136 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
136 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: PROJECT GRUDGE FILE: UFO2471
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With the initiation of Project Grudge, wrote Edward J. Ruppelt, who would
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serve as the project's last director and the first of its successor, Project
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Blue Book, the "Dark Ages" of U.S. Air Force UFO study began. Reports were
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now "being evaluated on the premise that UFOs couldn't exist. No matter
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what you see or hear, don't believe it" (Ruppelt, 1956).
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Following the rejection by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg
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of the Estimate of the Situation, prepared by the pro-extraterrestrial-
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visitation faction of Project Sign, the project (head-quartered at Wright-
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Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio) was taken over by personnel who were
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convinced that all reports could be accounted for in conventional terms.
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Plans for an expanded investigation were canceled. On February 11, 1949, Sign
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was renamed Grudge, retaining the older project's 2A security classification.
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As part of its effort to "get rid of UFOs," as Ruppelt put it, Grudge
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cooperated with journalist Sidney Shallett, who in a two-part article in the
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widely read Saturday Evening Post wrote that flying saucers had much more
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to do with mistakes, hoaxes, and gullibility than with interplanetary visitors
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(Shallett, 1949). Grudge thought that Shallett's piece would discourage
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people from reporting UFOs, but when a flood of sightings came to the
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project a few days after the second installment, personnel were convinced
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that because Shallett had mentioned, if only in passing, that some sightings
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remained unexplained, his article had only fed belief in UFOs. A debunking
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press release a few days later failed to stem rising interest in UFOs - and
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suspicions of official pronouncement on the subject.
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According to Ruppelt, the Shallett article, indicative of what to outsiders
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(and even some insiders) looked like an abrupt reversal in official UFO
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policy, "planted a ... seed of doubt. If UFOs were so serious a few months
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ago, why the sudden debunking? Maybe Shallett's story was a put-up job
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for the Air Force" (ibid.).
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With J. Allen Hynek, an Ohio State University astronomer and UFO skeptic
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who had been hired as consultant to give a scientist's perspective on
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sightings, Grudge set out to explain all reports. By August 1949 it had
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prepared a 600-page report (Technical Report No. 102-AC 49/15-100,
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classified Secret) which reviewed 244 sightings. It acknowledged that 23
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percent remained unexplained, but "there are sufficient psychological
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explanations for the reports of unidentified flying objects to provide
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plausible explanations for reports not otherwise explainable.... [T]here is
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no evidence that objects reported upon are the result of an advanced
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scientific foreign development; and therefore, they constitute no direct
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threat to the national security." Nonetheless, anticipating a later concern
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of the CIA-sponsored Robertson panel, Grudge fretted that "public
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apprehension" about UFOs could be used by enemy forces for psychological-
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warfare purposes.
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The project "recommended that the investigation and study" of UFO reports
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"be reduced in scope" (Gillmor, 1969).
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Thereafter Grudge "lapsed more and more into a period of almost complete
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inactivity" (Ruppelt, op. cit.). On December 27 the Air Force announced it
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was closing down the project, even as it was launching a classified
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investigation into a rash of reports of unusual aerial phenomena in New
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Mexico (see Green Fireballs and Other Southwestern Lights). Meanwhile
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Grudge's files were put into storage.
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In its January 1950 issue True, then a hugely popular men's magazine, ran a
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dramatic article, "The Flying Saucers Are Real," by retired Marine Corps
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major and aviation journalist Donald E. Keyhoe. Keyhoe wrote that
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"Project Saucer" - the project's public nickname (its classified real name was
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not generally known) - was only pretending to be skeptical, that in reality it
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knew UFOs to be extraterrestrial but wanted to keep this unsettling truth
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secret. The article attracted enormous attention and for years afterwards
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influenced popular opinion about an official UFO cover-up.
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The public pronouncement notwithstanding, Grudge was not quite dead. It
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retained a marginal existence, enough at least to assist Bob Considine as he
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researched a UFO-bashing piece which would appear in the January 1951 issue of
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Cosmopolitan. In it Considine, with Grudge's encouragement, lashed out at UFO
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witnesses, whom he characterized as "screwballs" and "true believers."
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By the summer of that year the nearly inert Grudge was down to one
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investigator, Lt. Jerry Cummings. But the situation changed rapidly in
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September, following a series of sightings and radar trackings of fast-
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moving unknowns in the vicinity of an Army Signal Corps radar center in
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New Jersey (see Fort Monmouth Radar/Visual Case). Ordered to investigate
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immediately, Cummings and Lt. Col. N. R. Rosengarten, chief of the Air
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Technical Intelligence Center's Aircraft and Missiles Branch, spent a day at
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the site interviewing all participants, then reported personally to Maj.
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Gen. C. P. Cabell, head of Air Force Intelligence. Once there, Cummings
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and Rosengarten were taken into a meeting already in progress and
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subjected to severe criticism by Cabell, other high-ranking military officers,
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and two representatives of Republic Aircraft. The group complained about
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the quality of Grudge's work and its apparent indifference to a potentially
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explosive national-security matter. By the time the two officers were ready
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to return to Wright-Patterson, they had been ordered to reorganize the UFO
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project.
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Cumming's days in the Air Force were numbered, however, and soon he was
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released from active duty to return to the California Institute of
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Technology, to resume work on a classified government project.
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Rosengarten asked Ruppelt, an intelligence officer attached to the Air
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Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson, to reorganize
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Grudge. On October 27 Grudge was officially back in business.
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Ruppelt set about filing and cross-referencing all Grudge and sign reports.
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He put together a staff consisting of individuals who had no firm opinions
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about the UFO phenomenon and consequently could judge reports on their
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merits. ("I had to let three people go for being too pro or too con"
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[ibid.].) Beginning in December, staff members prepared regular status
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reports which were issued approximately monthly. Four of these appeared
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during Grudge's remaining reign; the first three were classified Confidential,
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the last Secret (United States Air Force, 1968).
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Working with Hynek, the new Grudge staff prepared a standardized
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questionnaire for UFO reports. Ruppelt and others briefed Air Force
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officers around the country to let them know that reports would be gladly
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received and competently investigated. In an effort to learn about sightings
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Grudge was not getting, Ruppelt subscribed to a clipping service. He hoped
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to be able to gain insights into the UFO phenomenon through the
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compilation of statistics, and he got the Air Force to agree. It contracted
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with the Battle Memorial Institute, a Columbus-based think tank, to conduct
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such an analysis (which would be incorporated into Project Blue Book
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Special Report 14, released in 1955).
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By March 1952 the Air Force had upgraded Grudge from a mere "project
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within a group" to a "separate organization, with the formal title of the
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Aerial Phenomena Group" (ibid.). That same month Grudge got a new
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name: Project Blue Book.
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SOURCE: The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs from the Beginning Through 1959
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by Jerome Clark
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |