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.
There appears to be nothing astronomical in this incident. At a distance of 3 miles an object 20 feet long would tend an angle of slightly more than 4 minutes of arc, and hence would be very near to the limit of the resolution of the eye. The object must have been very much larger, if the distance is correct, for the observer to discern its shape and its turtle beak. Since the object was seen by only one person, and since the description is contradictory, it seems to this investigator that not much weight can be given to the incident.
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.