GreyFalcon.us - by Bruce Maccabee
FIFTY YEARS AGO, during the most amazing flap of flying saucer sightings in the USA (and the world), the Air Force ALMOST admitted that at least some sightings of UFOs/saucers were sightings of objects not made here. However, when that opportunity arose during a large press conference in late July, instead of admitting that the Air Force couldn't explain all sightings and that some "high officials" were seriously considering the "interplanetary hypothesis," the Air Force (General Samford) said everything could be explained as natural phenomena, effectively slamming the lid down on the UFO subject. But what the Air Force said privately was a different matter. This report tells the story of what happened in that amazing year.
Pre-History
The world became aware of flying saucer sightings in the summer of 1947 with the nationwide/worldwide publication of the report by Kenneth Arnold on June 24. In the subsequent weeks hundreds to thousands of sightings were reported in the local press throughout the USA and in other parts of the world. The Air Force quickly became involved because some of the AF pilots (and many commercial pilots) were also witnesses. The Air Force quickly and publicly denied having any secret projects that could account for UFO sightings. This denial was made privately to the director of the FBI at a time when the AF asked the FBI to investigate sightings (yes, there was an "X" file). The FBI found no evidence of communist subversive activities or communist sympathizers involved in saucer sightings and stopped actively investigating in the fall of 1947. The Air Force carried on, however, compiling collections of sighting reports by AF pilots and other qualified observers. By the fall of 1947 the Air Force Air Materiel Command (AMC) at Wright Field (Wright Patterson Air Force Base) had concluded that flying saucers were "real and not visionary" (statement in a report by General Nathan Twining, head of AMC at the time) and required a special investigation group to determine what they were and where they came from. In early 1948 the investigation group, called PROJECT SIGN was set up.
More: greyfalcon.us/1952.htm
