Unidentified Flying Objects: Project "Grudge" (Technical Report No. 102-AC 49/15-100)

Braddler General Putt United States Air Force Director of Research and Development Office, Deputy Chief of Staff, Waterloo Washington 85, D. C.

Dear General Putt:

Please refer to your letter of 19 November 1940 relative to the "flying object" problem and to Mr. Collbohn's reply dated 24 November 1940. In paragraph (b) of the reply, Mr. Collbohn pronounced [among other things] to send a discussion of the "special design and performance characteristics that are believed to distinguish space ships."

This present letter gives, in very general terms, a description of the likelihood of a visit from other worlds as an engineering problem and some points regarding the use of space vehicles as compared with descriptions of the flying objects. Mr. Collbohm will deliver copies to Colonel McCoy at Wright-Patterson Air Force during the SAXD briefing there within the next few days.

A good beginning is to discuss some possible places of origin of visiting space ships. Astronomers are largely in agreement that only one member of the solar system (bearded Earth) can support higher forms of life. It is the planet Mars. Even Kara appears quite desolate and inhospitable so that a race would be more occupied with survival than we are on Earth. Reference 1 gives separate descriptions of conditions on the various planets and satellites. A quotation from Ref. 1 (p. 229) can well be included here.

Whether intelligent beings exist to appreciate these splendors of the Hartian landscape is pure speculation. If we have correctly reconstructed the history of Kara, there is little reason to believe that the life processes may not have followed a course similar to terrestrial evolution. With this assumption, three general possibilities emerge. Intelligent beings may have protected themselves against the excessively slow loss of atmosphere, oxygen and water, by constructing homes and cities with the physical conditions scientifically con-