Part 18 (2/2)
I can't divulge how high these targets were flying or how fast they were going because it would give an indication of the performance of our latest radar, which is classified Secret I can say, however, that they were flying hty fast
I turned the letter over to ATIC's electronics branch, and they promised to take immediate action They did, and really fouled it up
The person who received the report in the electronics branch was one of the old veterans of Projects Sign and Grudge He knew all about UFO's He got on the phone, called the radar lab, and told the chief (a man who possibly wrote all of the textbooks this person had used in college) all about hoeather inversion can cause false targets on weather He was gracious enough to tell the chief of the radar lab to call if he had any ain Maybe they found out what their targets were Or maybe they joined ranks with the airline pilot who toldtip formation with him, he'd never tell the Air Force
In early February I made another trip to Air Defense Cos This time it was to present a definite plan of how ADC could assist ATIC in getting better data on UFO's I briefed General Benja General of the Air Defense Coreed with it in principle and suggested that I work out the details with the Director of Intelligence for ADC, Brigadier General W M Burgess General Burgess designated Major Verne Sadowski of his staff to be the ADC liaison officer with Project Grudge
This briefing started a long period of close co-operation between Project Grudge and ADC, and it was a pleasure to ith these people In all ofwith dozens of agencies, I never had the pleasure of working with or seeing a anization than the Air Defense Co with the rest of the staff at ADC, were truly great officers None of thenized the fact that UFO reports were a probleress what it is today, you can't afford to have _anything_ in the air that you can't identify, be it balloons, reed to was very sireed to issue a directive to all of their units explaining the UFO situation and telling specifically what to do in case one was detected All radar units equipped with radarscope caets that fell into the UFO category--targets that were not airplanes or knoeather pheno with a completed technical questionnaire that would be made up at ATIC by Captain Roy Jae
The Air Defense Cohters to intercept a UFO Since it is the policy of the Air Defense Coet, there were no _special_ orders issued for scrahters to try to identify reported UFO's A UFO was so unknown and automatically called for a scramble However, there had been some hesitancy on the part of controllers to send airplanes up whenever radar picked up a target that obviously was not an airplane The directive merely pointed out to the controllers that it ithin the scope of existing regulations to scra too fast or too slow to be conventional airplanes The decision to scrahters was still up to the individual controller, however, and scra on UFO's would be a second or third priority
The Air Defense Co at a UFO This question cas, but, like the authority to scra in the air had been established long ago Every ADC pilot knows the rules for engageuns that he always carries If anything in the air over the United States coement, the pilot has the authority to open fire
The third thing that ADC would do would be to integrate the Ground Observer Corps into the UFO reporting net As a second priority, the GOC would report UFO's--first priority would still be reporting aircraft
Ever since the new Project Grudge had been organized, we hadn't had to deal with any large-scale publicity about UFO's Occasionally so in a local ites never rated more than an inch or two column space But on February 19, 1952, the cale ball of fire paced two B-29's in Korea The story didn't start a rash of reports as the story of the first UFO sighting did in June 1947, but it was significant in that it started a slow build-up of publicity that was far to surpass anything in the past
This Korean sighting also added to the growing official interest in Washi+ngton Al one or two telephone calls fro to Washi+ngton at least once every teeks I was beginning to spend asanything about it
The ansas to get soon to act as a liaison officer I could keep this person inforton
Colonel Dunn bought this idea, and Major Dewey J Fournet got the additional duty of on inquiries went to Major Fournet, and if he couldn't answer theement was excellent because Major Fournet took a very serious interest in UFO's and could always be counted on to do a good job
Sometime in February 1952 I had a visit from two Royal Canadian Air Force officers For so her share of UFO reports One of the latest ones, and the one that prompted the visit by the RCAF officers, occurred at North Bay, Ontario, about 250 e-red disk had been seen frohter base in the area
The Canadians wanted to knoe operated I gave the and hoe hoped to operate in the future, as soon as the procedures that were now in the planning stages could be put into operation We agreed to try to set up channels so that we could exchange information and tie in the project they planned to establish with Project Grudge
Our plans for continuing liaison didn't ence officers I found out that their plans for an RCAF-sponsored project failed A quasi-official UFO project was set up soon after this, however, and its objective was to use instru into the earth's at the two years of operation they hadn't officially detected any UFO's My sources of infor the time that I was chief of the UFO project, the visitors who passed through ade Most of the visits were unofficial in the sense that the officers came to ATIC on other business, but in many instances the other business was just an excuse to coet filled in on the UFO story Two RAF intelligence officers ere in the US on a classified es of questions they and their friends wanted answered On ence officers ere stationed in England, France, and Germany, and who returned to the US on business, took back stacks of unclassified flying saucer stories One civilian intelligence agent who frequently traveled between the US and Europe also acted as the unofficial courier for a Gerazine articles about UFO's that I'd collected In return I received the latest infors that never were released and that we never received at ATIC through official channels
Ever since the fateful day when Lieutenant Jerry culasses down on his nose, tipped his head forward, peered at Major General Cabell over his glasses and, acting not at all like a first lieutenant, said that the UFO investigation was all fouled up, Project Grudge had been gaining prestige Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarten's promise that I'd be on the project for only a few months went the way of all er just a project within a group; we had becoanization, with the formal title of the Aerial Phenomena Group Soon after this step-up in the chain of coed to Blue Book The word ”Grudge” was no longer applicable For those people who like to try to read a hiddeninto a name, I'll say that the code nae tests Both the tests and the project had an abundance of equally confusing questions
Project Blue Book had beennue had jumped from about ten a month to twenty a month since December 1951 In March of 1952 the reports slacked off a little, but April was a big month In April we received ninety-nine reports
On April 1, Colonel S H Kirkland and I went to Los Angeles on business Before we left ATIC we hadof the Civilian Saucer Investigators, a now defunct organization that was very active in 1952
They turned out to be a well-roup of individuals As soon as they outlined their plans for atte to solve the UFO riddle, it was obvious that they would fail Project Blue Book had the entire Air Force,any answers yet All this group had was the enthusias wasn't the Civilian Saucer Investigators, however; it was getting a chance to read Ginna's UFO article in an advance copy of _Life_ anization had obtained--the article written fro for over a year Colonel Kirkwood took one long look at the article, sidled up to oing to be busy” The nextat daas sound asleep on a United Airlines DC-6, Dayton-bound
The _Life_ article undoubtedly threw a harder punch at the American public than any other UFO article ever written The title alone, ”Have We Visitors froazines, such as True, had said it before, but co from _Life_, it was different _Life_ didn't say that the UFO's were from outer space; it just said maybe But to back up this ”maybe,” it had quotes from some famous people Dr Walther Riedel, who played an important part in the development of the Gerine research for North American Aviation Corporation, said he believed that the UFO's were from outer space
Dr Maurice Biot, one of the world's leading aerodyna about the _Life_ article was the question in the minds of so o blasting off on flights of space fancy without a good reason Some of the readers saw a clue in the author's co a serious look at UFO reports ”Did the Air Force prompt _Life_ to write the article?”
was the question that many people asked themselves