Created: 20 December 2005
Updated: 12 November 2018
(NICAP.org)
Quote from the UFO report:
“This chronology is currently a 29-page report and a
very important year in UFOlogy. I want
to thank all the members of the A-Team who made this possible. To look at and/or print all the 1949 Blue
Book monthly summaries, click here. Otherwise the monthly listings are inserted
within this chronology by month. Note: There are 209 entries in the 38-page La Paz catalog, the ‘Summary
of Sightings of Unknown Phenomena, 17th District OSI’. But in the 1949 group there were 144
sightings and the only ones listed here are the reports with some important
details to make them extraordinary. Also, brief case descriptions giving the
category number, name of witness, and source in brackets (M=military), are
NICAP UFO Evidence entries that haven't been located. Finally, I want thank
Loren Gross for thoughtfully and diligently collecting data many years ago for
his UFO Histories and supplemental notes, in particular here the year 1949. And
a big thanks to CUFOS and Mary Castnor for housing them on the CUFOS site.
Francis Ridge
NICAP Site Coordinator
Jan. 13, 1949. Extraordinary US Army Memo
Col Eustis Poland, G-2 Intelligence, US Army,
issues memo to the Director of Army Intelligence concerning the wild hypotheses
that were spreading concerning the southwestern light phenomena. (Courtesy,
Project 1947 and Joel Carpenter)
FBI Memo of Jan
24, 1949
The memo documents speculation on Soviet
nuclear-powered disc by USAF Col C. D. Gasser of the Nuclear Energy for the
Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project at Oak
Ridge, Tennessee.
Gasser reported rumors coming from Wright-Patterson AFB that nuclear-powered
disc-shaped planes might be making incursions into US
airspace and returning to the USSR
over the North Pole. (Courtesy of Project 1947 site)
January 31, 1949 letter, FBI Memo
‘Protection of Vital Installations’ (three page pdf
file)
Jan. 31, 1949 Army FOIA Document.
To AFOSI concerning the latest Green Fireball incident
seen over several states on Jan 30, 1949. ‘All out investigation OK’ed by OSI’
says the handwritten notation of Feb 4, 1949. LaPaz investigated and determined
the Green Fireball had a 140+ mile trajectory from near Amarillo
to near Lamesa, Texas, at a multiply triangulated altitude
of about 60,000 to 40,000
feet at a velocity of 25,000 to 50,000 mph -- an
absolute physical impossibility for a meteor.
No traces were found despite LaPaz and AFOSI plowing through miles of Texas mud looking for
fragments. (Brad Sparks)
Statement from Project SIGN
Possibility that some of the incidents may represent
technical developments far in advance of knowledge available.
SECRET Project SIGN Report, Feb. 11, 1949 (72-page pdf
file)
The order of February 11, 1949, that changed the name
of Project Sign to Project Grudge had not directed any change in the operating
policy of the project. It had, in fact, pointed out that the project was to
continue to investigate and evaluate reports of sightings of unidentified
flying objects. In doing this, standard intelligence procedures would be used.
This normally means the unbiased evaluation of intelligence data. But it doesn’t
take a great deal of study of the old UFO files to see that standard
intelligence procedures were no longer being used by Project Grudge. Everything
was being evaluated on the premise that UFO's couldn’t exist. No matter what
you see or hear, don’t believe it. (Ruppelt) [Correction: The order changing
SIGN to GRUDGE was dated Dec 16, 1948, by AF Dir of R&D Gen Donald Putt,
not made effective until Feb 12, 1949, after SIGN's Final Report was issued Feb
11. We know the date of the change because it was commented on at the Los
Alamos green fireballs conference of Feb 16, 1949, as having occurred the
previous Saturday,’ Feb. 12. - Brad Sparks]
AFOIN_AIR_Memo_No.4_Feb.15, 1949
Found in the FBI files a copy of Air Intelligence
Requirements Memo No. 4, ‘Unconventional Aircraft,’ of Feb 15, 1949. Copies
were sent by Hoover
to FBI offices worldwide in SAC (Special Agents in Charge) Letter No. 38 of
March 25, 1949. (Brad Sparks)
Feb. 16, 1949, Los Alamos
Conference on the Green Fireball Problem
Actual document
This offshoot of this conference was the Project TWINKLE,
scheme to gain more accurate information on any more ‘peculiar meteors’ by
establishing number of cinetheodolite stations to film anything unusual in the
atmosphere, especially fast moving objects.
