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.
Isaid: r23 -- Jalal, Idaho -- June 1947 It seems exceedingly probable that the object observed in this incident was a concentration sun-cloud effect. The altitude of the sun was 360°, minimum 280°. As that time of the afternoon, the sun's position was such that it could easily have illuminated a background cloud which was perhaps almost entirely covered by a foreground cloud. (Solar weather reports indicate an entirely clear sky, but the report of the incident itself states that the object "needed to be allingible to a huge cloud.") This investigator himself has observed such effects.
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.