Final Word

Wendy ConnorsConnors, WendyMichael Hall, 1998

There are a number of other very interesting sightings that shed more light on the aftermath of the great UFO wave of 1947 and Alfred Loedding's influence on Project Sign. Two very intriguing reports from July 29th and 31st 1948 seem to support Loedding's dramatic findings expressed in the Estimate draft. They come from Indianapolis, Indiana, and remain listed unidentified in Air Force files. The first sighting took place at 9:55 A.M. CST on the 29th when James Toney and Robert Huggins were driving near the wooded area of Fall Creek. Just after crossing the creek via a cantilever bridge, they neared the intersection of East 56th Street and Fall Creek Boulevard. At that point Toney and Huggins observed a strange looking flying machine pass about 200 feet from them. It appeared to be of shiny aluminum construction moving at a slow speed of not more than 30 miles per hour as it flew about 30 feet above the tree tops. The craft did not resemble anything the men had ever seen in the skies before, looking like a "broad short propeller" or boomerang with "cups" on its upper sides. The object had a three to one ratio, approximately six to eight feet long by about two feet high. The strange machine made no noise as it then passed out of sight over the tree line.

Sign extensively investigated the case with the initial field work being supervised by Colonel James A. Ronin, commander of the 331st AFB reserve training unit at Stout Field near Indianapolis. They quickly determined it could not have been a glider or aircraft. TID officers even wrote to the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York, in the belief it might have been the result of their roto-chute experimental vehicle, but found that it had never flown in that area of the country.

When a very similar sighting took place in the city two days later, intelligence officers became even more interested. Mr. & Mrs. Vernon Swigert in the south central part of town witnessed this second event. The object they saw flew over at 8:25 A.M.. on the 31st. It appeared white and had the same general three to one proportional shape as in the earlier sighting. Yet that object looked much more like the traditional flying saucer. This unknown craft resembled a "cymbal," and moved silently by at very great speed. The two observers felt it may have traveled as fast as 1,800 miles per hour at a height of 2,000 feet. At no time did it deviate from a level flight path and left no exhaust trail s1Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Cases 185 and 190, listed as Incidents 151 and 152 in 1948 era documents.

Because no other aircraft or balloons of any sort could be found to explain the Indianapolis Sightings, they were both marked unidentified s2Ibid. Already self-conscious about having no proof to back up their Estimate conclusions, Sign officials like Loedding went to great lengths to continue to run a very tight and professional investigation throughout the rest of the year. Unidentified listings were therefore still sparingly given.

By August UFO incidents in the US, like those from Indianapolis, seemed to have peaked for the year just as rumors of disc sightings started to filter out of Eastern Block countries and the far reaches of Asia. Most were strikingly similar to the disc reports in North America during 1947. Many of these, in fact, came from areas of the globe where the term "flying saucer" had never been heard s3Vallee, Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space?A Scientific Appraisal (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1965), p. 54.

Few of those foreign reports were evaluated by Sign, but an interesting sighting from August 3, 1948, reached AMC's TID from, of all places, Moscow. This fact is significant because although a rash of UFO incidents occurred over Russia that year, it was also the high point of the Berlin Airlift. Tensions between East and West were so strong that many expected a third world war might soon break out. Reports on UFO activity behind the Iron Curtain were therefore few and far between?accounts of which are only now becoming known.

Thus somewhat of a curiosity among early intelligence personnel, primarily for its Cold War era location, this case is known as the Moscow Report. The file did not really represent an especially good account, being compiled only from the recollection of an undisclosed American newspaper reporter. His sighting took place about twenty miles northwest of the city at sunset when he and a Russian friend viewed a long narrow cigar-shaped object proceeding at a high but not excessive speed toward the northeast. No wings or stabilizers were visible likening it to an aircraft or rocket, although the sunlight reflecting off its surface did suggest that the craft had a metal skin. The reporter and his acquaintance both watched the spectacle as it passed by without making a sound. They agreed that the object looked like a rigid airship, so familiar to anyone who had lived through the great age of the large dirigibles in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet both also said it moved far too fast for a lighter-than-air craft. Neither had any idea what the strange object could have been, "it might have been anything the reporter himself concludes" s4Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Case 195, listed as Incident 171 in 1948 era documents. Because the Air Force had no way to investigate such a sighting, this is the type of report often filed under the handy category: "insufficient data."

