Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. Though Sign officially came to no conclusion about UFOs, some of the project's personnel came to favor the extraterrestrial hypothesis. An unidentified flying object, or UFO, is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation. ... Aircraft of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing and coalition counterparts stationed together at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in southwest Asia, fly over the desert. ... A photograph taken in Passoria, New Jersey, on July 31 1952 The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the hypothesis that UFOs are best explained as being creatures from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth. ...

Background

Sign was instigated following a recommendation from Lt. General Nathan F. Twining, then the head of Air Materiel Command. Just before this, Brig. Gen. George Schulgen, of the Army Air Forces air intelligence division, had completed a preliminary review of the many UFO reports--then called "flying discs" by military authorities--which had received considerable publicity following the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24, 1947. Schulgen's study, completed in late July 1947, concluded that the flying discs were real craft. Schulgen then asked Twining and his command, which included the intelligence and engineering divisions located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (then Wright Field), to carry out a more exhaustive review of the data. Nathan Farragut Twining (1897 - 1982) was a U.S. air force general. ... Shield of the Air Force Materiel Command. ... The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was a part of the U.S. Army during World War II. The direct precursor to the U.S. Air Force, the USAAF formally existed between 1941 and 1947. ... Kenneth Arnold (March 29, 1915-January 1984) — a private pilot from Boise, Idaho, United States, and a part time Search and Rescue Mercy Flyer — made what is generally considered the first widely reported UFO sighting in the United States. ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Riverside, Fairborn, Beavercreek, and Dayton, Ohio. ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Fairborn and Dayton, Ohio. ...

In his formal letter to Schulgen on September 23, 1947, Twining wrote that (somewhat abbreviated): September 23 is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years). ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ...

• a. The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
• b. There are objects probably approximately the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as a man-made aircraft.
• c. There is the possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.
• d. The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically or remotely.
• e. The apparent common description of the objects is as follows: ...
• f. It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge... to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description ...
• g. Any development in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive...
• h. Due consideration must be given to the following:

(1) The possibility that these objects are of domestic origin - the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this command.

(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects.

(3) The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of propulsion, possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge.

He recommended that " ... Army Air Forces issue a directive assigning a priority, security classification and code name for detailed study of this matter." (Clark, 489) Though conducted by the Army Air Force, the study’s information and conclusions would be made available to all the armed services, and to scientific agencies with formal government ties. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was a part of the U.S. Army during World War II. The direct precursor to the U.S. Air Force, the USAAF formally existed between 1941 and 1947. ... The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was a part of the U.S. Army during World War II. The direct precursor to the U.S. Air Force, the USAAF formally existed between 1941 and 1947. ...

Project Sign

Twining’s suggestion was approved on December 30, and on January 22, 1948, Project Sign formally began its work as a branch of Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, under the direction of Captain Robert R. Sneider. December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Riverside, Fairborn, Beavercreek, and Dayton, Ohio. ...

Sign was seen as a very important undertaking: Ruppelt wrote that Sign "was given a 2A priority, 1A being the highest priority an Air Force project could have." Though it was classified "restricted", the study’s existence was eventually known to the general public, and was often called "Project Saucer". However, UFO historian Wendy Connors established, through an interview with a surviving Sign secretary, that "Project Saucer" was the project's original informal name and had started a year earlier in late 1946. If this was the case, then the Army Air Force had already begun investigation of UFOs well before the Kenneth Arnold sighting that launched the first flood of UFO reports of June-July 1947 in the United States. (See, e.g., WWII foo fighter UFOs and the post-war ghost rockets) Kenneth Arnold (March 29, 1915-January 1984) — a private pilot from Boise, Idaho, United States, and a part time Search and Rescue Mercy Flyer — made what is generally considered the first widely reported UFO sighting in the United States. ... This article is about the aerial phenomenon. ... Ghost Rockets is the name given to mysterious rocket or missile shaped objects which were sighted on many different occasions in Sweden during World War II, with peaks on the 9th and 11th August of 1964. ...

