concern was that Meier might have almost too much evidence. And the number of contacts Meier claimed, like the clarity of his photographs, made his story seem even more suspect.
史蒂芬唯一起疑的是邁爾怎麼會有如此多的證據，而邁爾所聲稱的接觸次數又那麼多，再加上他的相片又如此清晰，反而使得他的故事的真實性更令人懷疑。
"The conventional idea of a contact is a quick happenstance, a one-time experience that passes, doesn't come back," Stevens explained to the others. "When the second contact occurs, it reduces in the minds of UFO buffs the credibility factor. It's kind of a 'lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place' syndrome. When it happens a third time, credibility is reduced even further. This happened over a hundred times."
“按照一般傳統的說法，‘接觸’是很快就發生的，一旦接觸發生完了之後就不可能再發生，”史蒂芬向其它人解釋，“當再發生第二次接觸時，就會對飛碟存在的可信度大打折扣了。這就好比是‘閃電不可能兩次都打在同一個地方’一樣，當第三次接觸再發生時，其可信度就更低了，而邁爾已發生超過一百次了。”
Lee Elders retained his skepticism, challenging Stevens again and again, for no matter what the witnesses had said, he had difficulty understanding certain things, like Meier's sudden disappearances and just as sudden reappearances. He thought the man had somehow merely persuaded the others to imagine he had vanished: "I can't buy that somebody can be standing in his office and have all his molecules broken down into a beam of light or whatever and transferred two miles away to another locale. I just cannot conceive of this."
李保留自己的懷疑，一再地盤問史蒂芬，因為無論其它目擊者提出什麼證據，李仍然無法理解某些事情，例如邁爾的突然消失又突然再出現，李認為此人也許只是要讓其它人想像他曾消失過：“我不能接受一個站在書房裡的人會突然瓦解成一束光，或者任何東西，將自己轉移到兩英里外的另外一個地方去。我無法想像這些奇異的現象。”
Then he would argue with himself in front of the others as if he were alone. "But we have so much supportive evidence documenting other things that we can't say, 'Well, if they say this crazy thing is happening, then the whole thing has to be a hoax.'
然後李又會在其它人面前為自己辯解，仿佛他是自言自語：“但是我們有太多的證據資料可以證明其它事情，我們不能夠說：‘好，如果這些瘋狂的事情確實發生過，那麼這整個事件就一定是一個騙局了。’”
"But, my God," he would argue again, "if this thing is legitimate, how do we logically explain Meier being dematerialized?"
“但是，天啊！”他會再辯解，“如果這些都是合理的，那麼我們又要如何合邏輯地解釋邁爾的非物質化過程呢？”
Then they would spend two and a half hours trying to comprehend how he disappeared.
然後他們會花費兩個半小時的時間試著去理解他是如何消失的。
"Did he really disappear?" they wondered.
他們奇怪的是：“他是真的消失了嗎？”
"Our comfort level," said Elders, "was dealing with solid, tangible evidence. But there's another level here that just taxes the imagination. You can't say that the case is a hoax because it contains this level, any more than you can leave it out and say the case is real. But it's unexplainable."
李說：“我們只能夠處理一些確切清楚的證據，但是仍然有一些證據是要運用想像力的。你不能因為它需要靠想像力來理解就說這是一個騙局；也不能因為一些片斷的證據就說它是真實的。但它的確是不能解釋的。”
The arguments over Meier got longer and became more frequent, involved more restaurants, more sausage, eggs, and hot pie, more coffee and iced tea. As Stevens had predicted, Meier and his story had gone right to the core of the Elders' curiosity, challenging their considerable investigative skills. Once recalling the many late-night conversations, Lee Elders said, "It wasn't so much, 'Do you think Meier is telling the truth?' We were way beyond that. It was the mystery that was driving us crazy, these little things that didn't make sense."
有關於邁爾的爭辯也演變得越來越長、越來越頻繁，因此，他們必須去更多的餐廳，消耗更多的香腸、蛋、煎餅、咖啡及冰茶。如史蒂芬所預測的，邁爾和他的故事正好打動了李的好奇心，對他們細密的偵探技巧產生了挑戰性。在一個深夜的對話中，李說：“我不認為過分，‘你覺得邁爾在說實話嗎？’我們探討的並不止於此，使我們瘋狂的是它的神秘，是那些無法合理解釋的小事情。”
The brief side trip they had taken to Switzerland reluctantly and only as a favor to a friend, had piqued their interest, and at the same time, failed to yield an explanation for the bizarre story. But in addition to their own impressions, they now held several items of hard evidence. They could argue forever over imponderables, but proper analysis of the evidence would give them answers.
愛德夫婦為了幫助好友而不情願地順道前往瑞士一遊的行程已激起了他們的興趣，同時卻也未能為這個奇怪的故事找到答案，但是除了他們自己的印象之外，他們已經擁有一些實在的證據，他們可以一直討論這些無法理解的證據，但是對證據作適當的分析應該可以給他們一個答案。
"So we went directly for the hard stuff," remembered Brit. "We worked with the photographs, the metals, the sounds, everything like that. We went in looking for how he did it because we didn't believe it was real.
佈雷特回憶道：“所以我們就直接去處理最困難的部分，如檢查相片、金屬、聲音及其它所有的事情。我們深入研究他是如何假造的，因為我們並不相信那是真實的。”
四
At the Elders' apartment in Phoenix and on Stevens's dining room table in Tucson, sat several stacks of paper, film, and other evidence waiting to be examined - rough notes taken at a few of the sites, the interviews and signed statements of many witnesses, hundreds of translated pages of the contact notes, taped interviews with Meier, over two hundred photographs, pictures of landing tracks, metal and crystal samples, and seven 8mm films. The Elders and Stevens labeled every piece, catalogued it, then combed through it all, searching for clues and inconsistencies. In thirty-two years of studying UFOs, there was little about them Stevens did not know, and he had never heard of a case with so much evidence.
在李位於鳳凰城的公寓及史蒂芬在土桑的餐桌上，堆積了很多的紙張、影片及其它待查驗的證據（有一些接觸現場記錄、很多目擊者的查訪記錄，與接觸相關的數百頁翻譯筆記，還有和邁爾面談的錄音帶、超過兩百張的相片、著陸痕跡的相片、金屬和結晶樣本以及七卷 8 釐米的影片）。愛德夫婦和史蒂芬在每一份證據上作了標示，加以分類，然後再徹底尋找一些線索或前後不一致的地方。史蒂芬探究 UFO 已經有 32 年了，所以幾乎沒有他不知道的案例及證據，但是他卻從未聽說過有一個證據這麼多的案子。
"It's a lot of work," said Welch. "You have to sit down and analyze it. Not study, not read - analyze. Do we have any correlations here? Find them all and list them, potential or otherwise. Do we have any contradictions? Find them all and list them. Everything. We had to develop an attack plan. So on a daily basis, we were jamming on our notes, getting together on the things that Lee and Brit had learned from their first trip, and that Steven had brought back, correlating data, and planning our next trip in July, which was to be my first trip there."
維奇說：“這個案子要做的事情很多，你必須坐下來分析它，不是研讀而是詳細地分析。這中間有任何相關性嗎？我們必須把之間的相關性全部找出來，並且條列出來。這中間是否有什麼矛盾？我們必須把它們全部找出來並且條列出來。所有的事都要詳細地記錄下來。我們必須擬訂一個詳細的計畫，因此我們一天下來就已經理出了一大堆的筆記，還要將李及佈雷特他們這一次旅行時所見到的事情及資料與史蒂芬整理帶回來的資料放在一起，將所有資料串在一起，並且計畫我們下一次的七月之旅，這也將是我第一次到那裡的旅行。”
With computer theft occurring more and more frequently and the reputation of Intercep growing apace, the Phoenix-based security firm continued to expand. But the Elders and Welch also spent more and more time on the Meier case. Between conducting communications sweeps for various corporate clients, they met frequently with Stevens to analyze the data they had collected and to plot a course on how to proceed. At the beginning, they had initiated a rapidly expanding list of questions to be answered; the next step was to pin down a precise, acceptable method for determining the authenticity of photographs.
由於電腦竊案越來越常發生，監聽公司的商譽急速成長，以鳳凰城為基地的公司持續在擴充，但是愛德夫婦及維奇仍然繼續耗用更多的時間在邁爾的案子上。在為不同的企業處理繁忙的通訊監聽工作的空檔時，他們時常與史蒂芬見面分析所搜集到的資料，並規劃下一步的處理方式。起先，他們擬定了一份迅速增加的問題表；然後，他們再找出一個精確而且可以接受的方法來判定這些相片的真實性。
"The photographs, in a sense, were too real," remembered Welch. "They were so clear and so stark, it was as if a craft was in the air over your driveway and you walked outside and took a picture of it. They were that vivid."
維奇回憶道：“相片的確是太真實了，它們是那麼地清晰而明顯，就好像太空船就停在你家的車道上，然後你走出門去拍照片，它們是那麼的生動。”
Stevens already had examined the photographs closely, looking for missing or misplaced shadows. The only additional test they could think to perform was to blow up a photo into the largest format possible, then search it carefully with a microscope for inconsistencies in the grain. Such inconsistencies would indicate that Meier had placed the craft in a scene either by exposing the same piece of film twice or by superimposing two separate pieces of film to create a single picture. Either way, the grain would appear thickened around the craft. But when they blew up the film and examined the grain, they found nothing.
史蒂芬已經很仔細地查驗過這些照片了，他找尋的是消失或不正確的影子。他們所能想到的唯一一個未做到的步驟就是將相片盡可能地放大，然後用顯微鏡仔細地檢查相片中的顆粒是否有矛盾的地方。這些矛盾的地方可以表示邁爾曾用重複曝光或疊影兩張膠捲的方式製作成一張太空船相片。不論是採用這兩種方法中的哪一種都會使相片中太空船附近的顆粒變厚。但是當他們放大並檢查顆粒時，他們發現相片沒有任何問題。
Stevens continued his work, begun a year earlier, of cataloguing the photographs according to site. In the process, he discovered that, as with the Hasenbol series, nearly every picture Meier had taken was part of a sequence, with the flight path uniform from picture to picture as the object moved low over the hills or flew directly at the camera. On his first trip to Switzerland, Stevens had noted that the numbers at the edge of each slide in Meier's collection were in proper order with no interruptions. Stevens also discovered that Meier's camera had a "signature," a tiny speck of dirt or lint just to the right of center near the top of each slide. The signature itself remained constant in every picture.
史蒂芬繼續他在一年前就開始的，依據不同地點將相片分類的工作。在處理的過程中，他發現包括黑森堡系列在內，幾乎邁爾所拍到的每一組相片都是一個連續動作中的一部分，當物體在鏡頭中由低處飛過山丘或是向鏡頭直飛而來，都有一致的飛行路線。在他第一次到瑞士的旅行中，史蒂芬便注意到邁爾的每一張幻燈片邊緣的編號是按順序排列的，沒有插斷的現象。史蒂芬也發現邁爾的相機鏡頭有一個小瑕疵 —— 一個小的線斑或汙斑，正好在靠近每一張幻燈片頂端的中央偏右，這個記號在每一張相片中都出現在同一個地方。
In Switzerland, Stevens had taken about twelve of what he thought were original Meier slides to a photo shop in the city of Winterthur. At his instruction, the shop had made clean internegatives of each slide, first-generation copies that Stevens brought back to the States to have tested. But so much of the evidence in Switzerland had been through so many hands that he could not be certain of the generation of the slides he had taken to Winterthur. As he would discover later, many of the people who had come to Meier in the early days of the contacts had been permitted to borrow Meier's negatives to make copies of the photographs. They had returned the copies to Meier and kept the originals.
在瑞士時史蒂芬曾取了 12 張他認為是邁爾最原始的幻燈片送到溫特圖爾市區的照相館，他指示照相館的人將每一張幻燈片重新製作底片，而史蒂芬將第一代的複製品帶回美國查驗。但是由於有很多在瑞士的證據都經過了許多手，使他無法確定他送到溫特圖爾（Winterthur）的幻燈片是否是第一代的幻燈片。後來他發現，很多在邁爾接觸初期便來拜訪他的人都曾向邁爾借底片去複製相片，而他們有很多只歸還了複製品給邁爾，自己卻保留了原始底片。
五
For several weeks, the Elders, Welch, and Stevens had been sifting through the data and designing procedures for testing the evidence when an acquaintance heard about their efforts and contacted a friend of his, documentary filmmaker John Stefanelli. As an independent producer, the thirty-six-year-old Stefanelli had made two theatrical features, five documentaries, and many educational films. Before that, he had worked at Disney for seven years, including two years in production budgeting on such films as The Love Bug and The Jungle Book. He knew how special effects experts transferred images on to film and how much it cost to stage such special effects.
當愛德夫婦、維奇和史蒂芬花了好幾個星期開始進行過濾資料及設計查驗證據的過程時，他們的一位朋友知道了他們的事，便與自己的一位朋友接觸，這位朋友便是 36 歲的紀錄片獨立製片約翰．史蒂芬尼（John Stefanelli），他曾製作兩部戲劇性的影片、五部紀錄影片以及許多教育影片。在此之前，他曾為迪士尼公司工作七年，其中兩年在為《叢林之書》（The Jungle Book）及《可愛的蟲》（The Love Bug）等影片編列製作預算。因此他完全知道一些專家將影像轉為影片所需的技巧，以及需花多少錢去策劃這些工作。
"If this Meier thing was a fraud," he said, "it was done with some sort of special effects technique. And a lot of those techniques were used by Disney Studios and I was very familiar with them because of my experience there. I knew what it cost."
他說：“如果邁爾的事是一個騙局，它一定是運用於一些特殊的專業技巧。很多這些技巧都曾在迪士尼的影片中用到，由於我的經驗，所以我熟悉這些技巧，同時我也知道它要花費多少錢。”
Stefanelli's friends had told him the Elders were investigating a rare UFO case, one that for the first time presented a significant amount of evidence for scientists to study; the thought of documenting on film the testing of that evidence intrigued him. But Lee Elders hesitated to show the evidence to anyone. Not until the acquaintance assured him that Stefanelli was a knowledgeable producer with a good track record did Elders confirm the investigation and offer to show some of the evidence to Stefanelli. They agreed to meet at B. B. Singer's, a mid-Phoenix cocktail lounge.
史蒂芬尼的朋友曾告訴他愛德夫婦正在調查一個罕見的 UFO 案子，那是第一個可以提出相當多證據供科學家研究的案子，當史蒂芬尼想到可以將證據的查驗過程拍成紀錄片時，便引起了他的興趣。李一直猶豫是否要將他的證據展示給別人看，直到他的朋友保證史蒂芬尼是位具有良好紀錄的知名製作人，他才約好一些調查，並且同意讓史蒂芬尼看一些證據。他們相約在鳳凰城的一家雞尾酒交誼廳見面。
When Stefanelli arrived there, he found Lee Elders and Tom Welch sitting in a corner half-circle booth. Elders had nothing with him but a thin manila folder lying in front of him on the table. After introducing themselves, the three men talked for a while, about Stefanelli's background and experience in film, including his years with Disney, and about the Elders' trip to see Meier and what they had brought back with them. Once he felt satisfied that not only was Stefanelli legitimate, but he also wanted to produce a credible film, Elders opened the folder and spread before the filmmaker a dozen high-gloss 8X10 photographs. Stefanelli nearly came out of his seat.
當史蒂芬尼到達時，發現李及維奇已坐在半圓形的屋角了。李除了一個硬紙夾放在他面前的桌子上之外，什麼也沒帶。在彼此互相介紹之後，他們三個人談了一些有關史蒂芬尼在影片方面的經驗及背景（包括他在迪士尼的工作經驗），也談到李去看邁爾的旅行及他所帶回來的東西。當李對於史蒂芬尼的專業感到滿意，及知道他也希望能夠拍攝一個具有可信度的影片之後，李便打開硬紙夾，攤出一打製作精緻的 8 X 10 相片，當時史蒂芬尼差一點跳了起來。
"The pictures just knocked my socks off," he said. I was very impressed. My first reaction was, 'Wow!' My second reaction was, 'Oh, come on, this is really hard to believe.'"
他說：“這些相片讓我嚇了一跳，我起初的反應是驚愕，接下來的反應是：‘噢！這真令人難以置信。’”
"You could tell he was having problems with a lot of it," Elders said later.
"We must have had the same look on our faces when Meier was telling us about the Pleiadians coming to Earth in seven hours, and how they have gardens back on Erra."
“你可以看得出來他的心中有多驚訝，”李後來說道，“當邁爾告訴我們昴宿星人只需要花 7 個小時就可以到達地球，以及他們在Erra 星上的種植時，我們的臉上一定也是這種表情。”
Stefanelli sat there in a quandary. In his mind, the crazy things Elders told him about Meier could not possibly coexist with the reality of the pictures. So either the crazy story was, in fact, true, or the beautiful photographs had somehow been faked. And he couldn't believe they had been faked.
史蒂芬尼困惑地坐在那裡，他的腦海中想著李告訴他邁爾那瘋狂的故事和這些真實完美的相片應該是不可能同時存在的：如果那瘋狂的故事是真的，那麼那些照片就應該是假造的了，但事實攤在眼前使他無法相信這些完美無瑕的相片是偽造的。
"If someone was doing this fraudulently," he said, "they were doing a hell of a job. I was fascinated by it. And the more I got into it, the more I found it really intriguing."
他說：“如果有人偽造了這些照片，他們的技巧就太棒了。我被這些照片迷住了，每當我更進一步地觀看時，我就更發現它已激起了我的興趣。”
Stefanelli met often with the Intercep group and Stevens in his own office and Lee Elders' apartment, monitoring the progress of their investigation, and on his own, arranging for some preliminary testing of the evidence. He put together a prospectus, persuaded two screenwriters to pen a treatment, and began talking to investors. His idea was to follow the Elders' investigation, document all of the testing, even arrange a science outlay in the film budget for assuring quality scientific analysis, and then produce a two-hour docudrama.
史蒂芬尼經常在他的辦公室或李的公寓，與史蒂芬及監聽公司的成員聚會檢討他們的查驗工作，而他自己則安排一些查驗證據的準備工作。他邀集了一個紀錄片開拍說明會，說服兩位編劇加入，並安排與投資者面談。他的想法是跟著李的調查，將所有的查驗工作建立檔，甚至於在預算中編列了更好的科學分析預算，然後製作一個兩小時的紀錄影片。
"It's an absolutely fascinating story," he said later. "Whether it's a fraud or whether it's true, it's incredible. And my approach was not to try to prove or disprove it; it was just to go after all the evidence and analyze it to its fullest extent."
稍後他說：“它的確是一個吸引人的故事，不論它是真的或是假的，它都是非常棒的。我並不是要證明它或否定它，我只是要盡一切可能地分析這些證據。”
But finding scientists willing even to look at the photographs, examine the metal, or listen to the sounds proved to be far more difficult than Stefanelli had anticipated. He knew the public still laughed at people who saw flying saucers, but with hard evidence in his hands, he expected scientists to be at least intrigued. When he took a sample of the metal to UCLA for preliminary analysis, he returned with the sample and the discovery that the stigma of UFOs still existed.
但是要找到一些願意去看這些相片、查驗那些金屬、或者那些聲音的科學家很困難，這倒是史蒂芬尼始料未及的。他知道一般民眾對於那些看到飛碟的人仍然不予認同，但是他希望他手中的這些真實證據可以引起科學家們的興趣。當他帶著一小塊金屬樣本到加州大學洛杉磯分校作初步分析時，他只帶回了飛碟仍然可能存在的訊息。
"When I went in," he recalled, "I expected to be greeted with open arms, and I wasn't at all. I was just another kook coming in off the street. I explained the project, I told them what evidence there was and what the story was, and they just didn't want to be bothered. They finally turned me over to a graduate student who had some interest in it. He did some testing, kept the sample for a couple of days, and came back and said the testing had been inconclusive. He did say it was unusual, it could be from another planet, but it was certainly possible that you could find it on this planet."
他回憶道：“當我進去時，我希望他們打開雙手歡迎我，但他們卻認為我只是另外一個流浪街頭的瘋子。我說明瞭我的計畫，我告訴他們有關於這個故事的資料與證據，而他們並不想傷這個腦筋，他們最後把我交給一位有一點興趣的研究生。他作了一些測試，並將樣本保留了幾天，然後告訴我測試無法得到結果，但他說這是極不尋常的，它有可能是來自另外一個星球的，但也可能在我們的星球上能找得到。”
六
With General Vandenberg's refusal to accept the extraterrestrial hypothesis, Project Sign became Project Grudge in early 1949. Grudge personnel evaluated reports on the premise that UFOs couldn't exist. They explained every sighting as a weather balloon, a meteor, or the planet Venus. What came to be known as the Grudge Report concluded that unidentified flying objects were no direct threat to national security, and that reports of such objects resulted from a mild form of mass hysteria or the misidentification of conventional objects, or were hoaxes fabricated by psychopaths and publicity seekers. But Dr. Allen Hynek, Ohio State University astronomer and consultant to Projects Sign and Grudge, had studied 237 of the best sightings and attributed only 32 percent of them to various astronomical bodies. Another 12 percent had been discarded as being weather balloons; and hoaxes, incomplete reports, and airplanes made up exactly one-third. No one could explain the remaining 23 percent, not Hynek, not the Air Force Weather Service, and not even the subcontracted Rand Corporation. The Grudge Report dismissed them with this sentence: "There are sufficient psychological explanations for the reports of unidentified flying objects to provide plausible explanations for reports not otherwise explainable." From the beginning of 1950 to the middle of 1951, Grudge remained a project in name only.
由於范登堡（Vandenberg）將軍拒絕接受有外星人存在的說法，於是「符號計畫」在 1949 年初被改為「惡意計畫」（Project Grudge）。惡意人員在評估報告時是把“飛碟不可能存在”當作前提。他們把每一個見聞解釋為氣象氣球、隕石或金星。而惡意計畫的報告最為人知的結論是：“不明飛行物不會直接威脅到國家安全，而有關不明飛行物的那些報導，則是由輕度瘋狂或歇斯底里的人所捏造出來的，完全是一個騙局，是神經病及想要出名的人所製造出來的。”
但是俄亥俄州立大學的天文學家兼符號和惡意計畫的顧問艾倫．海尼克（Allen Hynek）博士，曾研讀過 237 篇最好的見聞，他歸納其中有百分之三十二是各種天文物體造成的，另外百分之十二被認為是氣象氣球，而騙局與不完整的報告及飛機只占了三分之一，但沒有人能解釋剩下的百分之二十三的案件，海尼克不能，美國空軍氣象局也不能，連轉包的蘭得（Rand）公司也不能。但是惡意報告卻用下面的語詞來否定它：“可以採用許多心理學上的解釋來解釋這些不明飛行物的產生。”從 1950 年初到 1951 年中，「惡意計畫」都只是一個徒具虛名的計畫。
Not until 3:04 on the afternoon of September 12, 1951, did Air Force Intelligence have reason to resuscitate Project Grudge. On that day the teletype at Air Technical Intelligence Command spit out three feet of tiny print on a sighting at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, that had occurred two days earlier. At eleven o'clock in the morning, a technician at the Monmouth radar school had been demonstrating the latest tracking equipment to a group of military VIPs. Capable of automatically "painting" a target, the new device could track the fastest jets. But when it locked on a low-flying object two and a half miles east of the radar station, the set immediately kicked back into manual operation. The operator again switched the set to automatic, and again, the set kicked back to manual. For three minutes the target remained in range as the radar operator frantically tried to force the set to track it automatically, and the set refused to respond. Finally, the embarrassed technician turned to the VIPs gathered around the scope and said, "It's going too fast for the set."
一直到 1951 年 9 月 12 日下午 3 時 4 分，美國空軍才有理由再度提出新的計畫。那一天，空軍技情部的情報圖上顯示，在紐澤西州的門矛斯（Fort Monmouth）有 3 英尺長的小點出現，此現象在兩天前也曾發生過。當天早上 11 點，一位門矛斯雷達學校的技術員曾展示最新式的追蹤裝備給一群軍中的重要人物參觀。這種新的設計能自動鎖定目標，並能追蹤最快速的噴射機；但是當它鎖定在一個位於雷達站東方 2.5 英里遠的低空飛行物體時，自動設定突然跳回到手控的位置。操作人員立刻再將開關扳到自動控制的位置，但設定又跳回手控。有 3 分鐘的時間，目標雖然保留在雷達運作範圍內，但操作員卻無法將其設定至自動鎖定位置。最後，心中苦惱的技術員只好向四周的貴賓說；“因為它太快了，所以無法設定。”
In the vicinity less than a half hour later, the pilot of a T-33 jet trainer, with an Air force major on board, saw flying below him a disk thirty to fifty feet in diameter and silver in color. As he rolled the T-33 and dived toward the disk, the silvery object stopped, hovered for a few moments, then accelerated heading south, and without slowing, made a d 120-degree turn and disappeared out over the ocean.
將近半小時後，一位空軍少校駕駛的 T-33 噴射教練機看到一個直徑在 30 到 50 英尺之間的銀白色碟狀物在他的下方飛行。當他轉動機身並向下俯衝往碟狀物飛時，此銀色的物體忽然停住了，在短暫的徘徊之後便向南加速，在沒有減速的狀況下轉了 120° 而消失在海洋上空。
Immediately, the Director of Air Force Intelligence ordered a new UFO project and assigned Captain Edward Ruppelt as its head. Later in his book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Ruppelt wrote that when he arrived at Air Technical Intelligence Command he was told, "The powers that be are anti-flying saucer, and to stay in favor, it behooves one to follow suit," a carryover from the mind-set of Grudge personnel. Ruppelt described them as "schizophrenic," officially laughing at the UFO reports coming in, and individually, in private, defending the phenomenon. Grudge became Project Blue Book in early 1952, and the reports trickling in each month increased to about twenty. In April, they jumped to ninety-nine. The following month, the Secretary of the Air Force said in a press statement, "No concrete evidence has yet reached us either to prove or disprove the existence of the so-called flying saucers. There remain, however, a number of sightings that the Air Force investigators have been unable to explain." Then at 11:40 on the night of July 19, 1952, seven objects suddenly appeared on the radar screen at Washington National Airport, three miles south of the nation's capital.
空軍情報部門指揮官立刻下令成立了一個新的 UFO 計畫，並且指派愛德華．魯佩爾特（Edward Ruppelt）少校負責。後來他寫了一本書，書名為《不明飛行物報告》（The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects）。魯佩爾特寫道當他向空軍技情部報到時，有人告訴他：“上級是不接受飛碟說法的，你最好是服從上意才能一帆風順。”這是惡意計畫部分參與人士的忠告。於是，魯佩爾特便稱看到飛碟的人患有“精神分裂症”，並且正式嘲笑那些陸續報來的 UFO 報告，但是他私下卻支持這種現象的存在。「惡意計畫」在 1952 年初更名為「藍皮書計畫」（Project Blue Book），而報告也很快地增加到每個月約 20 份，到了 4 月份竟然跳升到 99 份；到了 5 月份，空軍參謀本部發出一份聲明：“到目前還沒有確定的證據可以證明或否定所渭的飛碟是存在的，然而，這中間仍然有許多見聞是空軍調查人員所無法解釋的。”到了 1952 年 7 月 19 日晚上 11 時 40 分，7 個物體突然出現在華盛頓國內機場的雷達螢幕上，該地位處美國首都的南方 3 英里處。
［中文編輯改進者註：以上事件就是著名的「華盛頓不明飛行物事件」（1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident）］
七
The seven green blips cruised through forbidden air corridors, moving slowly across the radar screen at 100 to 130 miles an hour. Suddenly, two of the objects accelerated to tremendous speed and almost instantaneously flew beyond the range of the radar, a distance of 100 miles. Four radar controllers agreed that nothing like an airplane could cause the blips on the scope. Then, two other radar centers, one at nearby Andrews Air Force Base, called in. Painted on their scopes, they had the same targets performing the same speed bursts; and now the targets had moved into every quadrant on the scope and were flying in prohibited airways over the White House and the Capitol. One of the targets had been clocked at 7,000 miles an hour.
那個綠色雷達影像巡航通過航空禁區，慢慢地以每小時 100 到 130 英里的速度通過雷達螢幕；突然，其中的兩個物體以極快的加速度在極短的時間飛出雷達掃描範圍之外（約有 100 英里遠）。4 個控制雷達的管理員都認為不可能有哪一種飛行物體可能在螢幕上造成這樣的影像。後來，另外的兩個雷達中心（其中之一是附近的安德魯空軍基地）也打電話說雷達螢幕上發現同樣的目標訊號；現在，目標物已移動通過雷達螢幕上的每一象限，並飛進首府白宮及首都的禁航區上，其中一個目標的量測時速為 7000 英里。
As airline pilots in the vicinity radioed that they were being followed by unknown aircraft or that the aircraft suddenly seemed to be leaving, the luminescent blips on ground radar would appear or trail away. In the early hours after midnight, the most powerful of the radar installations, located at Washington National Airport, radioed the operators at Andrews that one target appeared to be hovering directly above them. When the operators rushed out and looked up, they saw "a huge fiery-orange sphere." And then, all of the objects disappeared.
當時在附近的民航機駕駛員也以無線電聯絡說他們發現有不明飛行物體尾隨，或有飛行物體突然離開，而此發光之影像也都出現在地面的雷達上了。在午夜剛過幾小時時，裝置在華盛頓國內機場的、最大功率的雷達，以無線電波告知安德魯（Andrews）空軍基地的操作員，有一目標正在他們的上空徘徊；當他們沖出去並注視它時，他們發現有“一個巨大燃燒的橙色火球”，然後所有的物體又都消失了。
One week later, the same radar controllers locked again on the mysterious objects. This time, the objects formed a wide arc around Washington, and the controllers called in two F-94 interceptors, which arrived just after midnight. But when the jets appeared on the radar screens, the targets suddenly disappeared. The jets returned to base. As soon as the jets departed, the targets appeared once again. In the interim, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia had received calls of bright lights in the sky, "rotating and giving off alternation colors." The Air Force scrambled another F-94 from Langley and the pilot made visual contact with one of the lights, but as he closed on it, it suddenly disappeared, "like somebody turning off a light bulb." The radar operator in the F-94 made contact three more times, but each time, contact was broken as the strange object apparently accelerated out of range within seconds.
一週後，同一位雷達管理員又再次鎖定到神秘的物體。這一次，該物體在華盛頓作了一個極廣的弧形飛行，於是控制員迅速聯絡兩架 F-94 攔截機，這兩架軍機在午夜後到達。但是當飛機一出現在雷達螢幕上時，目標就突然消失了，於是飛機只好飛回基地；當飛機一離開之後，目標又再度出現。在此短暫的過渡期，維吉尼亞的藍戈（Langley）空軍基地也接到電話指稱天空有藍光，“那些光會滾轉，而且產生交互變化的色彩。”該空軍基地指派另外一架 F-94 由藍戈機場起飛，飛行員親眼日睹了其中一道光線，但是當他再接近時，此光又突然消失了：“就像有人把電燈突然關掉一樣。”這位 F-94 的雷達操作員又再和該目標作了三次接觸，但每次接觸都因該奇怪的物體以極快的加速度移動超出雷達掃描範圍而終止。
A few minutes after the object broke radar contact for the last time, the green blips appeared again en masse on the radar screens at Washington National Airport. The Air Force scrambled two more jets, and this time, the targets remained stationary so the radar controllers could monitor both their movements and those of the jets as they came on to the screen. But when the pilots themselves closed in for visual contact, the objects sped away. Finally, one of the pilots saw a light hovering in exactly the position radioed in by one of the radar controllers. He flew closer, and the light remained motionless. Then, he cut in the afterburner and rapidly closed, but moments before he would have overtaken the light, the light suddenly blinked off, and the pilot found himself traveling at Mach 1 speed into a black sky.
當物體最後一次消失在雷達上數分鐘之後，這些綠色的影像又再次出現在華盛頓國內機場的雷達螢幕上。空軍又再指派另外兩架噴射機升空，但這一次目標卻靜止不動，因此，雷達控制員能夠從雷達螢幕上監控它們以及軍機的移動；但是當飛行員飛到可以目睹目標時，目標又快速地離開了。最後，其中一位飛行員發現就在雷達控制員所指出的位置上正好有一道光線在搖曳。當他飛得更近時，那道光仍然保持不動，於是他加速接近，就在他要趕上那道光線之前，它就突然熄掉了，霎時飛行員發現他自己正以音速在黑夜中遨遊。
Three days later, the Air Force held a press conference at the Pentagon, the largest and the longest since World War II. Before taking questions from the press, Major General John A. Samford, director of intelligence, pointed out that of the one to two thousand reports investigated by the Air Force to date, the bulk could be attributed to "either friendly aircraft erroneously recognized or reported, hoaxes, quite a few of those, electronic and meteorological phenomena of one sort or another, light aberrations, and many other things."
三天後，美國空軍在五角大樓舉辦了一個自第二次世界大戰以來，最大型且為時最久的記者會。在回答各界的問題前，情報部門的負責人約翰．山福（John A. Samford）將軍指出，由空軍到目前為止所調查的一到二千份報告中，大概可以歸因於“友軍飛機的錯誤辨識報告、騙局（為數不多）、電子及氣象學的一些現象、光線扭曲及其它可能的情況。”
"However," he continued, "there have remained a percentage of this total, in the order of twenty percent of the reports, that have come from credible observers of relatively incredible things. We keep on being concerned about them."
他繼續說：“但是在這些報告中仍有百分之二十的報告，是來自可信的觀察者所觀察到的一些令人難以置信的現象，我們會繼續注意的。”
One of the press corps asked how the radar controllers on the previous two Saturday nights had interpreted the blips on the radar screen.
一位記者問道，“有關前兩周的週六晚上，雷達控制員在雷達螢幕上所發現的影像是怎麼一回事？”
Samford replied, "They said they saw 'good returns.'"
山福回答：“他們說他們看到‘清楚的回波。’”
But, he pointed out, this did not necessarily mean the objects had to be solid body aircraft. Birds could give off good returns. Radar could even bounce off invisible temperature inversions, hit a ground target, and show up as a blip on the screen. But Samford's aide, an expert on radar, was not sure how that theory accounted for the sudden disappearances and reappearances of the targets, or the incredible speeds at which they seemed to travel. Nor did it explain the visual corroboration of several airline pilots in the air at the time.
但他指出，這並不意味那些物體一定是實在的飛行體，飛鳥也能反射出清楚的回波。雷達甚至也能因為看不見的溫度逆轉，因而照到地面目標反射後在雷達螢幕上產生影像。但山福參謀中的一位雷達專家卻不確定它是否能夠說明目標突然消失又再度出現的原因，以及它們那令人難以置信的飛行速度，更無法解釋的是飛行員們在空中所目睹的一些現象。
When another reporter asked Samford his opinion of the "temperature inversion" theory, he responded, "My own mind is satisfied with that explanation." But he also felt they should continue their research, that the objects were probably some sort of phenomenon that science would someday be able to explain. Personally, because of their apparent ability to change direction and speed instantaneously, Samford felt the objects were not "material."
當另一位記者問山福對於溫度逆轉理論的看法時，他回答：“我對於這個解釋感到很滿意。”但他也認為他們必須更深入地繼續研究，因為它們可能是某種科學界在未來才能解釋的現象。但由於它們具有瞬間改變速度及方向的能力，山福個人認為此物體絕非“實質”的物體。
Late in the press conference, a reporter asked Samford if he could state unequivocally that none of the strange flying craft observed during the previous five years had actually been ultra-secret military weapons. Samford replied it was always possible that an observer had mistaken a jet fighter for a flying saucer.
在記者會的後半段，一位記者問山福能否很肯定地說，最近五年來發現的這些奇怪飛行物都是極機密的軍事武器。山福的回答是；“經常有人把戰鬥機誤認為是飛碟。”
"What I was aiming at," said the reporter, "was this popular feeling...."
"Of mystery?" interjected Samford.
"Of mystery," said the reporter. "Of something. That it's some very highly secret new weapon that we're working on that's causing all this."
Samford chortled. "We have nothing that has no mass and unlimited power!"
And everyone laughed.
那位記者說：“我的重點是一般民眾覺得這是……”
山福插嘴：“神秘的現象嗎？”
記者說：“的確是很神秘，有沒有可能是我們正在研發的高度機密新武器所造成的？”
山福大笑：“我們沒有任何無品質且功率超大的東西。”
大家都笑了。
By the end of 1952, 1,501, or nearly twice as many sightings as each of the previous five years combined, had been reported, and over three hundred of these remained unexplained.
到 1952 年年尾，總共收到了 1500 件（大約為前五年每年報告總合的兩倍）的見聞報導，而其中仍有 300 件是無法獲得合理解釋的。
八
While exploring every angle of the Meier case they could think to explore, the Elders and Welch began a search through campus libraries at the University of Arizona and Arizona State for information on the star cluster Meier claimed to be the home of his extraterrestrial visitors - the Pleiades.
從他們能想到的各種角度探究過邁爾案件之後，愛德夫婦和維奇開始到亞利桑那大學及亞利桑那州立大學的校園圖書館找尋一些有關星群的資料，特別是邁爾所稱的外星訪客的家鄉所在地 —— 昴宿星團（Pleiades）。
"In an investigation like this," said Welch, "nine out of ten times you're presupposing it's a hoax because that's the way you're testing, that's the way you're interrogating. But let's suppose for a moment that it's real. Then we ask, 'If this is true, were there other Billy Meiers in the past?' We began at that point, and what popped up in a couple of weeks is what I call the Pleiadian Connection."
維奇認為：“在調查這種案子時，你必須有九成的想法將要去查驗的東西當成是一個騙局，因為那才是你查驗它的方式，也是你質詢它的方式。但是假如它是真的，我們就會問：‘如果它是真的，那麼以前是不是存在著另外一個邁爾？’然後我們再以此為起點，結果在幾個星期之後，就突然出現了我所謂的“昴宿星人接觸。”
With the help of Lee Elders' sister and several friends in California and the East, they searched through libraries and secondhand bookstores for hundreds of books, magazine articles, trade journals, and doctoral theses at various universities.
在李的妹妹及一些在加州東部的朋友幫助之下，他們找遍了圖書館及舊書店，找到了百餘本書、雜誌、月刊及各大學中相關的博士論文。
"What was startling was a consistency," said Welch. "From an astronomical point of view, you're talking about an extremely young, extremely insignificant system of stars. Yet at different parts of the globe, many times simultaneously, many times a thousand years apart, history and mythology mention the Pleiades and their importance. They're noted as being the source of knowledge in the rice culture in Asia and in the potato culture in Europe and South America. These societies attributed their knowledge to a series of events in mythological form involving messengers from the Pleiades. Why in so many times, in so many parts of the world, are the references similar? Why all this energy toward the Pleiades? They're revered, they're looked at as the center of heaven, and they're looked at as a source of ancestry and wisdom and guidance."
維奇說：“令人吃驚的是，的確有它的一致性存在。”從天文學的觀點來看，我們談論的是一個非常年輕、非常不起眼的星系。在地球上的許多地方曾多次（每一次都間隔一千年）在歷史及神話中提到昴宿星團及它的重要性。從資料中可以看出它是亞洲稻米文化及歐洲和南美洲馬鈴薯文化的知識來源，這些社會都將他們的知識歸因於昴宿星團信使的神話事件。為什麼在世界各地皆多次提到類似的說法？為什麼所有的目光都指向昴宿星團呢？大家都崇敬它，並視它為天體的中心，更視它為祖先與智慧及力量的來源。
Though other stars and star groups are mentioned in history, to the surprise of Welch and the Elders, the frequency of reference to the Pleiades seemed to exceed that of its closes rival, Orion, by nearly ten times. When they had collected every mention of the seven stars they could find, Welch and the Elders had scores of references to the Pleiades and their importance in cultures all over the world and from all periods of history, including three from the Bible. The Book of Job spoke of their "sweet influences."
雖然在歷史中也提到其它的星球和星群，但令維奇和李驚訝的是，提到昴宿星團的次數遠超過離它最近的獵戶座十倍。當他們儘量搜集那七個星球的資料時，維奇和愛德夫婦已經擁有許多在世界各地文化中提到昴宿星團及其重要性的資料，其中包括了來自《聖經》的三份資料，在《約伯記》（The Book of Job）中特別提到了他們“甜蜜的影響”（ sweet influences）。
But Welch wondered if perhaps Meier himself had conducted the same research in Swiss and German libraries.
但是維奇懷疑也許邁爾自己曾在瑞士和德國的圖書館中作過類似的研究。
"My first thought was, what are the odds of him doing that very thing? But a lot of these connections were not readily available; you had to be looking for them. So if you picked a star system and said, 'Let me see if I can find something on that,' you're talking about quite a bit of research before you come across the Pleiades.
“我的第一個想法是他做這些事能獲得什麼呢？這些事中間的連貫並不是那麼容易就能做到的，你必須費心思去搜集。所以，如果你選定一個星系，然後說：‘讓我試試看我能夠找到些什麼。’那麼你一定得研究過一大堆資料之後才能夠在昴宿星團上找到一些資料。”
"At one point, I remember us all sitting down kind of tired, Wendelle was up from Tucson at the time, it was late at night, and we were talking about some of the connections that each of us had separately discovered. And we're sitting there with, oh, it must have been about seven or eight legal-sized pages front and back of noted connections we'd come across. And somebody said, 'God, we've spent over a thousand hours on this already and it seems like we've just begun.'"
“曾經有一次，我記得大家都很疲倦地坐著，那時史蒂芬剛從土桑來，那天深夜我們談論著每個人個別發現的相關資料。我們坐在七、八頁大家都想得到關聯的摘要紀錄前，有人說：‘天啊！我們已經花了至少一千個小時在這上面了，而我們此時的感覺卻好像一切才剛開始而已呢。’”
九
A tight cluster of several thousand stars, the Pleiades lie in the constellation Taurus, nearly five hundred light years from earth. The principal stars shine bluish-white and radiate intensely, illuminating surrounding clouds of gas. The Pleiades are young, too young for intelligent life to have evolved. But Meier had repeated specifically that the Pleiadians had not originated there, only that they had migrated to the Pleiades after engineering a planet to their liking.
在數千個緊密相串的星球中，昴宿星團隱藏在「金牛座」（Taurus）星群中，與地球的距離約為 500 光年。主星發出的藍白光能直接照亮四周的氣雲。昴宿星團是年輕的，年輕得不可能會孕育出高度的文明，但邁爾曾一再重複昴宿星人並不是起源於此，而是在將它建造成和他們家鄉一樣後才遷徙去的。
Early civilizations recorded that the seven brightest stars were once visible to the naked eye, though today only six can be seen. Aligned with nearby Orion's Belt, the Pleiades are often mistaken for the Little Dipper, but their configuration is far more compact and appears to be enshrouded in a gossamer haze, one that inspired Tennyson to describe them as looking "like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid." Of all the stars in this beautiful swarm, Alcyone is the brightest, shining with a brilliance one thousand times greater than our sun.
遠古文明記載著那七顆最亮的星球曾經是肉眼就可以看到的，而目前只能看到六顆。由於昴宿星團很靠近金牛星座，使它常被誤認為小北斗星，但是他們的星位排列更為密集，而且隱在一片薄霧之後，使得丁尼生（Tennyson）把它們形容為：“像螢火蟲的翅膀糾纏在一條銀色帶子上。”在這片美麗蜂群內的所有星球中，「昴宿六」（Alcyone）是最亮的、且比我們的太陽還要亮一千倍的星球。
In Star Lore of All Ages, published in 1911, William Olcott wrote:
1911 年出版的《各時代的星球知識》（In Star Lore of All Ages）一書作者威廉奧克（William Olcott）寫著：
No group of stars known to astronomy has excited such universal attention as the little cluster of fain stars we know as 'the Pleiades.' In all ages of the world's history, they have been admired and critically observed. Great temples have been reared in their honor. Mighty nations have worshipped them, and people far removed from each other have been guided in their agricultural and commercial affairs by the rising and setting of these six close-set stars....
This little group, twinkling so timidly in the nights of autumn in the eastern heavens, links the races of mankind in closer relationship than any bond save nature's. No wonder that they have inspired universal awe and admiration, that within this group of suns, man has sought to find the very centre of the universe.
“在天體中沒有任何星群會像這一小串模糊的且不起眼的昴宿星團一樣，激起了宇宙的注意。在世界各期的歷史中，它們曾受到廣泛的尊敬與崇拜。大型廟宇供奉著它，強大的國家也尊敬它。相隔甚遠的人們借著這六顆彼此靠近的星座來引導他們的農業及商業行為。這一小群星座在秋天的晚上羞怯地閃爍在東方，比任何一種自然力量更能維繫人與人之間的親密關係。這也難怪它會受到世人的尊敬，人們在這一群太陽中尋找宇宙的中心。”
Legends from pre-Inca peoples living in Peru speak of inhabited stars and "gods" who visited them from the Pleiades. The astronomical writings of China mention the Pleiades as early as 2357 B.C., worshipped by young women as the Seven Sisters of Industry. The Greeks aligned temples with their rising and setting. In Egypt, on the first day of spring, the south passageway of the Great Pyramid perfectly framed the Pleiades; some scholars even maintained that the seven chambers of this enormous monument were inspired by the cluster's seven visible stars. May Day and the Japanese Fest of Lanterns are remnants of ancient rites in honor of the Pleiades. The Hopi call the star cluster Choo-ho-kan, Home of Our Ancestors. And Navajo legend holds that men arrived on earth from the stars, particularly the Pleiades, and that we continue to be visited by our celestial relatives.
在秘魯的印加（pre-Inca）族，早期就傳說有外星來的“神明”是來自昴宿星團；中國的天文學早在西元前 3357 年就提到過昴宿星團，並且指出年輕女性視它們為勤勉的七仙女；希臘人依照它們的起落排列他們的廟宇；在埃及，春天的第一天，大金字塔的南方走廊會呈現出昴宿星團的圖形，一些學者甚至認為在大金字塔中的七個房間就是代表著這七顆星。五朔節及日本的燈籠節是以古老遺留的儀式供奉昴宿星團；美國霍皮（Hopi）族印地安人稱此串星為“祖先的故鄉”。美國納瓦霍（Navajo）族的印地安人則傳說地球上的人是來自外星球，特別是來自昴宿星團，而且一直都有天上來的親戚拜訪我們。
Attempting to explain the seeming coincidences between customs of ancient cultures and those of more modern societies, R.G. Haliburton wrote in Nature Magazine in 1881 of the universal reverence for the Pleiades. He noted that the Samoans of the South Pacific called their sacred bird the Bird of the Pleiades, and that the Berbers of Morocco claimed that paradise lay in the heavens circumscribed by the cluster. Haliburton concluded his article, "Even if the theory of prehistoric astronomers and of some modern men of science, that the Pleiades are the center of the universe, should prove to be unfounded, I am persuaded that the day is coming when the learned will admit that those stars are the 'central sun' of the religions, calendars, myths, traditions, and symbolism of early ages."
為瞭解釋傳統的古老文化與現代科技間的巧合現象，海力波頓（R.G. Haliburton）在 1881 年的《自然雜誌》寫了一篇有關全球對於昴宿星團崇拜的文章。他指出南太平洋的薩摩亞（Samoans）人將他們的聖鳥稱為昴宿星團之鳥，摩洛哥的柏柏（Berbers）人認為天堂是被這串星團團圍住。海力波頓在他的文章中結論道：“即使史前天文學家的理論及一些現代科學家稱昴宿星團是宇宙中心的說法仍未確證，但是我相信總有一天人們會承認這些星球是各種早期宗教、日曆、神話、傳統及符號中所謂的‘中心太陽’。”
Agnes Clerke, in The System of the Stars, written in 1907, called the Pleiades "the meeting place in the skies of mythology and science. The vivid and picturesque aspect of these stars riveted, from the earliest ages, the attention of mankind; a peculiar sacredness attached to them, and their concern with human destinies was believed to be intimate and direct."
艾格尼茲．瑪麗．克勒克（Agnes Clerke）在 1907 年的《星球系統》一文中寫道：“所謂的昴宿星團就是科學和神話在天空交會的地方，從最遠古的時代開始，有關於這些生動又美麗的星球便深深地吸引了人類的注意；它們具有一種獨特且神聖的氣息，而他們與人類命運的關聯性也被認為是既親密又直接的。”
Though the Pleiades form little more than a speck in the visible night sky, no other star group has been mentioned as frequently in the literature and mythology of world cultures for the past two and a half millennia. And in every instance, the tiny cluster of seven was portrayed as female: the sisters, the virgins, the maidens, the goddesses.
雖然在晴朗的夜空中昴宿星團只是一個很小的微粒，但是在過去的 2500 年中，沒有任何其它星群像它們這樣經常被世界上各種文化中的文學及神話所提及，而每一例子中對此微小的星串都是描述為陰性的：如姊妹、處女、少女或女神。
十
Puzzled over how to analyze the Meier evidence and how to capture the scientists and their work on film, John Stefanelli had looked for a consultant. In Phoenix, he located a sound and light technician, Jim Dilettoso. Short, gaunt, and mercurial, the twenty-eight-year-old Dilettoso was involved in myriad projects in the entertainment industry staging sound and light shows with lasers, computers, and sound digitizers. A friend had recommended him because the young technician had been a part-time consultant for a documentary film on the testing of the Shroud of Turin, the 2,000-year-old funeral sheet that purportedly had covered the body of the crucified Christ; Stefanelli wanted to subject the Meier photos to the same computerized image analysis as that performed on the shroud.
由於不知道應該如何分析邁爾的證據，也不知道如何找到科學家來參與這份工作，再加上處理影片的工作，所以史蒂芬尼（John Stefanelli）認為他們需要找一位顧問。在鳳凰城有一位聲光方面的技師人員吉米．狄特索（Jim Dilettoso），28 歲的狄特索不高、略瘦，人很機智，他曾經參與很多娛樂界用鐳射、電腦及數位化音響產生聲光效果的相關工作。一位朋友將他推薦給史蒂芬尼。
At their first meeting, Stefanelli showed Dilettoso six of the photographs of extraterrestrial spacecraft allegedly taken by Meier.
在他們首次會面時，史蒂芬尼拿出 6 張聲稱是邁爾所拍的外星人太空船相片給狄特索看。
"Good special effects," thought Dilettoso. "I was trying to figure out how I would make them. Couldn't be models because of the properties of the edges and the reflective surface. No, I'd build a rigid structure out of aluminum or titanium, shaped like a flying saucer, actual size twenty feet, and fill it with helium like a Goodyear Blimp. That was just my initial reaction. Later, I came to find out that the cost is tremendous, or it doesn't look real.
狄特索當時想道：“很好的特殊效果，如果是我，我會怎麼製作出這些照片？”由於邊緣及表面反射的特性，所以這些照片絕對不是用模型拍出來的。但他心中又想他會用鋁或鈦來建造一個飛碟形狀的物體，實際大小約 20 英尺；或用氦氣填充成一個和固特異小飛艇差不多的物體。那是他的第一印象，但後來仔細一想，又覺得經費實在太高了，而且看起來又不是很真實。
"But the first thing Stefanelli wanted to know was, 'Well, can we test these pictures?' and, 'What labs can we get into?' I'm looking at the guy, thinking, Does he have any idea what he's asking? That's not equipment you go out and rent by the hour."
狄特索又說：“我知道史蒂芬尼最想知道的是：‘我們有能力查驗這些照片嗎？’以及：‘有哪一個實驗室可以作這種查驗工作？’我注視著他但心中想著，他對於他所提出的問題是否有任何概念？那些設備絕對不是你按鐘點就可以租用得到的。”
Using contacts from his film days in Hollywood, Stefanelli already had begun his search for scientists; at the same time he had launched his campaign to attract investors. He later estimated he traveled to Los Angeles between thirty and forty times, trying to interest someone in backing the film, someone who at least could finance the cost of properly analyzing the evidence.
史蒂芬尼早就運用他在好萊塢拍片時所建立的關係在找尋科學家了，同時，他也開始遊說有興趣的投資人了。他後來估計大約來回跑了三、四十趟洛杉磯，希望能夠找到願意支援拍攝這個影片的人士或者至少可適度地提供“讓這些證據得到充分適當分析”資金的人。
"There were a lot of things we wanted to do," he said. "And I had a fair amount of success at finding people to tell me what sort of tests should be performed. The problem was getting the people who would do them without having to spend a small fortune. Everyone I did uncover wanted a lot of dollars - we're talking maybe tens of thousands - to do testing. But I didn't have the money to do that."
“我們有很多事情要做。”史蒂芬尼說，“我很成功地找到許多人告訴我還要做哪一類的測試，但是要找到一個適合又索價不高的人去作那些測試就很困難了。我找的每一個人都要求一筆很可觀的報酬（約數萬美元）去作測試，但我並沒有那麼多錢去作。”
Stefanelli found himself in a catch-22: without sufficient testing having already been completed yielding positive results, it was nearly impossible to interest anyone in funding the project; and without funding, he could not hope to have the evidence tested by qualified scientists.
史蒂芬尼發現他已進退兩難了，因為沒有足夠的測試是不可能產生肯定的結果的，如此也就難以激起任何人投資在此計畫的興趣，而沒有經費他就不可能找到合格的科學家去驗證這些證據。
"Once I found out that there were substantial costs involved," Stefanelli admitted, "I really didn't push it so hard."
“當我發現還涉及到這些實際的成本時，我真的就不再那麼積極了。”史蒂芬尼承認道。
The Elders, Welch, and Stevens saw less and less of Stefanelli, but at the same time they began seeing more and more of Jim Dilettoso. With Stefanelli's project on the wane, Dilettoso, now thoroughly intrigued with the Meier story, offered to help direct Intercep's efforts in the scientific areas to interest scientists in government and university laboratories without having to pay enormous fees. To the group, Dilettoso looked and spoke like a former child prodigy who simply had become bored with school. He had attended several universities but never earned a degree, though he seemed to understand computers and had a knack for ferreting out information. Despite his Einstein hairdo and dizzy ways, they liked him; he could talk faster and better, and seemed to know more about a variety of subjects than anyone they had ever known.
愛德夫婦、維奇和史蒂芬與史蒂芬尼見面的次數越來越少，但同時他們卻開始越來越常與狄特索見面。當史蒂芬尼逐漸退出時，狄特索則開始投入邁爾的故事，他願意替監聽公司找尋一位正在政府部門及大學實驗室工作的科學家，在不需要太多經費的情況下測試這些證據。在這些人當中，狄特索的言行就像是一個不愛念書的天才兒童，他曾經讀過幾所大學，但從未得到學位，他懂電腦也很有求知欲，儘管他頭髮雜亂得像愛因斯坦，但是李等人都很喜歡他，他能表達得比別人快也比別人好，而且看起來似乎比任何他們所認識的人懂得都多。
"My first impression of Jim," said Welch, "was that he seemed to have an extremely detailed mind. He was involved in creating the support behind entertainment-oriented events, the science behind it, computers, electronics, sound systems. I could tell by the way he spoke that he was very familiar with certain kinds of technical equipment, particularly in the computer field. And he was unique in one sense: He could sit down and carry on an intelligent conversation with people having different areas of expertise and hold his own in each one technically. So I thought he might be what we needed to further the investigation."
維奇說：“我對狄特索的第一印象是他似乎有一個極仔細的頭腦。他曾參與一些娛樂界的幕後策劃工作，電腦、電子及聲音系統他都很熟。從他的言談中我可以知道他非常熟悉某些技術設備，特別是在電腦方面。他給人的感覺是獨特的，他能與不同領域的人愉快地交談，並且對每一種專業都能提出自己的看法。所以我認為他可能是我們未來研究工作中不可或缺的人。”
十一
After the wave of sightings around Washington, D.C., in 1952, the National Security Council ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to determine if the existence of UFOs created a danger to national security. One CIA memorandum, written August 1, stated that "so long as a series of reports remains 'unexplainable' (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration), caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject.... It is strongly urged, however, that no indications of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies."
1952 年，一波又一波的目擊事件在華盛頓一帶出現之後，迫使美國國家安全會議要求中央情報局去確定“UFO的存在是否會對美國的安全構成威脅”。在 8 月 1 日一篇中央情報局的備忘錄中指出：“只要有一連串的報告仍然得不到解釋（星際觀及外星人仍然在考慮之列），情報局就必須繼續研究這個問題…。但是，他們對此事件的興趣與考慮不得洩漏給媒體或一般大眾，以免造成恐慌的局面。”
With influential people in Washington wanting answers, the CIA appointed a team of five eminent scientists to study the UFO problem: Dr. H. P. Robertson, from the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Dr. Luis Alvarez, a physicist who fifteen years later would receive the Nobel Prize for physics; Dr. Samuel Goudsmit, an associate of Einstein from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Dr. Thornton Page, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office; and Dr. Lloyd Berkner, also of Brookhaven. Dr. Allen Hynek, the Ohio State astronomer and special consultant to Blue Book, attended selected meetings as an associate member, but was not asked to sign the final report.
由於華盛頓的一些有影響力的人都希望獲得答案，於是中央情報局立刻成立了一個由 5 位傑出科學家編成的小組去研究 UFO 問題，這 5 位科學家分別是來自國防部長辦公室的霍華德．珀西．羅伯遜（H. P. Robertson）博士、15年後得到諾貝爾物理獎的路易斯．阿爾瓦雷茨（Luis Alvarez）博士、在布魯海芬（Brookhaven）國家實驗室與愛因斯坦共事的塞繆爾．古德斯米特（Samuel Goudsmit）博士、約翰．霍普金斯（Johns Hopkins）作業研究室的副主任斯登．貝吉（Thornton Page）博士，以及同樣來自布魯海芬的羅伊．布坎南（Lloyd Berkner）博士，另一位俄亥俄州的天文學家，也是藍皮書的特別顧問艾倫．海尼克（Allen Hynek）博士也參與相關的會議，但是未被要求在最後的報告上簽署。
The group, known as the Robertson Panel, secretly convened on January 14, 1953. The first morning, they watched two color films, one taken at Tremonton, Utah, the other at Great Falls, Montana. The films represented what Air Force Blue Book personnel considered the best evidence of extraterrestrial visitation.
這個小組稱為「羅伯遜小組」（Robertson Panel），在 1953 年 1 月 14 日開始召開秘密會議，第一天早上他們檢視了兩組彩色影片，一組是在猶他州的特里蒙頓（Tremonton），另一組則是在蒙大拿州的大瀑布拍的。這兩組影片是空軍藍皮書專案人員認為有外星訪客的最重要證據。
The Navy Photograph Interpretation Laboratory had analyzed the Tremonton film for a thousand hours and concluded that the twelve objects flying in loose formation could not be birds, balloons, aircraft, or reflections; and whatever they were, they were "self-luminous." But despite the Navy's findings, the panel assumed that the cinematographer, a naval commander, was probably mistaken in his estimate of how far away the objects were, that they probably were considerably closer, and that therefore, the formation of flying objects was probably nothing more than sea gulls or some other kind of bird "reflecting the strong desert sunlight but being just too far and too luminous to see their shape." Similarly, they dismissed the two objects in the Great Falls film as probably jet airplanes that had been seen in the area a short while before, though the man who took the footage testified he knew the difference between jets and the two objects he filmed.
美國海軍相片解析實驗室曾花了一千個小時來分析特里蒙頓的影片，並且認為那裡面的 12 架沒有隊形的飛行物體不可能是飛鳥、氣球、飛機或反射的影像，而且不論它們是什麼東西，都是自己發光的。但不管海軍的看法如何，羅伯遜小組卻認為拍攝的攝影師（一位海軍中校）可能是錯估了物體遠近距離，它們其實可能是很近的，所以飛行體的影像可能是海鷗或其它鳥類飛在沙漠上“反射遠處的太陽光而形成的，由於沙漠中的太陽光太遠又太強，所以無法看到它們的外形。”同樣地，他們認為大瀑布影片中的兩個物體可能只是不久前才在該地消失的噴射機（拍攝這部影片的人曾經表示，他知道飛機與他所拍攝到的兩個物體之間的差異）。
After viewing only six cases in detail and fifteen cases generally, the panel concluded that nothing they had seen or heard offered scientific data of any value. The reports, while great in number, were poor in quality, and any attempt to "solve" them would be a tremendous waste of resources. They stated that most sightings could be reasonably explained, and that "by deduction and scientific method" they probably could explain all other cases as well.
僅僅較仔細校閱過六個案件，並很快地流覽過另外 15 個相關案件之後，這個小組就下結論說：沒有一個他們曾看到或聽到的案子具有任何科學研究的價值；雖然此類報告的數量很多，但是內容品質卻很貧乏，如果想要解答這些案件將會浪費大量的資源。他們認為大多數的目擊事件都可以合理地解釋，而且，如果採用演繹法及各種科學方法，他們可能可以說明其它所有的案子。
An aeronautical engineer, who for fifteen months had served as the Air Force project officer for UFOs in Washington, reviewed several of the better sightings from Blue Book files for the panel and concluded that he saw only one explanation for the presence of the unusual flying objects - extraterrestrial visitation. But the panel would accept none of the cases cited by the engineer because they were "raw, unevaluated reports."
一位曾經為華盛頓空軍 UFO 計畫工作 15 個月的太空工程師，曾為羅伯遜小組檢閱過很多藍皮書檔案中品質較好的目擊案，他對這些不尋常飛行體存在的唯一解釋是 —— 外星來的訪客。但羅伯遜小組不接受此工程師的說法，而認為那些報告的資料都是粗糙且未經評估的。
After a total review of approximately twelve hours, the panel concluded: "We firmly believe that there is no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts." However, "the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic." The panel was concerned that if the reports continued, the American population might be vulnerable to "possible enemy psychological warfare" through "the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted authority."
在險閱了 12 個小時之後，羅伯遜小組的結論是：“我們確信沒有任何案例可以支援有外來物體企圖進行有敵意的行動，但如果繼續討論與這種現象有關的報告，在這動盪不安的時代．將會威脅到政治上正常運作的防衛機制。”該小組關心的是，如果持續有案例報告發表，美國的民眾將會對“敵人可能的心理戰失去警覺性”，敵人只要利用“熟練的敵意宣傳，就可能擴大為歇斯底里的行為，進而造成社會的不安。”
Among other things, the panel recommended that the two major UFO research groups - Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI) in New York - "be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." The panel also recommended that national security agencies "take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."
該小組建議政府要對兩個主要的UFO研究團體：一為位於威斯康辛州鱘魚灣（Sturgeon Bay）的空中現象研究組織（Aerial Phenomena Research Organization；APRO）；一為位於紐約的民間飛碟通訊（Civilian Saucer Intelligence；CSI）“予以監視，以免它們在目擊事件廣泛發生時，會對民眾的思想造成不良影響，且一些不負責任的團體或個人也可能利用這兩個組織從事顛覆活動。”小組也建議國家安全局“立即採取行動駁斥一般人對不明飛行物體所抱持的看法與態度。”
Last, the panel outlined a program to educate the public to identify known objects in the sky, and to "debunk" the phenomenon and therefore reduce interest. The program would consult psychologists versed in mass psychology, utilize an army training film company and Walt Disney Productions, and employ famous personalities selected for their believability. The panel specifically suggested Arthur Godfrey.
最後，審查小組訂定了一個教育民眾辨認空中物體及揭穿一些不明現象的計畫大綱，以使民眾的興趣降溫。該計畫將諮詢心理學專家，求助華德狄斯耐製片及陸軍訓練影片製作公司，也將雇用信譽卓著的著名人士。該小組特別推薦了亞瑟．古特飛（Arthur Godfrey）。
Twelve years after he sat on the panel, Goudsmit wrote in a letter (to David Michael Jacobs, author of the definitive treatise, The Controversy Over Unidentified Flying Objects in America: 1896-1973) that the subject was "a complete waste of time and should be investigated by psychiatrists rather than physicists." To Goudsmit, the extraterrestrial theory was "almost as dangerous to the general welfare of our unstable society as drug addiction and some other mental disorders."
在參加小組工作12年後，古德斯米特（Goudsmit）寫了一封信給大衛．邁可．傑卡布（David Michael Jacobs），也就是《1896 到 1973 年間不明飛行物在美國的爭論》這篇學術論文的作者，信中指出“這個主題完全是在浪費時間，應該找心理學家而不是找物理學家去研討。”古德斯米特認為外星人的說法“對我們這動盪不安的社會所造成的危機，幾乎和毒品及其它精神疾病一樣可怕。”
Dr. Hynek, the Air Force special advisor to Blue Book who in time would evolve from a skeptic to the recognized dean of UFO study, disagreed with the panel's conclusions. They had rendered judgment in just four days on a phenomenon he had been studying for four years and still could not explain. And the more he studied, the more perplexed he became.
海尼克博士是空軍藍皮書的特別顧問，他曾對認同 UFO 存在的研究抱持懷疑態度，但是後來他卻轉變成為眾所周知研究不明飛行物的專家，他非常反對此小組所提出的結論，因為該小組只研究了四天就作出結論，而他卻已經研究了四年而仍無法理解，而且他涉入越多他就變得越困惑。
艾倫．海尼克（Allen Hynek）博士
十二
Before Dilettoso had joined their group, Stevens located a physicist in San Diego, Neil Davis, who was part owner of Design Technology, a photo optics laboratory under contract with General Dynamics and the U.S. Navy. Though Davis could not perform the ultra-sophisticated computer image processing possible at some of the government-sponsored labs, he could quickly eliminate several possibilities of hoaxing technique or tell Stevens he was wasting his time with the photographs.
在狄特索加入他們之前，史蒂芬曾結識一位聖地牙哥的物理學家尼爾．大衛斯（Neil Davis），他是設計科技公司股東之一，該公司是一家與美國海軍、通用動力（General Dynamics）公司有合作關係的光學照相實驗室。雖然大衛斯無法像一些政府贊助的實驗室那樣進行極為複雜的電腦影像處理工作，但他卻能迅速排除一些偽造技術的可能性，或告訴史蒂芬其實他是在浪費時間處理相片的問題。
Davis consented to test one color print, three by four and a half inches. His conclusions, he told Stevens, would have to be preliminary because a complete and proper scientific analysis could only be conducted on an original negative; Stevens could not be sure the internegative he gave to Davis was even first generation.
大衛斯同意檢驗一張彩色照片，那是一張 3 X 4.5 英寸的照片。他告訴史蒂芬他的結論不一定正確，因為完整又正確的科學分析只能用原始底片去處理，但史蒂芬卻不能確定他交給大衛斯的是否是最原始的底片。
The photograph Stevens selected to be analyzed by Davis was of a silvery beamship hovering approximately 150 feet off the ground near two long piles of cut and debarked pine. Emerald grass and a dark green tree line, a bluish sky, and smoky hills in the distance filled the rest of the picture.
史蒂芬選送給大衛斯作分析的相片是一架在約 150 英尺高空中搖曳的銀色太空船，該太空船在靠近兩排修剪整齊的松樹上方。相片其它部分都是翠綠色的草，深綠色的樹，藍色的天空及遠處雲霧迷漫的山丘。
Physicist Neil Davis of Design Technology in Poway, California, examined this photograph taken August 3, 1975.
Three years later, just beyond the stacks of debarked pine, Meier recorded the beamship sounds analyzed by Los Angeles sound engineers Nils Rognerud and Steve Ambrose.
這張照片拍攝於 1975 年 8 月 3 日，加州波威設計技術物理學家尼爾．大衛斯（Neil Davis）檢查了這張照片。三年後的冬季，邁爾錄下了「光船」的聲音，提供洛杉磯音響工程師尼斯．隆那魯（Nils Rognerud）和史蒂夫．安保（Steve Ambrose）去作分析。
Davis first examined the print under a microscope to compare the sharpness of the object with the sharpness of the scene. "There is no discernible difference in image sharpness," he wrote in his report. Next, he magnified the photograph ten times, made color separation black-and-white negatives, and scanned them with a microdensitometer for uniform density. "Examination did not reveal any details which would cast doubt upon the authenticity of the photograph."
大衛斯先用顯微鏡檢視，以比較相片中物體和佈景間的鮮明度。他在報告上對影像鮮明度寫著“沒有可辨別的差異存在”。然後他將相片放大十倍，製成黑白分明的底片，再用微濃度儀去掃描並測量相片密度的均勻性。檢視結果顯示“無法提出任何細節來證明相片是有問題的。”
Then, Davis carefully examined the print and his freshly made negatives for evidence of double exposure, superimposure, photo paste-up, or a model at a short range suspended on a string. He wrote, "Nothing was found to indicate a hoax." Furthermore, "examination of the location of the shadows and highlights in the photograph verifies that the object and the scene were apparently taken under the same conditions of illumination."
大衛斯仔細檢視相片及其鮮明度，並重新製作底片用來檢視它是否重複曝光、重疊處理、相片剪貼或以短距離用細線懸掛模型的方式處理過。他寫著：“無法發現偽造的證據，檢查影子的位置及相片的光亮部分，可以證明物體和背景是處於相同的時間及相同照明環境下的。”
After conducting all tests on the photo, Davis concluded, "Nothing was found in the examination of the print which could cause me to believe that the object in the photo is anything other than a large object photographed a distance from the camera."
在對相片作過所有的測試之後，大衛斯的結論是：“沒有任何發現能使我相信相片中的物體不是相機實際拍攝到的。”
Davis' findings encouraged Stevens, but Elders, still cynical, punched holes in his enthusiasm. The results gave them a green light on the photographs for now, he admitted, but much more sophisticated analysis would have to be performed. And Elders reminded Stevens that a metallurgist at the University of Arizona had already examined one of Meier's metal specimens and labeled it "potmetal," a low-grade casting alloy used to make such things as tin soldiers.
大衛斯的發現鼓舞了史蒂芬，但李仍保守地認為雖然相片給了他們一線曙光，但是還必須進行更複雜的分析才行。同時李也提醒史蒂芬有一位亞利桑那大學的冶金專家已檢驗了一塊邁爾的金屬樣本，他稱之為粗金屬，是一種低層次鑄造的合金，通常可用於製作小型戰士玩偶。
"These were the initial steps in the analysis," recalled Welch. "Compared to what ultimately occurred, they were very, very, very basic."
“這些都只是初步的分析，”維奇回憶道，“這些工作與最終的結果比較，是最基本的工作。”
Welch suggested that before they ran more tests on any of the evidence, they needed additional information from Switzerland. No one yet had stood on the sites with the Meier photos in hand, determined where Meier had stood, and then measured distances to objects in the pictures. Such comparisons might give them clues as to how Meier could have staged the scenes. Welch, too, wanted to roam about the farm with both eyes open. As the son of an ex-FBI agent, he knew he might see things the others had missed.
維奇建議他們在對證據作更多的測試之前，需要更多來自瑞士的資訊。因為沒有人曾站在邁爾拿照相機的位置作過測試，並確切地測量邁爾拍照時與物體間的實際距離。這樣的比對及測量工作可以提供他們一些邁爾如何設計背景的線索。維奇更希望能用自己的雙眼親眼目睹並散步於農場上，因為身為一位聯邦調查局職員的兒子，他相信他能觀察到比別人更多的細節。
（第七章 結束）
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