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 Ioeldant y192 near Iowa City, Minnesota 24 Colo or 1:40 Leaylte the observer's statement that the object seen would not have been a meteor, the possibility is not ruled out. Early evening; is the most propitious time for the observation of slom, bright meteors. This is the time of day when a meteor is bound to the sun and caught by the earth's gravitational field would appear to travel from east to west, and could appear to rise slightly. Most people identify meteors with sharp, fast flushes of light, which are not at all characteristic of slow fireballs. The observed turn is difficult but not impossible to explain; this investigator would prefer, however, to think that it was an illusion caused by projective.
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.