The same dead end appears to have been reached at ATIC, which was studying recent German aeronautical research, assisted in large measure by the presence of German aviation experts at Wright Field. The aerodynamicists at ATIC, Wright Field’s Aircraft Laboratory, and the Aeromedical Laboratory of the air force concluded that (1) no known aircraft could do what UFOs were reported to be doing; (2) even if such an aircraft could be built, the human body could not survive the violent maneuvers that were reported; and (3) no known material could withstand the loads of the reported maneuvers, nor the heat caused by the high speeds. For this reason, a certain significant number of analysts (we do not know how many) believed it probable that flying saucers were interplanetary. The evidence seemed to rule out everything else. A memo from this period asked, “Why couldn’t these people, whoever they might be, stand these horrible maneuver forces? Why judge them by earthly standards?”73
ESTABLISHING PROJECT SIGN
By the end of 1947, ATIC had received 156 UFO reports and was settling down to a routine of studying reports of flying saucers. On December 30, 1947, the air force established the Project Sign. Known to the public as Project Saucer, Sign’s role was to serve as the official air force investigation of UFOs. As we have seen, investigating such things was not a new activity, but Sign gave flying saucers an official status within the military bureaucracy. Studies continued to be centered at Wright Field under the auspices of ATIC. The project carried a 2A restricted classification (1A being the highest), but the memorandum creating Sign stated that, when necessary, higher security classifications could be applied. Sign’s function was to:
collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute to interested government agencies and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security.74
Throughout these first few years of ATIC’s investigation of UFOs, percentages of unknowns remained fairly high, usually between 15 and 20 percent. In later years, as we shall see, the air force systematically cooked the books, reducing unidentifieds by explanatory methods that were absurd. In the early period, some analysts took their task more seriously. Ruppelt explained the standards that would qualify a sighting as unknown:
the observer was not affected by any determinable psychological quirks and that after an exhaustive investigation the object that was reported could not be identified. To be classed as an unknown, a UFO report also had to be “good,” meaning that it had to come from a competent observer and had to contain a reasonable amount of data.75
The rigorous screening of reports helped to account for the relatively high percentage of unknowns, despite the many official “explanations” that strained the limits of credulity. And with such a high percentage, it is small wonder that military secrecy and deception were paramount to handling the UFO problem.
But the investigation of flying saucers did not begin and end at ATIC. The army and navy were both receiving UFO reports; by no means did all of them end up for study at Wright Field. Where were the reports going? At least some UFO reports were going into CIA files as early as 1948. Years later, Hillenkoetter told Donald Keyhoe that the CIA began at this time to keep “a close watch” on the UFO problem, and even on the air force investigation.76
Publicly, talk about flying saucers was in the opposite vein. Air force officials continued to deny any serious interest in flying saucers. Academia and the media helped out. In late December 1947, astronomer C. C. Wylie, at an AAAS conference, suggested that flying saucers were an example of national mass hysteria. Press ridicule of UFOs remained intense, and newspaper articles that printed UFO reports were scarce. Yet, it often happened that when a reporter went out to interview someone who had seen a UFO, military intelligence agents had been there first and gotten the story, complete with sketches. Many people had apparently been warned not to talk too much.77
By the end of 1947, the discrepancy between truth and
Chapter 3
Managing the Problem: 1948 to 1951
All evidence and analysis indicate that reports of unidentified flying objects are the result of (1) misinterpretation of various conventional objects; (2) a mild form of mass hysteria and war nerves; (3) individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetuate a hoax or to seek publicity; (4) psychopathological persons.
