Barnes believes the Air Force and the "Agency" didn't mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the secret planes that were being tested.
On one occasion, he remembers, when the first jets were being tested at what Muroc Army Air Field, later renamed Edwards Air Force Base, a test pilot put on a gorilla mask and flew upside down beside a private pilot.
"Well, when this guy went back, telling reporters, 'I saw a plane that didn't have a propeller and being flown by a monkey,' well, they laughed at this guy -- and it got where the guys would see [test pilots] and they didn't dare report it because everybody'd laugh at them," says Barnes.
8-Sept-2017 - Pilot Dies in 'Classified' Plane Crash at Nevada Training Range