Unfinished letter (not posted) from Forrest Perkins to Gordon David Thayer, around 1 Aug. 1976 (typewritten)

Hi:

Just a few thoughts after reading Mr. Klass's letters that were kindly provided by Mr. Friedman. I stated specifically that I did not see the UFO circle around behind the Venom. I personally doubt that anyone in the RATCC saw the UFO circle behind the Venom, because of the RPM of the CPS-5 antenna. They told me that it had occurred and I Accepted their word. Whether they were told that this had occurred by GCA or they just thought it had happened I don't know. So for Mr. Klass's benefit let's say it didn't occur. Is Mr. Klass willing to give the UFO the ability not only to outperfoem the Venom, but also the ability to read his mind in able to perform the various turns, etc to remain directly in front of the venom for the entire period? Of course, since the following target stopped and remained stationary while the leading target left the area headed for home, there had to be some point when the UFO was behind the Venom.

I'm surprised Mr. Klass even admits there might have been targets we were tracking, rather than our own highly excited imaginations. He must think we were all idiots. Does he have any idea of the number of reports that are investigated by the average radar crew in the course of a year? It is a tremendous amount and there is usually a reason. At Westover AFB in 1951 we knew there was a Navy blimp tied up at Holyoke Mass. All night long we received phone calls reporting it as a flying saucer. Some people even described it as travelling at 5,000 MPH. This sort of thing occurs to all radar controllers. At no time in 20 years of Air traffic control have I ever sent a CERVIX report on an unidentified flying object except for the two instances I have previously mention. Once at Westover and the Lakenheath incident. Now Klass says there was no Vector scan or Sector scan on the CPS-5. He may be right. But there was height finding equipment that operated by placing a strobe through the target manually which aimed an antenna directly at that target and determined the altitude of the aircraft with a vertical sweep. The reason I never used either the Elevation (Height Finding equipment or vector scan if there was any, was simply because these are not used in Air Traffic Control. I have never used them in Air

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