Another type of classification used in the Air Force files reads "unreliable." Unreliable became the conclusion of case number 198 because its witnesses were children. Case 198 is however a notable mystery in the Sign files. Not only is it one of very few reports describing a UFO landing, but also the size of the file seems unwarranted when taking into account that the unreliable designation was given early on in the investigation. Experience will tell any researcher that when so many pages are found on an Air Force UFO case, strong attention was given to it by someone.

The incident involves two children ages ten and eight. They were playing in their backyard on a Hamel, Minnesota, farm on August 11, 1948, when they had their attention drawn skyward. Above them in the noontime sky the children noticed a dull gray metallic craft descending downward. Each of them described it as two inverted plates stuck together which, in their words, then gently touched down with a "clanking noise." It soon started making a whistling noise and rose up to twenty feet, stopped and hovered, and then maneuvered over the tree tops and telephone lines before flying off.

The first investigator on the scene was from the AMC and his immediate conclusion stated: "This apparent bit of fantasy is hardly worth further consideration" s5Ibid., Case 198, listed as Incident 162 in 1948 era documents. Such a designation, especially after funds were expended for travel out of Dayton, always killed further investigation then and there. But despite that early conclusion, a large amount of attention was soon displayed on the case as evidenced from the correspondence. Soil samples were collected and photos taken documenting the landing sight. Numerous government agencies including the FBI then requested access to the samples. Usually only lieutenants and maybe a captain are involved in such an investigation, but correspondence in the files shows a Lieutenant Colonel Allison initiating a "resurvey" of the landing sight. This would seem to indicate that at some point the initial investigation was overruled and a more detailed study ordered. Who decided such a sighting with only children as observers warranted so much attention? Why did the FBI end up analyzing the soil samples and not Wright-Patterson labs? Why does the FBI correspondence show J. Edgar Hoover personally involved in the administration of the soil analysis? n1The findings of the soil sample analysis showed no indication of an anomalous event at the site nor the presence of a metallic object having touched the pebbles in the soil Case 198 has plenty of questions to go around.

A sighting from September 23rd that year from San Pablo, California, stumped Air Force investigators sufficiently to label the case "unidentified." It involved two highly respected witnesses, Sylvester Bentham and retired US Army Colonel Horace Eakins, who spotted a very odd-looking flying object around noon. Initially it attracted their attention not because of its amoeba-like shape, but speed?described once again as faster than that of any known aircraft. For over three minutes the attentive observers watched it traverse due east in a straight line at a constant speed. They estimated that the object had to have been at least a mile above a low flying bomber then in view. The men, in fact, could not agree on the exact shape or dimension because it was so high. They did note that unlike the early jets of the time, it made no noise and left no exhaust. The Air Force ruled out an astronomical cause. They could only find a west-bound United Airlines plane as a possible solution yet felt this was highly unlikely because it would have been moving in the opposite direction s6Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Case 208, listed as Incident 176 in 1948 era documents.

A much more well-known case became the third of the UFO Classics when North Dakota Air National Guard F-51 pilot George F. German had a very strange encounter while he attempted a nighttime landing into the Fargo airport at 9:00 P.M. CST, October 1, 1948. German had just completed a crosscountry flight when on final approach his fighter passed within 1,000 yards of a sharply outlined orb. Described as a "blinking light" just inches in diameter and making "remarkable revolutions," the experienced flyer had no idea what to make of it. German pursued the light repeatedly in order to identify, but after 27 minutes the object climbed out of sight.

Because of a hair-raising series of intricate maneuvers made during that intercept, this case has often been referred to as the German Dogfight. It's an apt title because during each of his persistent passes toward the light, the object rushed straight at the F-51. And each time German tried to turn around and pursue, he found it necessary to make an extensive series of turns, only to end up repeating the same scenario all over again. During the ordeal the light appeared to travel in excess of his own speed which ranged from 300 to 400 miles per hour yet produced no exhaust trail nor sound s7Ibid., Case 284, listed as Incident 172 in 1948 era documents.

