Project Sign
Project Sign was the first project initiated by the United States Air Force to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. The project was initiated on January 22, 1948, and was terminated on December 30 of the same year.
In September of 1947, Commander Lieutenant General Nathan Twinning wrote to the commanding officer of the air force regarding the increase in UFO reports. In the memo, Twinning stated that the objects seemed to exhibit maneuvers and characteristics that were unconventional to any terrestrial aircraft, weather phenomenon, or weather balloons. He also emphasized the fact that the phenomenon is a real one and not a visionary or fictional one. The letter reads as follows:
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1. As requested by AC/AS-2 there is presented below the considered opinion of this command concerning the so-called “Flying Discs.” This opinion is based on interrogation report data furnished by AC/AS-2 and preliminary studies by personnel of T-2 and Aircraft Laboratory, Engineering Division T-3. This opinion was arrived at in a conference between personnel from the Air Institute of Technology, Intelligence T-2, Office, Chief of Engineering Division, and the Aircraft, Power Plant and Propeller Laboratories of Engineering Division T-3.
2. It is the opinion that:
a. The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
b. There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft.
c. There is a 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 that 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:
1. Metallic or light reflecting surface.
2. Absence of trail, except in a few instances when the object apparently was operating under high performance conditions.
3. Circular or elliptical in shape, flat on bottom and domed on top.
4. Several reports of well-kept formation flights varying from three to nine objects.
5. Normally no associated sound, except in three instances a substantial rumbling roar was noted.
6. Level flight speeds normally above three hundred knots are estimated.
f. It is possible within the present U. S. knowledge—provided extensive detailed development is undertaken—to construct a piloted aircraft that has the general description of the object in sub-paragraph (e) above that would be capable of an approximate range of seven thousand miles at subsonic speeds.
g. Any developments in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive, time consuming, and at the considerable expense of current projects and therefore, if directed, should be set up independently of existing projects.
h. Due consideration must be given 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 that 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.
3. It is recommended that:
a. Headquarters, Army Air Forces issue a directive assigning a priority, security classification and code name for a detailed study of this matter to include the preparation of complete sets of all available and pertinent data that will then be made available to the army, navy, Atomic Energy Commission, JRDB, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Group, NACA, and the RAND and NEPA projects for comments and recommendations, with a preliminary report to be forwarded within fifteen days of receipt of the data and a detailed report thereafter every 30 days as the investigation develops. A complete interchange of data should be affected.
4. Awaiting a specific directive AMC will continue the investigation within its current resources in order to more closely define the nature of the phenomenon. Detailed Essential Elements of Information will be formulated immediately for transmittal thru channels.148
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The members of Project Sign investigated a total of 156 cases and out of those cases, only seven of them remained unidentified. This means that the members of the project could not come up with any sufficient explanation for these seven cases.
As I have stated in the beginning of the book, most sightings can easily be explained by natural phenomena or a misidentification of celestial bodies or aircraft. However, there is a portion of cases in which the reported objects or lights are interplanetary and extraterrestrial in origin. As has been outlined in the cases explored in this book, the reports usually depict the technological superiority of these UFOs to anything we have on Earth. The maneuverability, capabilities and general characteristics are unfathomable even to the highest-level officials.
Although Project Sign’s final report acknowledged the existence of UFOs, it did conclude that there was not enough evidence to confirm that the objects were extraterrestrial in origin. The board members of Project Sign did believe that these UFOs were interplanetary, which is why they wrote the Estimate of the Situation, a document that explained why the extraterrestrial hypothesis is the most plausible one. Albeit the fact that several military personnel believed that these objects were not terrestrial, General Hoyt Vandenberg, the Chief of Staff, found this explanation to be humorous and inaccurate.
The final conclusion that Project Sign came to (or rather Vandenberg) was that these objects were either natural weather phenomena, celestial bodies or misidentifications. As we shall see in this chapter, all government studies of UFOs negate the extraterrestrial hypothesis, even though several military personnel have had first-hand experience with the phenomenon.
The final document that Project Sign produced classified the UFO reports into four categories. The first category includes the typical flying saucers, which usually have a disk shape, a torpedo shape or a cigar shape. The second category includes balloon-shaped aircraft; the third includes spherical aircraft and the fourth includes balls of light. All four categories have one aspect in common and that is the way the objects maneuver. As we have seen in the UFO cases covered in this book, in all encounters it is evident that the UFOs do not follow the general laws of physics and aerodynamics, and do not seem to possess any of the limitations that terrestrial aircraft are bound by.
148. Air Materiel Command Wright-Patterson, “Unidentified Aerial Objects, Project Sign,” February 1949, http://www.nicap.org/docs/SignRptFeb1949.pdf.