UFO Secrets Inside Wright-Patterson by Thomas J. Carey

Author:Thomas J. Carey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633411319
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser

FIGURE 11.1: General Charles P. Cabell U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO

Next to the infamous press conference in General Ramey's office held to explain away the entire Roswell affair as nothing but a downed weather balloon, an article in the April 30, 1949, Saturday Evening Post titled “What You Can Believe about Flying Saucers” by Sidney Shalett constituted the greatest attempt by the Air Force to shut down the subject. At that time, the Saturday Evening Post was the most read magazine in the country and carried more weight than any other major newspaper. An article published on May 7, 1949, presented the position that most UFO sightings could be readily explained in prosaic terms and were simply misidentifications by the inexperienced public. It also suggested that the root cause was mass hysteria encouraged by the media. Shalett also made the fallacious accusation that pranksters and hoaxers made up the vast majority of such reporters. To slam down the lid even tighter, military luminaries such as LeMay, Vandenberg, Norstad, and McCoy peppered the biased article with every negative remark they could muster. Shalett also went out of his way to exculpate the Air Force by writing that they never would have taken such a controversial subject seriously if not for all the pressure from the public for a rational explanation.

For some people at least, the article left the door open a crack with its mention of a minuscule fraction of UFO cases that remained unexplained. Indeed, in spite of Project Grudge's efforts to explain away all the sighting reports, a trickle of cases still cried out for legitimate investigation. This left the project with no other recourse than to release its own “official” summation of the Air Force's ongoing investigation of the UFO phenomenon: Authored by civilian George Towles and Lt. Howard Smith in August 1949, the 600-page release announced that the case was closed and its mission accomplished in dismissing the entire enigma. What the press missed was that it took hundreds of pages of the same propaganda it was fed over the previous year to draw such a conclusion. General Cabell was not amused, and he referred to the study as “tripe.” Many other high-ranking officers at the Pentagon were surprised at the rejection of the entire subject. Nonetheless, as flawed and ineffectual as Project Grudge was, its formal statement was widely accepted by the media. It read:

There is no evidence that objects reported upon are the result of an advanced scientific foreign development; and, therefore they constitute no direct threat to the national security. In view of this, it is recommended that the investigation and study of reports of unidentified flying objects be reduced in scope. Headquarters at AMC [Air Materiel Command, Wright Patterson] will continue to investigate reports in which realistic technical applications are clearly indicated. NOTE: It is apparent that further study along present lines would only confirm the findings presented herein. It is further recommended that pertinent collection directives be revised to reflect the contemplated change in policy.

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