Later that day, when Werlich first reported the UFO observations to Blue Book he affirmed, “the Base Commander and Major General Nichols of the 15^th Air Force were both interested” (Memo, 24 Oct., 1). It is likely that during the UFO events the Base Operations Dispatcher alerted Base Commander Col. Kirchoff, who subsequently notified his superior, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Nichols Jr., Vice Commander of the Fifteenth Air Force, March AFB, CA. In this scenario, Col. Kirchoff and Gen. Nichols may have been monitoring the situation with RAPCON; relayed the order to the B-52 pilots to overfly the stationary UFO; and requested the debriefing following the landing.