UFO Update Anonymous low-level informants have for years accused the U.S. government of hiding crashed UFOs. Since these sources are of uncertain reliability, the reports have been largely ignored. Now, however, ufologists must consider the testimony of Robert Sarbacher, whose entry in WHO'S WHO consists of more than 3 inches of tiny print, including education at Princeton and Harvard and a stint as dean of the graduate school of the Georgia Institute of Technology. In the years after WWII, the story goes, Sarbacher served as a science consultant for the Defense Department's Joint Research and Development Board. He was in his Washington office on September 15, 1950, it seems, when he received a visit from Canadian electrical engineer Wilbert B. Smith. According to information released by Smith just recently, it was then that Sarbacher revealed the existence of crashed UFOs, apparently under investigation by Vannevar Bush, the government's top scientist. In a recent interview, Sarbacher, now head of the Washington Institute of Technology, confirmed those remarks. He says that during his period of government service as one of a number of government scientists who served largely as volunteers, he was told that the vehicles were composed of an "extremely light and very tough" material, apparently intended to withstand tremendous acceleration and deceleration. At one point, Sarbacher says, he was even invited to a meeting at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where officials related their findings to scientists connected with the Research and Development Board. Sarbacher had other commitments and did not attend the meeting, but he says that those who did, including Bush and noted mathematician John von Neumann, were told that the vehicles appeared to be spaceships from another solar system. Asked about his reaction to the episode, Sarbacher seems oddly blase. He admits he hasn't given much thought to a matter most people would consider extraordinary -- he considers it simply a curious event in the course of a long scientific career. "After all," he says, "I had -- and have -- a great many more pressing scientific responsibilities. I wish I could refer you to someone who was more directly involved than I was," he adds. "Unfortunately, they're all long gone." Writer William Moore, who has been chasing government UFO secrets for years, considers Sarbacher's testimony significant. "It's the first time someone with a reputation has come forward to state publicly that the Pentagon has a recovered UFO," he says. "This isn't proof, of course, but it fits in with information we have from other sources." Informed of these claims, Temple University history professor David M. Jacobs, author of THE UFO CONTROVERSY IN AMERICA, admits Sarbacher's credentials are impressive but observes, "Until somebody can produce an actual crashed saucer, this is hearsay evidence. And how can he talk so casually about something that would have to be the most sensational event in all of history?"