Project Grudge
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Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but continued in a minimal capacity until late 1951.
Background
Project Sign had been active from 1947 to 1949. Some of Sign's personnel, including director Robert Sneider, favored the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the best explanation for UFO reports. They prepared the Estimate of the Situation arguing their case. This hypothesis was ultimately rejected by high-ranking officers, and Project Sign was dissolved and replaced by Project Grudge.
The Grudge era
It was announced that Grudge would take over where Sign had left off, still investigating UFO reports. But as Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt wrote, "In doing this, standard intelligence procedures would be used. This normally means an 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 not being followed by Project Grudge. Everything was being evaluated on the premise that UFOs couldn't exist. No matter what you see or hear, don't believe it." (Ruppelt, 59-60, emphasis in original)
As Michael D. Swords writes, "Inside the military, Maj. Aaron J. Boggs in the Pentagon and Col. Harold Watson at AMC Air Material Command were openly giving the impression that the whole flying saucer business was ridiculous. Project Grudge became an exercise of derision and sloppy filing. Boggs was so enthusiastically antisaucer that General Cabell ordered General Moore to create a more proper atmosphere of skeptical respect for the reports and their observers." (Swords, 98)
Critics charged that, from its formation, Project Grudge was operating under a debunking directive: all UFO reports were judged to have prosaic explanations, though little research was conducted, and some of Grudge's "explanations" were strained or even logically untenable. In his 1956 book, Edward J. Ruppelt would describe Grudge as the "Dark Ages" of USAF UFO investigation. Grudge’s personnel were in fact conducting little or no investigation, while simultaneously relating that all UFO reports were being thoroughly reviewed. Ruppelt additionally reported that the word "Grudge" was chosen deliberately by the anti-saucer elements in the Air Force.
Public relations campaign
Like Project Sign, Grudge thought that the vast bulk of UFO reports could be explained as misidentified clouds, stars, sun dogs, conventional aircraft or the like of mis-understood earthly technology. However, unlike Sign which thought some UFOs might have an extraordinary answer, Grudge's personnel thought the remaining minority of reports could be explained away as normal phenomena. Grudge began a public relations campaign to explain their conclusions to the general public.
The first salvo in the PR campaign came via Sidney Shallet of the Saturday Evening Post, one of the more popular magazines of the era. Shallet's article appeared in two consecutive issues of the Post (April 30 and May 7, 1949) and generally echoed the Grudge line: Most UFO reports could be easily explained as mundane phenomena misidentified by an eyewitness, the subject was blown out of proportion by the mass media. Shallet suggested that hoaxes and crackpots played a prominent role in popularizing UFOs, and the opinions of many high-ranking military personnel were featured.
The Grudge report
Project Grudge issued its only formal report in August 1949. The report's conclusions included:
- A. 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.
- B. All evidence and analyses indicate that reports of unidentified flying objects are the result of:
- 1. Misinterpretation of various conventional objects.
- 2. A mild form of mass-hysteria and war nerves.
- 3. Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or to seek publicity.
- 4. Psychopathological persons.
In the "Recommendations" section from the Grudge Report prepared by J. Allen Hynek, it was suggested that Air Force personnel receive basic instruction in astronomical phenomena.[1]
References
- ^ Project Blue Book : the top secret UFO files that revealed a government cover-up. Steiger, Brad. Newburyport, MA. 2019. ISBN 978-1-59003-300-5. OCLC 1078162415.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
Sources
- Jerome Clark; The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1-57859-029-9
- David Michael Jacobs; The UFO Controversy In America; Indiana University Press, 1975; ISBN 0-253-19006-1
- Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
- Michael D. Swords, "UFOs, the Military, and the Early Cold War" (pp. 82-122 in UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, David M. Jacobs, editor; University Press of Kansas, 2000; ISBN)
