Documents / Report
This August 1949 technical report from the US Air Force Air Materiel Command presents Project Grudge's investigation of unidentified flying objects through January 1949. Drawing on consultants including Dr. J. A. Hynek, Rand Corporation, the Air Weather Service and Dr. P. M. Fitts, it explains most of 244 incidents as balloons, aircraft, astronomical phenomena, hoaxes or psychological errors. It concludes the objects pose no direct threat to national security and recommends reducing the investigation in scope.
# INCLASSIFIED Incident g90, 50m --- Aldenod, New Jersey --- 10 January 1940 In view of the unbalanced character or at least one of the observers (as indicated by the report of the interview), this investigator wonders how much evidence can be given to the reports of the object or objects cited. For instance, the summary statistic that the first object was in sight 5-3 seconds, while the interview indicates 16-20 minutes. Assuming that this first incident was authentic and the shorter time correct (it evidently being the estimate given by the second observer), there is nothing in the evidence that is contradictory to the motion that the object observed was nothing more than a slow-moving fireball. The color, splitting into two pieces, and manner of disappearance all support this view.
Report, from the classic collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 413 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.