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.
## SUBJACY While there are approximately 375 incidents on record, only incidents Nos. 1 thru 214 are encompassed in this report. Of the later incidents, many have not yet been investigated, few have been completely tabulated, and none have been submitted to the consulting agencies. It is certain that better overall results will be obtained in the analysis of the later reports, as these incidents generally have been more completely investigated. Since 5 December 1944, a series of recurring phenomena described as "green fireballs" have been reported in the general vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Lincoln La Pau, noted meteoritic expert, has been directly, though unofficially, associated with the investigation of those sightings and has himself observed the phenomena. Dr. La Pau states he is convinced the green fireballs are not ordinary meteors. This group of incidents has little or nothing in common with other incidents on file with Project "Crudge", therefore, these incidents are not considered in this report. The Scientific Advisory Committee was asked to investigate this matter and had advised that an independent investigation be conducted in the field of atmospheric research. Upon eliminating several additional incidents due to vagueness and duplication, there remain 226 incidents which are considered in this report. Thirty of these could not be explained, because there was found to be insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion. Consulting agencies provided plausible solutions for 164 incidents, along with the following comments and findings: Rand Ing. - (172 Incidents considered) "We have found nothing which would seriously controvert simple rational explanations of the various phenomena in terms of balloons, conventional aircraft, planets, meteors, bits of paper, optical illusions, practical jokers, psychopathological reporters, and the like." Chio State University (Dr. Rynak - 214 Incidents considered) Learning evidences of observers and investigators to be correct, Dr. Rynak concluded that 52% could be explained astronomically, 35% could be attributed to balloons, aircraft, rockets, birds, etc., and 53% either lacked necessary evidence or a suitable explanation was not apparent. When the allowance was made for insurances in observing and reporting, 53% might be explained astronomically. Air Weather Service (253 Incidente considered) 12. 0% apparently were weather balloons.
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.