Engineering Division
Memorandum Report No. MCREXD-694-18D
28 April 1949
UNCLASSIFIED
expert to spot this type of person. Reports will be received by such persons especially at times when the radio and newspapers carry accounts of strange phenomena. Relatively few of the 212 investigations considered in this report are of this nature, probably because investigators interviewed only the more reliable type of witness.
✓ (3) *Deliberate Falsifications.* It is always possible that some persons will give false reports. Circulation of false reports has been a standard psychological warfare technique from earliest times. This procedure might have some utility in wartime, but it hardly seems likely that it would be resorted to at this time. Probably, however, some individuals start false reports of "flying saucers" for the same reason that they turn in false fire alarms.
Some Consistent Points in the Reports of Unidentified Objects.
The following section summarizes some significant facts that come out of a tabulation of 212 reports of interrogations, by USAF Intelligence Officer, of some of the individuals who reported seeing unidentified flying objects. It is understood that these interrogations covered primarily persons that were judged to be reliable. Most of the 212 reports were made by pilots, non-flying officers, professional men, government employees, housewives and other supposedly dependable people.
1. *Number of objects.* About 75% of the people who reported on the number of objects seen said that they saw only one object.
2. *Time the object remained in sight.* About half of the persons specifying time in sight saw the object for 60 seconds or less.
3. *Altitude and distance of the object.* Of those who estimated the distance of the object, two-thirds judged it to be more than a mile away. Ninety percent also thought that it was more than 1,000 feet high.
UNCLASSIFIED
---
DOWNGRADED AT 12 YEAR INTERVALS: NOT AUTOMATICALLY DECLASSIFIED. DOD DIR 5200.10