Four other observers, including two pilots in a Piper Cub flying just below him, corroborated Gorman's story. The chief of the control tower also followed the event with binoculars. In fact, it was because the extraordinary encounter had so many good witnesses that the Air Force followed up with an extensive investigation. Sign/TID investigators Lawrence Truettner and Major Paul Lmbela flew to Fargo and headed up the case. Eyewitness accounts were checked and rechecked, and the plane itself was thoroughly gone over. Surprisingly, the aircraft's metal skin revealed radioactive exposure. To make sure, four separate Geigers were used to confirm the readings.

It did sound like an exceptional incident at the time, but the facts soon pointed to some rather obvious solutions. The evidence suggested that the mysterious nocturnal orb might have merely been a small lighted weather balloon. Following other such incidents over the Caribbean, Intelligence found that when an aircraft approaches a lighted balloon at night, even an experienced pilot can have his perspective distorted. The balloon, in other words, appears to rush toward the plane when actually it is the plane rushing toward the balloon. Because the balloon is moving so slowly, it is the aircraft that then makes the evasive action. When the aircraft attempts another pass, it has to make a complete 180 degree turn only to find itself rushing once again by the balloon so fast that the pilot can not identify it. Another lesson bestowed on general aviation from this would-be UFO case concerned the mysterious radiation. After further study, TID investigators discovered that any aircraft flying at high altitudes in the thin upper atmosphere is prone to absorb cosmic radioactivity s8Ruppelt, Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, pp. 31-39.

This incident is now a standard in UFO lore. This is puzzling because correspondence of the time shows Alfred Loedding, the most open minded to an extraterrestrial hypothesis, writing a memo expressing caution in regard to over emphasizing the Gorman incident. Such insights were not, however, made public and over the years much speculation has circulated in regard to this sighting.

This is unfortunate because debunkers often seize on these sensationalized stories. When discussing the early history of UFO phenomena, they almost exclusively focus on classics like the Gorman Dogfight or the Mantel Incident. That's natural because those are the easy ones to explain. Most debunkers never even bother to research, let alone discuss, the other sightings of the time. As a result, people are lead to believe that all of the early cases have equally reasonable conclusions.

When putting the event into historical perspective one understands this mind set. It must be remembered that even by this date the Air Force had not yet released any kind of official report on UFOs and as a whole still hesitated to take a position. Most of their investigations, even of such publicized incidents, were stamped "RESTRICTED" or "SECRET" and could not be disseminated to the general public until declassified. When the Blue Book Files were finally made public in 1976, few people bothered to research other cases from these early years?being so infatuated with the legends like the Gorman incident.

While the Gorman Case has been discussed in almost every book published on UFOs, a much better sighting twelve days later has never been dealt with. It took place in South Bend, Indiana, on a clear and cloudless day at 11:45 A.M. CST when two office workers standing at a window of the Studebaker Corporation observed a silvery flat disc-shaped object speed silently through the sky at around 1,500 feet. The UFO appeared just a little smaller than a DC-3, although it moved about three times as fast.

Both witnesses were uncertain if the craft was spinning. They used the description "flashing" because the sun's rays reflected from it just as brightly as it would a chrome surface, thus at least giving the appearance of a rotating machine. During the brief eight to ten second sighting, the object came from the northwest on a straight southeasterly heading. It flew with no visible means of propulsion, wings or rudders. Neither observer had any idea of what they saw, but felt certain it could not have been a balloon or aircraft. Both office workers held important positions in the company's engineering department and were described by Studebaker management as being of "a high type of caliber," and highly reliable s9Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Case 216, listed as Incident 180 in 1948 era documents.

It is the mass of this and many other obscure cases rather than just the three famous Classics that led Sign to its developing belief in extraterrestrial visitation. Loedding, Sneider, Truettner, and even Deyarmond had to have been impressed by the repeated similarities of reported details among these many cases?especially when most of them were not known to the general public s10Albert B. Deyarmond's personal papers, courtesy Project Sign Research Center.

