Project Sign - Background

Background

On June 24, 1947 while flying his small airplane near Mt. Rainer, Washington, businessman Kenneth Arnold said he witnessed nine disc- or saucer-like aerial objects. (A month later he added that one was actually more crescent-shaped.) By pacing their progress against known landmarks, Arnold conservatively calculated their speed at a then-fantastic 1,200 mph. Arnold, widely considered a sincere and credible witness, earned major press coverage, and his was easily the most prominent of the more than 800 "flying saucer" reports made by Americans in the summer of 1947. Because of their extreme maneuvers that would kill a human pilot, Arnold initially concluded he'd witnessed either the test flight of a new military remote-controlled weapon or that the objects were from another world.

By the first week of July 1947, Pentagon officials were expressing alarm about the flying disk reports, due in no small part to a remarkable series of close encounters in and near the restricted airspace near Muroc Army Air Base (now Edwards AFB). On 7 July 1947 at about 10.00 a.m., pilot Major J.C. Wise was readying his XP-84 jet at Muroc when he observed a circular white-yellow object at about 10,000 feet. It flew to the east at what Wise estimated was 200 to 225 mph. On 8 July at about 8.00 a.m., three highway department employees near Yuma, Arizona reported three silvery disks flying at high altitude towards the northeast. At roughly 9.30 a.m., four military personnel at Muroc reported two circular objects flying against the wind at about 300 mph, making tight circular motions as they receded towards the horizon. At about noon at nearby Rogers Dry Lake test range, two technicians observing an ejection seat test also observed a silvery object at about 20,000 feet for about 90 seconds. At about 9.00 pm that evening, a P-51 pilot twice attempted to intercept what he would describe as a "flat object of light-reflecting nature," thought he was unable to reach its altitude. Though they occurred six months before Sign's official creation, the Muroc incidents were cataloged as the first case in Sign's files.

Following the Muroc incidents, military personnel were told to not publicly discuss flying saucers without permission. New orders were issued requiring all unexplained flying saucer incidents to be reported to the T-2 division at Wright Field. T-2, which studied enemy aircraft during WWII, would soon be renamed Technical Intelligence Division (TID).

In a document dated July 10, the office of Air Force Directorate of Intelligence at the Pentagon requested the assistance of other branches of the armed forces and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in compiling data and determining how to best investigate the flying saucer reports.

In a document dated 30 July 1947, Lt. Col. George Garrett at the Pentagon analyzed data from sixteen flying saucer reports which had occurred from 19 May to 12 July 1947; several had occurred at military facilities. Garrett's report noted that credible eyewitnesses, some of them with scientific or technical training, gave detailed descriptions of highly unorthodox aircraft that exhibited advanced flight capabilities and were seemingly under intelligent control. He wrote, "something is really flying around." Given the distinct lack of inquiries about the flying saucers from "topside" (i.e., higher-ranking officials), Garrett thought it probable that they were a newly-developed "domestic aircraft." Garrett's report was forwarded to his superiors and to the FBI, both of whom inquired of military contacts to determine if the flying disks were in fact domestically-developed aircraft. The answer was a resounding no.

Gen. George Schulgen, Garrett's superior at the Pentagon, ordered a more thorough review of flying saucer data. In response, Lt. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, then-head of Air Material Command's intelligence and engineering divisions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (then Wright Field), compiled and analyzed the data. Twining's memorandum to Schulgen, dated 23 September 1947, stated, in part:

• The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
• 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.
• There is the possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.
• 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.
• It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge... to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description ...
• Any development in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive...
• Due consideration must be given to the following:

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.

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

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

Twining also recommended that " ... Army Air Forces issue a directive assigning a priority, security classification and code name for detailed study of this matter." 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.

In early December 1947, Gen. Curtis LeMay asked for an update on the flying saucer investigation. Twining's memo, which had been revised and expanded as it climbed the chain of command, recommended that a project be formally established to investigate the flying saucer phenomenon. The project was formally authorized on 30 December 1947 by Director of Research and Development under the Deputy Chief of staff for Materiel at Headquarters U.S. Air Force., Maj. Gen. Laurence Craigie, who had recently replaced LeMay.