Project Sign
Loy Lawhon
Summary: There is reliable testimony that in August, 1948,
the Technical Intelligence Division at Wright-Patterson and
Project Sign, decided to make a formal Estimate of the Situation.
The Estimate was a top secret document that contained unexplained
sightings by pilots, scientists, and other reliable witnesses.
The report concluded that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin.
The Army Air Force was, in one form or another, involved
in investigating UFOs beginning with the 8th Army's investigation
of foo fighter reports during World War II. The AAF also sent
intelligence officers to investigate many of the early sightings,
but did not, at that point, take them very seriously. However,
sightings in 1947 by military personnel of UFOs over Muroc
AFB, White Sands Proving Grounds, and other sensitive installations
got the AAF's attention quickly. Classified orders went out
that all UFO reports were to be sent to the Technical Intelligence
Division of the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air
Field.
In the late summer of 1947, when the Air Force had become
an independent branch of the military, Air Intelligence at
the Pentagon requested a report from Air Materiel Command
regarding what was known about "flying disks". The
Commander of the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson,
Lt. General Nathan F. Twining, held a conference with persons
from the Air Institute of Technology, Intelligence T-2, the
Office of Chief Engineering Division, and the the Aircraft,
Power Plant, and Propeller Laborotories of Engineering Division
T-3. As a result of this conference, on September 23, 1947,
Twining sent a secret memorandum to Brig. General George Schulgen,
Chief of the Air Intelligence Requirements Division that concluded:
a. The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary
or fictitious.
b. There are objects probably approximating the shape of
a disk, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large
as man-made aircraft.
c. There is a possibility that some of the incidents may
be caused by natural phenomena,such as meteors.
d. The reported operating characteristics such as extreme
rates of climb, maneuverability, and actions which must be
considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft
and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the
objects are controlled either manually, automatically, or
remotely.
e. The apparent common description of the objects is as follows:
(1) Metallic or light reflecting.
(2) Absence of trail, except in a few instances when the
object apparently was operating under high performance conditions
(3) Circular or elliptical in shape, flat on bottom and domed
on top.
(4) Several reports of well kept formation flights varying
from three to nine objects.
(5) Normally no associated sound, except in three instances
a substantial rumbling roar was noted.
(6) Level flight speeds normally above 300 knots are estimated.
f. It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge - provided
extensive detailed development is undertaken - to construct
a piloted aircraft which has the general description of the
object in subparagraph (e) above which would be capable of
anapproximate range of 7,000 miles at subsonic speeds.
g. Any development in this country along the lines indicated
would be extremely expensive, time consuming, and at the considerable
expense of current projects and therefore, if directed, should
be set up independently of existing projects.
h. Due consideration must be given to the following:
(1) The possibility that these objects are of domestic origin
- the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2
or this Command.
(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered
exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these
objects.
(3) The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of
propulsion, possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic
knowledge.
The Air Materiel Command concluded by requesting that the
Air Force issue a directive assigning a permanent project
to study the phenomenon.
From this report, since declassified, one can make some interesting
inferences:
1. The Air Force Air Materiel Command, presumably with access
to all of the available information about UFOs that was in
existence at the time, had come to the conclusion that they
were real, and not all were explainable as natural phenomena
or illusions.
2. Although this was almost three months after Roswell, and
Twining was at Wright-Patterson, where the Roswell debris
was supposed to have been sent, he states that there is a
...lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered
exhibits...
By this time, U. S. intelligence had completed its analysis
of German projects that were in existence during the War,
and had found nothing that could account for UFO sightings,
even with post-war continued development in the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the Air Force determined that there was
no aircraft construction material in existence at that time
that could withstand the stresses resulting from the high
speeds and the reported maneuvers of UFOs. In addition, even
if the material could be found, the human body could not withstand
the g-forces involved.
On December 30, 1947, Major General L. C. Craigie, Director
of Research and Development, issued an order establishing
Project Sign (aka Project Saucer):
...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.
There is reliable testimony that in August, 1948, the Technical
Intelligence Division at Wright-Patterson and Project Sign,
decided to make a formal Estimate of the Situation. The Estimate
was a top secret document that contained unexplained sightings
by pilots, scientists, and other reliable witnesses. The report
concluded that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin.
The Estimate of the Situation was promptly rejected by Air
Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenburg. It is said
that he deleted the strongest parts of the original report,
sent it back, and then, when he received the revised report,
he rejected it on the grounds that there was not enough evidence
to support the conclusions. Then, after rejecting it, he ordered
all copies destroyed. Those inside Project Sign said that
their morale and enthusiasm for the project declined sharply
after this. Project Sign would soon have its name fittingly
changed to Project Grudge.