The single best sighting of 1948 and perhaps the best case then to date is also overlooked, or perhaps overshadowed, by the so-called Classics. It was the first truly notable incident in which radar data combined with trained visual observation to produce a stunning UFO case. The initial report came into TID from Japan and involved a twin engine F-61 Black Widow night fighter from the 68th Fighter Squadron. While on patrol the night of October 15, 1948, its crew had a very curious encounter at 11:05 P.M. local time.

The incident occurred over the Fukuoka area between the islands of Shigamo Shima and Fusae Shima on a clear and moonlit night when the F-61's radar detected an unknown object five miles away and below them at 2,305 feet. At the time of detection, radar clocked the UFO at a speed of 200 miles per hour. Curious as to what could be flying over a then occupied Japan, the pilot increased his speed to 220 miles per hour, deciding to close in for a visual confirmation. He guessed it would probably turn out to be an F-51 Mustang fighter from another squadron but decided they could use the practice anyhow. He nosed down and approached within 12,000 feet of the would-be fighter but the unknown target then surprised him. It suddenly dived down under his F-61 in a "split S" maneuver, making a 180 degree turn and increasing its speed to over 1,200 miles per hour (almost three times their own speed). The UFO's burst of power appeared only temporary because the object soon slowed to its original velocity. By that point, however, both the pilot and his radar operator knew that their target could not possibly be an F-51, but they decided to try to find out just what it was that they were chasing.

Attempting another intercept, the pilot again closed to a relatively close distance merely to have the UFO go down and off at tremendous speed, slowing only after putting about nine miles distance from their aircraft. Four more times the same scenario took place as if the strange machine was playing a game with them. Ground radar could not confirm the presence of the UFO, although it tracked the F-61. Operators did say that because the incident occurred at such a relatively low altitude, ground clutter interfered with surface-to-air tracking.

Similar UFO intercepts would follow, yet this case stands out because the crew twice gained visual confirmation, thus excluding any possibility of a radar malfunction. The aircraft's radar operator, 2nd Lieutenant Barton Halter, had 300 hours logged in his position and became convinced they had encountered some new type of experimental aircraft. The pilot, 1st Lieutenant Oliver Hemphill, had 900 hours flying time with 350 of those in combat in a B-17 over Europe. He stated that the UFO behaved much like the ME-163 German rocket planes did when attacking our bomber formations. But Hemphill stressed it did not look like a ME-163 nor any aircraft he had ever seen.

In the Sign files there are pages and pages of reports and even a drawing of the object as seen by the pilot. The general description likened it to a "rifle bullet," about 20 to 30 feet long with no discernible exhaust trail, flames, power plant, wings, stabilizers, fins, or crew canopy. Yet the UFO must have been real because Hemphill noted at one point that its silhouette was projected on the clouds by the full moon. In the investigation that followed, it was firmly established that there were no other aircraft then in the area. Intelligence officers also learned that the weather conditions were good with five to six miles visibility, but that even with the moon there would not have been enough light for visual sightings at any great distance.

Everyone at TID very much wanted to know what the F-61 crew saw that night in the dark skies over Japan, but no clues could be found. The case went down as the first unidentified in a special category called "radar-visual" s11Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Case 218, listed as Incident 183 in 1948 era documents. A few Intelligence personnel, however, felt the October 15th incident over Japan could have represented an attempted intercept of a Soviet spy plane. It has only recently been discovered that Britain would soon fly nighttime reconnaissance missions over Russia, and America had overflights of Siberia as early as 1946 by way of the North Pole. The USAF also made incursions into the eastern borders of the USSR throughout 1949. By 1956 the CIA would direct hundreds of deep penetration missions into Soviet territory with the famous U-2 spy plane. Some thought all along that the flying saucer reports were attributable to the Soviets conducting the same type of surveillance that we were doing to them, but only a few Project Sign cases seem to substantiate the claim. Following is a good example of a report from November 4, 1948, that obviously represents a foreign spy plane:

Unidentified aircraft observed at 1043 14 Nov [sic] 1948 over Army Observation Post #1 at 37O 57'N-125O 31'E, in South Korea, flying east to west at an altitude of 5000 feet. The same aircraft was sighted by army observation post #2 37O 51' N-125O 17' E, 4, 37O 57' N-125O 26' E and 5, 37O 56' N-125O 29'. Subject aircraft circled observation post number 2, then headed north. Aircraft was twin engine bomber type, and is believed definitely to have been Soviet s12Ibid., Case 238, listed as Incident 209 in 1948 era documents.

A second good radar-visual report followed the October 15th case. This time it occurred on the other side of the world in Germany and involved an experienced F-80 jet pilot of the 23rd Fighter Squadron stationed at the Furstenfeldbruck AFB. While out walking on the night of November 23rd, the Air Force captain observed from his base a reddish starlike object as it was simultaneously detected by ground radar. The crew in the radar station judged it to be at 27,000 feet traveling between 200-500 miles per hour. It then climbed to 40,000 feet and circled 40 miles south of Munich s13Ibid., Case 249, listed as Incident 222 in 1948 era documents.

Those are the basic facts present today in the Sign files, but when Edward Ruppelt described this incident in his 1956 book, he stated that radar had tracked the object at speeds up to 900 miles per hour and that they detected it climbing 23,000 feet in a matter of seconds! Those figures are not in the documents released by the National Archives in 1976. Though anyone who has read Ruppelt and has checked his facts with other files, knows that he was a stickler for details. This could not have been a simple mistake. What reports did he see that are no longer detailed in the declassified files?s14 Ruppelt, Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, p. 46 If his facts are correct, it is a stunning admission because no man-made aircraft in 1948 could match that performance.

Another mysterious nocturnal phenomenon known as Green Fireballs appeared in the New Mexico night skies during that November and December?seen by hundreds of witnesses up through 1949. After investigations by Project Sign and noted scientists like Dr. Edward Teller and meteorite expert Dr. Lincoln La Paz, (who himself had observed these lights) no conclusions were reached. La Paz, who had a UFO sighting in 1947, became convinced they were not identifiable as a known astronomical activity n2See Chapter 5, pp. 88-89.

The more La Paz studied the phenomenon the more he could be certain that they were not meteors. Unlike meteors, the fireballs flew nearly horizontal at about 40,000 to 60,000 feet. And whereas almost all meteor impacts can be discovered from projecting their observed trajectory, no green fireball could ever be found to have hit the earth.

La Paz even concluded that the green fireballs were surely artificial objects and perhaps represented radio-controlled missiles. If true, they were not of domestic origin because the United States military didn't have a clue when the fireballs began to fly over the super-secret Sandia lab at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico where America's atomic weapons were being built. Then the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington State had a sighting as well as the Los Alamos, New Mexico, nuclear research laboratory. Since these were the three most vital facilities to nuclear weapons production in the country, their administrators became frantic for answers and the Air Force was the organization expected to provide them s15Clark, The Emergence of a Phenomenon, pp. 184-185.

The USAF subsequently created a special study called Project Twinkle to investigate this new spin on the UFO phenomenon. It finally became a research project under the Geophysics Research Division of the Air Force and ! the Cambridge Research Laboratory in February of 1950, more than a year after the largest number of sightings had taken place. Dr. Louis Elterman served as a central figure in the project. He contracted with the Land Air Co. to provide technical personnel during a scheduled period from April 1 to October 1, 1950, and from October 1, 1950, to March 31, 1951. But with the start of war in Korea on June 25, 1950, the project wound down. In the summer of 1951 Major Edward A. Doty took control, and by December Twinkle had closed down s16Bruce S. Maccabee, "Still In Default," In Walter H. Andrus, Jr., and Richard H. Hall, eds., MUFON 1986 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, 143, Seguin, TX: Mutual UFO Network, Inc.; and Clark, p. 190.

Ruppelt claims that Twinkle was administratively formed earlier, in the late summer of 1949, when the green fireballs were still frequently being reported s17"Ruppelt, Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, p. 51. Twinkle then decided its best chance to document the phenomena would be through the use of three special cinetheodolite (Askania) cameras. A cinetheodolite was basically a theodolite range finder with a movie camera attached. The trick with such a device is to get at least two or more cinetheodolites triangulated on the same object in order to determine altitude, speed and size. The Air Force, of course, with typical military bureaucracy initially allocated only one cinetheodolite to Twinkle and frequently moved it so often to where sightings had already just occurred that no one area was consistently scanned.

Dr. Elterman's final report on Twinkle in November 1951 stated in scientific terms what Ruppelt had said about the study: "Project Twinkle was a bust" s18Ibid., pp. 47-52. No triangulation was ever achieved, although on April 27, 1950, four objects 30 feet in diameter were recorded by a Twinkle team at 150,000 feet over Holloman AFB traveling at high speed s19Maccabee, "Still In Default," p. 45.

The real question, however, is why did Project Sign not come into the investigation of the new UFO phenomena in a more meaningful way. In fact, some of the most spectacular reports of that or any other year would occur in the very last quarter of 1948. Yet right in the middle of this unsettling rash of events, Sign found itself increasingly ignored and underutilized by the Pentagon. Green fireballs were actually but a small offshoot of this new and larger phenomena which involved varying types of nocturnal lights appearing over a whole host of military installations. Not all of the cases seem to be in the files, but it is apparent from the available records that a great deal of concern arose with no guesses as to what could be causing the events.

A typical sighting not unlike the November 23rd incident in West Germany, took place December 3rd at 8:15 P.M. PST on a clear night at the Fairfield-Suisun AFB, in California. As in the case from Germany, a bright light came into view at about 20,000 feet, although this report differed dramatically in that the object had first made a low level pass over the airfield at only 500 feet! Control tower operators described it as a round white light that silently passed between the tower and the airfreight terminal at a speed in excess of 400 miles per hour. Close views through 8-power binoculars revealed no definite form, just a bright light one to two feet in diameter and moving with an undulating or bouncing motion. Then all of a sudden observers witnessed it vertically rise to 3,000 feet and level off?soon thereafter reaching an altitude of 20,000 feet and heading south-southeast. Seen from another nearby control tower, all of the various witnesses were certain that the strange object behaved like no aircraft, balloon, or any type of navigation lights s20Project Blue Book Files, Roll No. 3, Case 257, listed as Incident 215 in 1948 era documents.

Sign did thoroughly investigate this case but uncovered no clues to the mystery. Few times before had highly trained observers been at such a loss to identify an aerial object. While little could be done other than take statements, the records of the time do convey a sense of desperation. The Pentagon wanted to know what could so effortlessly violate the airspace of a US military installation, but Sign could no longer suggest what they had formally concluded.

As a result, team members became increasingly frustrated?Loedding in particular. The top brass wanted answers, yet would not accept nor even care to listen to what some of the best in Air Force Intelligence were trying to tell them. An interesting letter found in a recent release of Sign documents does dramatize how seriously the UFO situation was then taken despite official denials. In short, it signified a UFO alert by the Pentagon:

This Headquarters has instructed all major Air Commands, both in the ZI and Overseas, to be particularly alerted at this time for sightings of unidentified aerial objects and to generally comply with the requests contained in subject TWX.

This Headquarters has also requested the cooperation of the Departments of the Army and the Navy, and the Coast Guard, in instructing their installations along the same lines s21FOIA request I-NAIC-97-053, Project Sign and Grudge documents 1948-1949, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.

Recently there have been some documents come to light that shed a little more light on the late 1948 time period, but they also raise new questions as well. These involve numerous Project Sign and Grudge records released from the Wright-Patterson Air Intelligence Agency via the National Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. For years researchers questioned the presence of such files but were always pacified with the statement that these former intelligence records were destroyed in an accidental fire in the St. Louis depository in 1973. Due however to the unending pursuit of truth by legitimate investigators, the lost files finally surfaced. While many of these include duplicate information present in the National Archives' Blue Book collection, new information is revealed. A few of the "missing cases," for example, are finally detailed. The incidents are very amazing but hold no new secrets to the UFO phenomenon. Therefore, we now know that some of the "missing cases" were in large part just that?missing?or misplaced.

