Muscarello, Bertrand, and Hunt all strongly disagreed with the Air Force explanation. The two policemen sent a letter to Project Blue Book in which they stated, "As you can imagine, we have been the subject of considerable ridicule since the Pentagon released its 'final evaluation' of our sighting of September 3, 1965. In other words, both Patrolman Hunt and myself saw this object at close range, checked it out with each other, confirmed and reconfirmed that it was not any type of conventional aircraft ... and went to considerable trouble to confirm that the weather was clear, there was no wind, no chance of weather inversion, and that what we were seeing was in no way a military or civilian aircraft." Bertrand also noted that their UFO sighting took place nearly an hour after Operation Big Blast was said to have ended, which eliminated the operation as a possible cause of the sighting. When Project Blue Book did not respond to their letter, on December 29, 1965 — nearly four months after the sighting — the two men sent another letter to Blue Book in which they wrote that the object they observed "was absolutely silent with no rush of air from jets or chopper blades whatsoever. And it did not have any wings or tail ... it lit up the entire field, and two nearby houses turned completely red."