Had a single person suggested that Desvergers spun tall tales, it might be suggested that some sort of a vendetta existed. But many people related that Desvergers had told them similar things. One man even said that if Desvergers had told him the sun was shining, he would go out to look.
Other details of his personal life were equally revealing when reported. Many of the people who knew him had heard the stories and dismissed them as fantasy. Ruppelt, among others, "pointed out that this fact alone meant nothing…" The UFO sighting could have been the one time that Desvergers was telling the truth.
Then the Air Force investigators made another discovery. The clearing where Desvergers had been attacked by the UFO was invisible from the road. Olsson and the local intelligence officer tried to see the clearing under about the same lighting conditions as the night of the event. Only by standing on the car could they see down into the thicket where the boy scouts had thought their leader had been attacked.
Suddenly, the tale of a brave ex-Marine and boy scout leader, who had the corroboration of three boy scouts, didn't look so good. It wasn't that anyone believed the boy scouts were lying. They thought the kids had gotten caught up in the excitement and had imagined some of the things they thought they saw, especially under the careful guidance of their scout master. In the final analysis, they hadn't seen all that much anyway.
So the tale hung on Desvergers and his reputation. His reputation had fallen apart. He wasn't the upstanding and honest ex-Marine hero of a secret Pacific campaign that he had seemed to be. His background was less than sterling and involved, among other things, petty theft. The case began to look like a hoax after all.
The day after Ruppelt and the others had interviewed Desvergers, he hired Publicity Agent Art Weil. Rather than providing his story to newspapers and magazines, Weil was going to sell the tale to the highest bidder. Desvergers had already been approached by a number of people including a couple of college professors, newspaper reporters, and at least one writer from a large circulation news magazine. Or rather that was what Desvergers had said.
Not long after that, Weil quit. He had learned about the problems with Desvergers' background and realized that no reputable magazine would pay for such a story. The only thing going for the story was the reputation of the man telling it. If his reputation wouldn't stand up to the background checks, which it wouldn't, then no one from a reputable magazine would take a chance on the tale.
So is seems that this was just a hoax. Desvergers, to add weight to it, had singed the hair from his arms with his own cigarette lighter, or so the investigators believed. The slight reddening observed by some was gone within a day or two. The tale of lights, or a mystery craft, in the palmetto was not corroborated by anyone.
But Ruppelt had called this the best hoax in UFO history. There was nothing in the official Blue Book record to explain that. It seemed to be more of a routine, and not very clever, hoax. Except for one thing. According to Ruppelt in his book, they had forgotten about the soil and grass samples gathered in the clearing. They had taken the machete, the flashlight, and the cap for testing, but in the rush to get out of Florida, they'd left the soil samples behind. Ruppelt asked the local intelligence officer to forward them to Blue Book, which he did.
When the lab, which we now know to be the Battelle Memorial Institute, reported back to Ruppelt, they asked, "How did the roots [of the grass] get charred?"
What they had discovered is that the roots of the grass had been heated to about 300 degrees. They had no way to explain it and the only way they could duplicate it was to put the grass in a pan and heat it. Of course, that was not what had been done in the field. The samples had been taken from the undisturbed ground.
Ruppelt and the others checked the area carefully and found nothing that would account for the charring. He did learn that induction heating could duplicate the effect in the field but there was no evidence such was the case. Ruppelt quoted from an engineering text that suggested a method for induction hearing. A metal rod, when subjected to an alternating magnetic field, would create 'eddy currents' that caused a rise in temperature. Ruppelt suggested that by replacing the metal bar with the wet sand such as that in the clearing for the electrical conductor and an assumption of a strong, alternating magnetic field created by the proper equipment, the charred roots could be explained. Of course, it required heavy equipment to do it and there was no evidence of that equipment in the palmetto grove that night or at any other time.
Suddenly there was a bit of physical evidence that couldn't be explained easily. Ruppelt and the others were still convinced that the story was a hoax, even if they couldn't explain how the roots of the grass had been charred.
And Olsson, in a "memo for the record" found in the Project Blue Book files, had talked to the people at the "Flare and Signal Branch." They suggested that the burns in the hat were consistent with those from a flare, but that didn't mean the burns had occurred in that way or that Desvergers had used a flare.
But more importantly, Olsson learned that had a flare been used to hoax part of the sighting, the grass should have burned. He was told, "It seems likely that if a flare was used in the incident at West Palm, a fire would have started in the dry grass. No evidence of a fire was present down there as far as we could see."
These facts were what had made the case the best hoax in UFO history. That, and the fact that no one had proven that Desvergers was lying in this instance. As the deputy said, "It could have been the one time in his life that he told the truth."
What is interesting about the Project Blue Book file is there is nothing about these grass samples in it. There are "memos for the record" that cover the testing done on the machete, the flashlight and the cap. There are reports that suggest there was nothing unusual about the machete or the flashlight and detailing the holes burned in the cap. The scorching on the hat, along with some tiny holes burned in it were puzzling but not solid evidence that the tale told by Desvergers was the truth.
All these documents are in the file. There are even longer, detailed statements about Desvergers' background that suggest his character wasn't sterling. There are many tales that he had spun that had no basis in fact. These are particularly persuasive. It provides the profile of a man who enjoys the spotlight, who has spun more than one tale to put himself in that spotlight, and who seems to have invented the story of a flying saucer attack to grab the spotlight once again. In today's environment, he would claim to have been abducted and would appear on a dozen or so of the television talk shows to explain what had happened to him.
But there is nothing in the file about the grass and soil samples. Without Ruppelt's candid description of the case in his book, we would know nothing about this aspect of it.
To me, the evidence in the file is persuasive. I have no doubt that Desvergers invented the tale of the flying saucer attack. There are just too many instances where Desvergers made up stories to impress his friends and coworkers. With what I found by reading the file, I would be willing, in fact, I would be an enthusiast, in labeling this case a hoax if not for one thing.
Where are those reports about the charred grass roots?
May 5, 1955: Project Blue Book Special Report #14
During a short part of its existence, the officers involved with Project Blue Book issued a series of reports. They were numbered one through twelve and began while Blue Book was still operating under the old code name of Grudge. Special Report #14 was issued some two years after the last of the regular reports. There is no credible evidence that a report numbered thirteen ever existed. It has been suggested that number thirteen was incorporated into Special Report #14.