Yet the most amazing discoveries are of cases that were never even listed in the vast Air Force index of sightings. Some of the incidents are rather startling for the extremely impressive character of the witnesses involved and the nature of their sightings. In addition, correspondence has also come to light which sheds more light on administrative matters. Combined with other microfilm rolls of Sign and Grudge files held in private hands, (which duplicate some but not all of the National Archives' Blue Book records) much cross-checking needs to be done to fill in the gaps in the historical record. Years of work are ahead for researchers.

Two of the most startling documents discovered in the Sign and Grudge papers are detailed here. We begin with a letter written by Air Force Intelligence Chief Major General Cabell to the AMC. Cabell states quite plainly in that correspondence that the reported incidents of UFO activity are clearly of a real and concerning nature. He then inquires about Project Sign's views on the matter. This is somewhat puzzling considering Cabell must assuredly have been privy to the July Estimate draft. Yet five days later Colonel McCoy then responds with an even more straightforward answer. He states a percentage of the phenomenon are admittedly unexplainable and must represent craft of "foreign origin." Foreign origin in this case is again used to imply extraterrestrial visitation, although the possibility of Soviet activity is still not ruled out. Thus even by 1948 many intelligence officers were forced to either reevaluate a Soviet connection or accept a non-earthly theory. Today, following the fall of the Soviet Union, this revelation is even more startling as we now know none of those UFO sightings represented Soviet activity. And certainly no other national power had such technology then or now. Attitudes on how to handle the press are also discussed in the passages. The following letters are therefore quoted in full to demonstrate a rare look at how Air Force officials were actually thinking in the late days of Sign. Such detailed correspondence is very rare in military records:

Actual document provided here

SECRET
C O P Y

Department of the Air Force
Headquarters, United States Air Force
Washington
3 Nov 48
Subject: Flying Object Incidents in the United States
To: Commanding General, Air Materiel Command
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Dayton, Ohio

1. By letter dated 30 December 1947 from the Director of Research and Development, Headquarters USAF, your headquarters was required to establish Project "Sign".

2. The conclusion appears inescapable that some type of flying object has been observed. Identification and the origin of these objects is not discernible to this headquarters. It is imperative, therefore, that efforts to determine whether these objects are of domestic or foreign origin must be increased until conclusive evidence is obtained. The needs of national defense require such evidence in order that appropriate countermeasures may be taken.

3. In addition to the imperative need for evidence to permit countermeasures, is the necessity of informing the public as to the status of the problem. To date there has been too little data to present to the public. The press, however, is about to take it into its own

hands and demand to be told what we do or do not know about the situation. Silence on our part will not long be acceptable.

4. Request immediate information as to your conclusions to date and your recommendations as to the information to be given to the press. Your recommendation is requested also as to whether that information should be offered to the press or withheld until it is actively sought by the press.

BY COMMAND OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF:
[Unsigned]
C.P.Cabell
Major General, USAF
Director of Intelligence, Office of
Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations

__________________________________________________________________________


Actual three page document, click here for first page
Click here for second page
Click here for third page

SECRET

Basic 1tr fr Hq USAF, 3 Nov 48 to CG, AMC, "Flying Object Incidents in the United States"
1st INd MCIAT/ABD/amb
Hq AMC, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. 8 Nov 48
To: Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, Washington 25, D.C., ATTN: AFOIR

1. In attempting to arrive at conclusions as to the nature of unidentified flying object incidents in the United States, this Command has made a study of approximately 180 such incidents. Data derived from initial reports have been supplemented by further information obtained from checklists submitted by mail, from interrogations of other field agencies, and by personal investigation by personnel of this Command in the case of incidents that seem to indicate the possibility of obtaining particularly significant information.

