86's. The colonels promptly replied that if the objects had been F-
86's they would have easily been recognized as such. The colonels
knew what F-86's looked like.

Air Defense Command relayed the report to Project Blue Book. An
investigation was started at once.

Flight Service, which clears all military aircraft flights, was
contacted and asked about the location of aircraft near the Carson
Sink area at 3:40P.M. They had no record of the presence of aircraft
in that area.

Since the colonels had mentioned delta wing aircraft, and both the
Air Force and the Navy had a few of this type, we double-checked. The
Navy's deltas were all on the east coast, at least all of the silver
ones were. A few deltas painted the traditional navy blue were on the
west coast, but not near Carson Sink. The Air Force's one delta was
temporarily grounded.

Since balloons once in a while can appear to have an odd shape, all
balloon flights were checked for both standard weather balloons and
the big 100-foot-diameter research balloons. Nothing was found.

A quick check on the two colonels revealed that both of them were
command pilots and that each had several thousand hours of flying
time. They were stationed at the Pentagon. Their highly classified
assignments were such that they would be in a position to recognize
_anything_ that the United States knows to be flying anywhere in the
world.