By the latter part of November 1951 I knew most of what had taken
place in prior UFO projects and what I expected to do. The people in
Project Sign and the old Project Grudge had made many mistakes. I
studied these mistakes and profited by them. I could see that my
predecessors had had a rough job. Mine would be a little bit easier
because of the pioneering they had done.
Lieutenant Metscher and I had sorted out all of the pre-1951 files,
refiled them, studied them, and outlined the future course of the new
Project Grudge.
When Lieut. Colonel Rosengarten and Lieutenant Cummings had been at
the Pentagon briefing Major General Cabell on the Fort Monmouth
incidents, the general had told them to report back when the new
project was formed and ready to go. We were ready to go, but before
taking my ideas to the Pentagon, I thought it might be wise to try
them out on a few other people to get their reaction. Colonel Frank
Dunn, then chief of ATIC, liked this idea. We had many well-known
scientists and engineers who periodically visited ATIC as
consultants, and Colonel Dunn suggested that these people's opinions
and comments would be valuable. For the next two weeks every visitor
to ATIC who had a reputation as a scientist, engineer, or scholar got
a UFO briefing.
Unfortunately the names of these people cannot be revealed because I
promised them complete anonymity. But the list reads like a page from
_Great_ _Men_ _of_ _Science_.
Altogether nine people visited the project during this trial period.
Of the nine, two thought the Air Force was wasting its time, one
could be called indifferent, and six were very enthusiastic over the
project. This was a shock to me. I had expected reactions that ranged
from an extremely cold absolute zero to a mild twenty below. Instead
I found out that UFO's were being freely and seriously discussed in
scientific circles. The majority of the visitors thought that the Air
Force had goofed on previous projects and were very happy to find out
that the project was being re-established. All of the visitors, even
the two who thought we were wasting our time, had good suggestions on
what to do. All of them offered their services at any future time
when they might be needed. Several of these people became very good
friends and valuable consultants later on.
About two weeks before Christmas, in 1951, Colonel Dunn and I went
to the Pentagon to give my report. Major General John A. Samford had
replaced Major General Cabell as Director of Intelligence, but
General Samford must have been told about the UFO situation because
he was familiar with the general aspects of the problem. He had
appointed his Assistant for Production, Brigadier General W. M.
Garland, to ride herd on the project for him.
Colonel Dunn briefly outlined to General Samford what we planned to
do. He explained our basic policy, that of setting aside the unknowns
and not speculating on them, and he told how the scientists visiting
ATIC had liked the plans for the new Project Grudge.
There was some discussion about the Air Force's and ATIC's
responsibility for the UFO reports. General Garland stated, and it
was later confirmed in writing, that the Air Force was solely
responsible for investigating and evaluating all UFO reports. Within
the Air Force, ATIC was the responsible agency. This in turn meant
that Project Grudge was responsible for all UFO reports made by any
branch of the military service. I started my briefing by telling
General Samford and his staff about the present UFO situation.
The UFO reports had never stopped coming in since they had first
started in June 1947. There was some correlation between publicity
and the number of sightings, but it was not an established fact that
reports came in only when the press was playing up UFO's. Just within
the past few months the number of good reports had increased sharply
and there had been no publicity.
UFO's were seen more frequently around areas vital to the defense of
the United States. The Los Alamos-Albuquerque area, Oak Ridge, and
White Sands Proving Ground rated high. Port areas, Strategic Air
Command bases, and industrial areas ranked next. UFO's had been
reported from every state in the Union and from every foreign
country. The U.S. did not have a monopoly.
The frequency of the UFO reports was interesting. Every July there
was a sudden increase in the number of reports and July was always
the peak month of the year. Just before Christmas there was usually a
minor peak.
The Grudge Report had not been the solution to the UFO problem. It
was true that a large percentage of the reports were due to the "mis-
identification of known objects"; people were seeing balloons,
airplanes, planets, but this was not the final answer. There were a
few hoaxes, hallucinations, publicity-seekers, and fatigued pilots,
but reports from these people constituted less than 1 per cent of the
total. Left over was a residue of very good and very "unexplainable"
UFO sightings that were classified as unknown.
The quality of the reports was getting better, I told the officers;
they contained more details that could be used for analysis and the
details were more precise and accurate. But still they left much to
be desired.
Every one of the nine scientists and engineers who had reviewed the
UFO material at ATIC had made one strong point: we should give top
priority to getting reasonably accurate measurements of the speed,
altitude, and size of reported UFO's. This would serve two purposes.
First, it would make it easy to sort out reports of common things,
such as balloons, airplanes, etc. Second, and more important, if we
could get even one fairly accurate measurement that showed that some
object was traveling through the atmosphere at high speed, and that
it wasn't a meteor, the UFO riddle would be much easier to solve.
I had worked out a plan to get some measured data, and I presented
it to the group for their comments.
I felt sure that before long the press would get wind of the Air
Force's renewed effort to identify UFO's. When this happened, instead
of being mysterious about the whole thing, we would freely admit the
existence of the new project, explain the situation thoroughly and
exactly as it was, and say that all UFO reports made to the Air Force
would be given careful consideration. In this way we would encourage
more people to report what they were seeing and we might get some
good data.
To further explain my point, I drew a sketch on a blackboard.
Suppose that a UFO is reported over a fair-sized city. Now we may get
one or two reports, and these reports may be rather sketchy. This
does us no good--all we can conclude is that somebody saw something
that he couldn't identify. But suppose fifty people from all over the
city report the UFO. Then it would be profitable for us to go out and
talk to these people, find out the time they saw the UFO, and where
they saw it (the direction and height above the horizon). Then we
might be able to use these data, work out a triangulation problem,
and get a fairly accurate measurement of speed, altitude, and size.
Radar, of course, will give an accurate measurement of speed and
altitude, I pointed out, but radar is not infallible. There is always
the problem of weather. To get accurate radar data on a UFO, it is
always necessary to prove that it wasn't weather that was causing the
target. Radar is valuable, and we wanted radar reports, I said, but
they should be considered only as a parallel effort and shouldn't
take the place of visual sightings.
In winding up my briefing, I again stressed the point that, as of
the end of 1951--the date of this briefing--there was no positive
proof that any craft foreign to our knowledge existed. All
recommendations for the reorganization of Project Grudge were based
solely upon the fact that there were many incredible reports of UFO's
from many very reliable people. But they were still just flying
saucer reports and couldn't be considered scientific proof.
Everyone present at the meeting agreed--each had read or had been
briefed on these incredible reports. In fact, two of the people
present had seen UFO's.
Before the meeting adjourned, Colonel Dunn had one last question. He
knew the answer, but he wanted it confirmed. "Does the United States
have a secret weapon that is being reported as a UFO?"