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 Incident r28 -- Idaho -- 24 June 1947 any probable astronomical explanation for this incident is dependent upon the hour of observation, which is not stated in the information given with the summary. an unconfirmed statement (by Dr. Jarkhan, quoted in material submitted relative to Loldent u101) that the observation was made at 3:30 7. It allows for no possible astronomical explanation other than that a persistent meteor train may have been observed. Such a phenomenon might have given the general impression suggested by the limited description of the incident. 1f, however, the observation occurred during the early evening hours, shortly after sunset, which occurred that day at about 0:00 P. local time, then it is extremely likely that Lt. Jov. Whitehead and either the planet Saturn or Jupiter. Jupiter set almost exactly an hour after the sun and was of stellar magnitude +1. Saturn, of magnitude +0.6 and hence about once again as bright as Jupiter, set two hours after the sun. A bright planet shining through thin cirrus clouds could give the impression of a "soft-like object."
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.