March 22, 1949 Letter
Air Force letter to Director, FBI
March 25, 1949 Letter
FBI letter to Air Force who was seeking help from FBI.
Includes attachment below.
April 27, 1949 Joint Intelligence Committee Report
(retyped copy)
The USAF Directorate of Intelligence personnel briefed
the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Lt. Gen. Lauris Norstad, and his
staff on UFOs in a TOP SECRET ‘Air Brief.’
Actual copy
April 27, 1949
The Air Force sends Top Secret ‘Unidentified Aerial
Objects’ presentation with Appendix A, a summary of Air Force actions to the
Joint Committee on Intelligence (JIC).
Committee is composed of representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force
intelligence divisions.
April 27, 1949, Project Saucer Report
‘Memorandum to the Press’ No. M 26-49, released to the
press from the Pentagon.
Based on
Project Sign / Grudge (classified codenames for Project ‘Saucer’) info from AMC
Technical Intelligence Division, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio,
the last gasp of the pro-UFO faction.
April 28, 1949
Printed copies of the Top Secret ‘Analysis of Flying
Object Incidents in the United
States’ (Air Intelligence Division Study
203) disseminated to restricted list. Originally prepared by the USAF
Directorate of Intelligence, Air Intelligence Division, and the Office of Naval
Intelligence on 10 December 1948, this was a followup to the AF presentations
to the JIC and the AF DCS/O the day before.
May 5, 1949 Letter to CO, Kirtland AFB
The Inspector General USAF, 17th District Office of
Special Investigations, Kirtland AFB, New
Mexico.
Letter to Commanding Officer Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, 5 May 1949
May 12, 1949 Letter concerning conference at Sandia Base, New
Mexico, 27 April
To Director of Special Investigations, Office of the
Inspector General USAF, Washington 25, D.C. Page 4 -- Dr. Kaplan expressed a
great concern, as these occurrences relate to the National Defense of the United States.
May 12, 1949 Memo (front page unredacted)...Both pages
(lower quality, redacted)
SECRET memo from IG USAF to Dir. Special
Investigations about Kaplan visiting the district office to review reports.
490512mclaughlin_Van-Allen.pdf
Letter to Dr. J.A. Van Allen from Cmdr R.B. McLaughlin
about tracking flying saucer ‘a few weeks ago’.
August, 1949; SECRET Project Grudge Report
The GRUDGE Final Report (but not publicly released).
It was still classified SECRET until Aug 1, 1952.
September 14, 1949 letter to Director of R&D, HQ,
USAF
Concerning/including ‘Light Phenomena.’
Detection of UFOs by Geiger Counters - BB Archive
Correspondence
In regard to the 14 & 17 & 21 Oct 1949
sightings at Mt. Palomar Observatory in the NICAP chronology and Sparks’ ‘BB
Unknowns’ list, the 25 Nov 1949 ‘case’ in the Blue Book Archive is not a ‘case’
occurring on 25 Nov 1949 but the date the document was written and it contains
some material on this incident. It is not actually a case file, but a
collection of correspondence (47 documents) related to the potential detection
of atomic powered UFOs by Geiger counter equipment, which was put together in
1952. There are several pages about the events and witnesses at Mt. Palomar.
Secret (1952) Document Mentions Correlation Between
Sightings and Rise in Radiation
It was found that in October 1949 such an incident
occurred at the Mt. Palomar Observatory and that the Navy had investigated them
(21 incidents). (NARA-PBB85 762, 766 - Fran Ridge)
Nov. 25, 1949; Mt.
Palomar, California
Nonexistent case date invented by BB to cover the real
events on various dates in Oct-Nov 1949. is merely the date of an ONR-Pasadena
report on these radiation/UFO incidents.
Project Twinkle Letter of December 9, 1949, Re: ‘Light
Phenomena’
To Director of R&D, HQ, USAF, from AMC, Dayton. More on
conference.
December 27, 1949
This was both the GRUDGE codename AND final report
(Technical Report) that were not released and remained classified SECRET until
Aug 1, 1952, and even then no one knew it was declassified except possibly
Donald Keyhoe and Leon Davidson.”
As can be seen in this report, Killeen Base
(designated as West Fort Hood in October 1969), Texas, was totally inundated with UFO
sightings during March-July 1949.
Wikipedia article: “Fort Hood”:
Wikipedia article: “West Fort Hood”:
Related posts:
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=Anthony+O.+Mirarchi
The
Atomic Energy Commission’s Killeen Base, Texas
(U.S. Geological
Survey/nicap.org photo)
(tageo.com photo)
