Inside the Real Area 51: The Secret History of Wright Patterson by Thomas J. Carey

Author:Thomas J. Carey [Carey, Thomas J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781601632364
Amazon: 1601632363
Goodreads: 16277035
Publisher: New Page Books
Published: 2013-08-19T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Project Stork: The Secret Project That Never Existed

On December 26, 1951, the newly appointed Ruppelt and ATIC’s Technical Analysis Division Chief, Colonel S.H. Kirkland, met with administrators at Battelle to propose a new study. The topic of discussion was whether there was sufficient data to conduct a statistical analysis of the growing number of UFO sighting reports. Under the contention that “some type of unusual object or phenomena” was being observed, Battelle was contracted to put together a panel of consultants in astronomy, psychology, physics, and other disciplines to establish patterns and trends pertaining to the subject. This project’s code name was Stork.1

On the surface, Project Stork was assigned the mission of determining the capabilities of the Soviet Union in a technological confrontation. The obvious question is: Why would ATIC at Wright-Patterson enroll Battelle in such a study, which was clearly outside their purview? Simply stated, Stork was a funding vehicle for something outside of the public domain. After all, the project was classified top secret, which even prevented most military officers from having any knowledge of its presence. As far as military historians are concerned, for many decades after the last UFO case was cataloged by the secret study, it never existed.

The preliminary status report on Project Stork was sent to ATIC at Wright-Patterson on April 25, 1952. It was stamped “Secret.” In it, Battelle included the following:

• A listing of proposed consultants who would analyze the existing UFO reports.

• Plans to subscribe to a print-media clipping service to monitor civilian reports.

• Plans to compose a Technical Observer’s Interrogation Form.

• A pledge to update ATIC on a monthly basis.

During one of his assignments with the secret project, J. Allen Hynek conducted interviews with professional and amateur astronomy groups with these purposes:

• To learn if any competent people in this profession have made sightings that have not been reported.

• To summarize the opinion of the competent people in this field relative to the broad subject of unidentified flying objects.

• To obtain information and suggestions that may be useful in carrying out future phases of the work on the investigations.2

Hynek submitted a Special Report on Conferences with Astronomers on Unidentified Aerial Objects to ATIC at WPAFB on August 6, 1952. Contrary to Air Force press information, astronomers were seeing unknowns during the course of there professional observations. This fact should have carried considerable weight among the other sciences. However, it was not only ignored, but other astronomers refuted it.3

One of the more renowned astronomers mentioned in the report was Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, the director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Not only had LaPaz been secretly involved with the Manhattan Project, but also, and more importantly to this story, he had been assigned from Washington, DC, in September 1947 to investigate the Roswell crash and determine the “speed and trajectory” of the unknown craft.4 At the time of Hynek’s report, LaPaz was in his home state researching mysterious sightings of “green fireballs,” a

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