2. The objects described fall into the following general classifications groups, according to shape or physical configuration:
a. Flat disc of circular or approximately circular shape.
b. Torpedo or cigar shaped aircraft, with no wings or fins visible in flight.
c. Spherical or balloon shaped objects.
d. Balls of light with no apparent form attached.

3. Some of the objects sighted have definitely been identified, upon further investigation, as weather or upper air scientific balloons of some type. A great many of the round or balloon shaped objects indicated in paragraph 2c above are probably of the same nature, although in most cases, definite confirmation of that fact has been impossible to obtain.

4. Some of the objects have been identified as being astro-physical in nature. For example, in daylight sightings, the planet Venus has been reported as a round silvery object at extremely high altitude. Action is being taken to obtain the services of a prominent astro-physicist as a consultant, to study all of the incidents to determine whether some can be identified as meteors, planets or other manifestations of astral bodies.

5. Arrangements for accomplishing a study of the psychological problems involved in this project are being made in coordination with the Aero-Medical Laboratory at this Headquarters. The possibility that some of the sightings are hallucinations, optical illusions or even deliberate hoaxes has been considered.

6. Although explanation of many of the incidents can be obtained from the investigations described above, there remains a certain number of reports for which no reasonable everyday explanation is available. So far, no physical evidence of the existence of the unidentified sightings has been obtained. Prominent scientists, including Dr. Irving Langmuir of the General Electric Company, have been interviewed to determine whether they could advance any reasonable explanations for characteristics exhibited by the objects sighted. In an early interview, Dr. Langmuir indicated that these incidents could be explained, but insufficient data were available at that time on which to base definite conclusions. It is planned to have another interview with Dr. Langmuir in the near future to review all the data now available, and it is hoped that he will be able to present some opinion as to the nature of many of the unidentified objects, particularly those described as "balls of lights."

7. All information that has been made available to this headquarters indicates that the discs, the cigar shaped objects, and the "balls of light" are not of domestic origin. Engineering investigation indicates that disc or wingless aircraft could support themselves in flight by aerodynamic means. It is probable that the problems of stability and control could also be solved for such aircraft. However, according to current aerodynamic theory in this country, aircraft with such configurations would have relatively poor climb, altitude and range characteristics with power plant now in use.

8. The possibility that the reported objects are vehicles from another planet has not been ignored. However, tangible evidence to support conclusions about such a possibility are completely lacking.
The occurrence of incidents in relation to the approach to the earth of the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars have been plotted. A periodic variation in the frequency of incidents, which appears to have some relation to the planet approach curves, is noted, but it may be purely a coincidence.

9. Reference is made to "The Books of Charles Fort" with an introduction by Tiffany Thayer, published 1941, by Henry Holt & Co., New York, N.Y. It appears that similar phenomena have been noted and reported for the past century or more.

10. In view of the above, the following conclusions are drawn:
a. In the majority of cases reported, observers have actually sighted some type of flying object which they cannot classify as an aircraft within the limits of their personal experience.
b. There is as yet no conclusive proof that unidentified flying objects, other than those which are known to be balloons, are real aircraft.
c. Although it is obvious that some types of flying objects have been sighted, the exact nature of those objects cannot be established until physical evidence, such as that which would result from a crash, has been obtained.

11. It is not considered advisable to present to the press information on those objects which we cannot yet identify or about which we cannot present any reasonable conclusions. In the event that they insist on some kind of a statement, it is suggested that they be informed that many of the objects sighted have been identified as weather balloons or astral bodies, and that investigation is being ., pursued to determine reasonable explanations for the others.

12. A report, summarizing the results obtained from analysis of the data and a technical investigation of the engineering aspects of the objects described, is nearly complete, and a copy will be forwarded to your headquarters in the near future.

FOR THE COMMANDING GENERAL:
[Signed H.M. McCoy]
H.M.McCoy
Colonel,USAF
Chief, Intelligence Department

New discoveries continue to be made but we are still no closer to learning why Sign came to such a dramatic end. Why Alfred Loedding, one of the Air Force's most brilliant minds, was purged from UFO investigations by 1949 and from Wright-Patterson entirely by 1951. Important mysteries are still to be discovered.