Comparisons are made between PALLAS calculated with meaured neutron and γ-ray doses above the ground in an air-ground medium for HENRE accelerator and BREN reactor, yielding good agreements except for a 8.23-m height of HENRE source, in which the calculation overestimates the neutron dose by a factor of 1.5 due to the use of a rough angular quadrature set. Disregard of the ground results in a decrease by a factor of 2 in both neutron and γ-ray doses compared with those for the presence of the ground, while for an infinite-air medium both these doses increase with distances from the source, which indicates that the ground should not be. ignored in the neutron and secondary p-ray transport calculation. For assumed neutron skyshine calculations disregard of the ground results in a decrease in the neutron dose by a factor of 1.5 and 1.7 and also in the secondary γ-ray dose by a factor of 1.35 and 3~5 respectively for a 14-MeV source and a fission source. In addition to the importance of inclusion of the ground in neutron skyshine calculations, an additional essential factor is the secondary γ-ray production due to neutron inelastic scattering interaction with nitrogen for the 14-MeV source, or the one due to neutron capture interactions in both ground and air for the fission source.