Studies were undertaken by Air Intelligence at the Air Force base nearest to any particular UFO report, though some cases were studied directly by Air Materiel Command. Allen Hynek, then teaching astronomy at Ohio State University, was hired as a consultant to help weed out UFO reports which could be misidentified meteors, stars and the like. In 1985, Hynek reported that "I was quite negative in most of my evaluations. I stretched far to give something a natural explanation, sometimes when it may not have really had it." Shield of the Air Force Materiel Command. ... Josef Allen Hynek (born 1st May, 1910 in Chicago - died 27th April, 1986 in Scottsdale), was a U.S. astronomer and ufologist; he served as scientific advisor to Project Blue Book 1952-1969. ... A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant. ... The Ohio State University (OSU) is a coeducational public research university in the U.S. state of Ohio. ... Photo of a burst of meteors with extended exposure time A meteor is the visible path of a meteoroid that enters the Earths (or another bodys) atmosphere, commonly called a shooting star or falling star. ... This article is about the astronomical object. ...

Early in the modern UFO age, it was taken for granted by the U.S. Air Force that the flying saucers existed. As Ruppelt wrote,

ATIC's intelligence specialists were confident that within a few months or a year they would have the answer to the question, "What are UFO's?" The question, "Do UFO's exist?" was never mentioned. The only problem that confronted the people at ATIC was, "Were the UFO's of Russian or interplanetary origin?" Either case called for a serious, secrecy-shrouded project. Only top people at ATIC were assigned to Project Sign.

Dr. Michael D. Swords writes that "The core personnel for the project were probably the most talented group to work on UFOs until the air force ended its investigation in 1969. Aiding chief officer, Capt. Robert R Sneider, were two outstanding aeronautical engineers, Alfred Loedding and Albert B. Deyarmond ... Completing the group was nuclear and missile expert Lawrence Truettner ... The quality of these people indicates the seriousness (and the comparative difference in later years) with which the air force considered the flying disk problem." (Swords, p. 91) Michael D. Swords is an American scientist. ...

Sign’s first major undertaking was the study of a widely publicized UFO encounter known as the Mantell Incident. On 7 January 1948, Air Force pilot Thomas Mantell--in pursuit of an aerial artifact Mantell reportedly described as "a metallic object ... it is of tremendous size." (Clark, 352)--died when his aircraft crashed near Franklin, Kentucky. Project Sign investigators were officially inclonclusive about the Mantell case, but Hynek determined that Mantell had been chasing the planet Venus -- a conclusion that eventually met with widespread incredulity. The so-called Mantell Incident is among the most publicised early UFO reports: the crash and death of 25-year-old Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, Captain Thomas F. Mantell, on 7 January 1948, while in pursuit of a UFO. His sister avowed Mantell had been honored for his part... January 7 is the seventh day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Franklin is a city located in Simpson County, Kentucky. ...

Ruppelt wrote,

By the end of 1948, Project Sign had received several hundred UFO reports. Of these, 167 had been saved as good reports. About three dozen were "Unknown." Even though the UFO reports were getting better and more numerous, the enthusiasm over the interplanetary idea was cooling off … More and more work was being pushed off onto the other investigative organization that was [sic] helping ATIC. The kickback on the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was beginning to dampen a lot of enthusiasms. It was definitely a bear market for UFO's.

According to later Project Blue Book director Edward J. Ruppelt, Project Sign investigators were less skeptical about the Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter over Montgomery, Alabama on 24 July 1948. In this case, two airline pilots reported that a rocket-shaped UFO, glowing blue and seeming to emit reddish flames, approached them on a near-collision course. Pilots Chiles and Whitted reported the object appeared to show a double row of ports or windows emitting an intense bluish-white light. (A similar object with a double row of windows was also seen over The Hague, Netherlands a few days earlier and independently reported to Project Sign.) Some Sign researchers were deeply impressed by the close UFO sighting from two highly credible pilot-witnesses. The reports of "windows" also suggested the objects were possibly occupied. [1][2] A bear market is a prolonged period of time when prices are falling in a financial market. ... Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ... Edward J. Ruppelt (1922 - 1960) was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects. ... The Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter is alleged to have occurred on July 24, 1948 when two American commercial pilots reported that their DC3 had nearly collided with a strange torpedo shaped object flying near them. ... Coordinates: Country United States State Alabama County Montgomery Incorporated December 3, 1819 Mayor Bobby Bright Area    - City 404. ... July 24 is the 205th day (206th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 160 days remaining. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Arms of The Hague Flag of The city of The Hague. ...

