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.
Incident 9130 - Osborn, Ohio - 9 July 1643 There is no obvious astronomical explanation for this incident. The present investigator was struck first by the fact that the description of the incident states, "... with about a quarter moon rising in the east-southeast." The quarter moon can never be seen in that position at 2147 hours (local time), for the quarter moon sets at approximately midnight. The moon at that date was not yet at the first quarter, and it set at Cochran at about 1800. The correct statement would be, "... with about a quarter moon setting in the west-northwest." This, oddly enough, is the quadrant of the sky in which the object was reported to be seen. In what direction, then, was the observer really looking? Although the sky was reported as clear, could it possibly be that rapidly sounding clouds periodically obscured the setting moon — a moon which, incidentally, does have a pale yellowish-white light? Other possibilities that suggest themselves are detected auroral streamers or floodlights or searchlights playing on the sky.
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.