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.
## UNCLASSIFIED Inadent y136, 136a -- S. Knoxville, Tennessee -- 20 June 1948 This incident answers well to the description of a typical fireball: color - orange; apparent constriction - fire; exhaust - "streamer of bluish color trailing"; manner of disappearance - "over horizon"; and (in remarks) "streamer emitted sparks." All of the above fit the typical phenomenon associated with a night-time fireball. One witness states that the object was in eight for three minutes and the other states for three seconds. The lower time estimate is clearly more in keeping with meteorite phenomena. It is also probably far more nearly accurate, since one is much more likely to grossly overestimate than underestimate intervals of time.
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.