The Estimate of the Situation

As Swords notes, "The project members reasoned that they had several dozen aerial observations that they could not explain, many of them by military pilots and scientists. The objects seemed to act like real technology, but their sources said they were not ours. The flying fuselage encounter (Chiles-Whitted) intrigued them. The Prandtl theory of lift indicated that such an odd shape can fly, but it would need some form of power plant advanced well beyond what we could build (e.g., nuclear)." (Swords, p.93) Sign personnel generally accepted that the more reliable witnesses were describing accurately what they'd seen. Given that there was no evidence that either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. had anything remotely like the UFOs reported, Sign personnel gradually began considering extraterrestrial origins for the objects. The result was the legendary Estimate of the Situation. Ludwig Prandtl Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 - 15 August 1953) was a German physicist. ... The so-called Estimate of the Situation was a document reportedly written in 1948 by personnel of the United States Air Force’s Project Sign -- including the project’s director, Captain Robert R. Sneider -- which explained their reasons for supporting the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) as the best explanation for unidentified...

Swords argues that this consideration of non-earthly origin was "not as incredible in intelligence circles as one might think." Because many in the military were "pilots, engineers and technical people" they had a "'can do' attitude" and tended to regard unavailable technologies not as impossibilities, but as challenges to be overcome. Rather than dismissing UFO reports out of hand, they considered how such objects might function. This perspective, argues Swords, "contrasted markedly with many scientists characterizations of such concepts as impossible, unthinkable or absurd." (Swords, p93)

At about the same time the Estimate was working its way up the ranks, another group was arguing against any extraterrestrial origins for the saucers. Informally led by Major Aaron J. Boggs, this group was profoundly skeptical of the saucers' reality; Dr. Michael D. Swords noted that his peers described Boggs as "the Pentagon's 'saucer killer'" (Swords, 94) Michael D. Swords is an American scientist. ...

Under Bogg's guidance, a competing document prepared by the anti-extraterrestrial group in the Directorate of Intelligence was also making the rounds in military intelligence. With input from the Office of Naval Intelligence this study (titled "AIR 100-203-79") argued that the flying saucers were probably real, though it suspected that they were craft made by the Soviet Union. There was concern in U.S. military intelligence circles that the Soviets could make aeronautical advances on the work of Nazi scientists, especially the Horten Brothers, who Swords describes as "a pair of brilliant aeronautical engineers far in advance of their U.S. counterparts." (Swords, 87-88) If the saucers were of Soviet origin, then they were operated so openly in U.S airspace by the Soviets probably as a method of psychological warfare "to negate U.S. confidence in atom bomb as the most advanced and decisive weapon." (Swords, 100) However, Sign researchers could find no hard evidence supporting this hypothesis. With the emergence of cases like the Chiles-Whitted sighting, a rift developed within Sign’s staff between those who thought UFOs might be extraterrestrial (see the extraterrestrial hypothesis or ETH) and those who rejected this idea in favor of a more prosaic explanation. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ... Image:Horten brothers. ... It has been suggested that infowars be merged into this article or section. ... A photograph taken in Passoria, New Jersey, on July 31 1952 The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the hypothesis that UFOs are best explained as being creatures from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth. ...

With Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg's rejection of The Estimate, Ruppelt said it was clear to the Sign personnel who supported ETH that there was no support at the top. As Swords writes, "Despite Vandenberg's negative reception of the estimate, Project Sign personnel did not back off." (Swords, 96) Sign continued their investigations of UFO reports, and continued favoring the ETH. Swords speculates that this refusal to change their approach was due to strong minority support for the ETH within the Pentagon and/or a rather mild rejection of the Estimate. In one case, seeking evidence of an advanced propulsion system, Sign personnel tested the radiation levels of a National Guard aircraft which was said to have had a "dog fight" with a flying saucer over Fargo, North Dakota. Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg (January 24, 1899–April 2, 1954) was an U.S. Air Force officer and director of the Central Intelligence Group. ... Radiation hazard symbol. ... The United States National Guard is a component of the United States Army (the Army National Guard) and the United States Air Force (the Air National Guard). ... Dog fight is a common term used to describe close-range aerial combat between military aircraft. ... Location in North Dakota Coordinates: Country United States State North Dakota County Cass County Founded 1871 Mayor Dennis Walaker Area    - City 98. ...

General Charles P. Cabell asked Sign for a second, non-extraterrestrial opinion of the flying saucers. Sign submitted a breif response^[1] which did not explicitly mention extraterrestrial ideas, but strongly hinted at them, even citing the works of Charles Fort to argue that unusual objects had been flying in the earth's skies for decades before the Arnold encounter. This continued persuit of the ETH led to a debate at the National Bureau of Standards in November, 1948 where the competing hypotheses were represented by Sneider and Boggs. As Swords writes, "When the smoke cleared, Boggs and AIR-100 were the victors." (Swords, 96) Charles Pearre Cabell (b. ... Charles Fort, 1920 Charles Hoy Fort (6 August 1874 – 3 May 1932) was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. ... As a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce’s Technology Administration, the National Institute of Standards (NIST) develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life. ...

Aftermath

By late 1948, Project Sign was discontinued in name and replaced by a much more negatively oriented Project Grudge. Ruppelt reported that the choice of the word "Grudge" to describe the new project was deliberate. Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate Unidentified flying objects. ...

Ruppelt wrote,

on February 11, 1949, an order was written that changed the name of the UFO project from Project Sign to Project Grudge. The order was supposedly written because the classified name, Project Sign, had been compromised. This was always my official answer to any questions about the name change. I'd go further and say that the names of the projects, first Sign, then Grudge, had no significance. This wasn't true, they did have significance, a lot of it.

Ruppelt referred to the Project Grudge era as the "Dark Ages" of official Air Force UFO investigations. Still, by late 1949, some 20 percent of UFO sightings remained classified as "unknown" by Grudge. By late 1951, according to Ruppelt, some highly influential Pentagon generals had become so disenchanted with Grudge's debunking that Grudge itself was dismantled and replaced by Project Blue Book, with Ruppelt in charge. Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ...

Historian David Michael Jacobs argues that, overall, Project Sign’s personnel did an admirable job. However, "Its main problem was that the staff was too inexperienced to discriminate between which sightings to investigate thoroughly. Because of unfamiliarity with the phenomenon, the staff spent inordinate amounts of time on sightings that were obviously aircraft, meteors or hoaxes." (Jacobs, 47) An Airbus A380, currently the worlds largest passenger airliner An aircraft is any vehicle or craft capable of atmospheric flight. ... Photo of a burst of meteors with extended exposure time A meteor is the visible path of a meteoroid that enters the Earths (or another bodys) atmosphere, commonly called a shooting star or falling star. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ...

References

1. ^ http://www.project1947.com/fig/1948c.htm

• Jerome Clark, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial, Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1-57859-029-9
• David Michael Jacobs, The UFO Controversy In America, Indiana University Press, 1975; ISBN 0-253-19006-1
• Curtis Peoples, Watch the Skies! - A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Smithsonian, 1994, IBSN 1-56098-343-4.
• Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Doubleday & Co., 1956 online
• Michael D. Swords, "UFOs, the Military, and the Early Cold War" (pp. 82-122 in UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, David M. Jacobs, editor; University Press of Kansas, 2000; ISBN)
• Michael D. Swords, "Project Sign and the Estimate of the Situation" (2000) read it online

The Smithsonian castle, as seen through the garden gate. ...

External links

• the Twining letter
• Close Encounter with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, by Dennis Stacy, 1985
• Analysis of Project Sign