PROJECT 1947

UFO REPORTS - 1951

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Associated Press - Feb 13, 1951
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Flying Saucers Really Balloons For Navy Cosmic Ray Studies
By the Associated Press
A Navy official confirmed today that "flying saucers" really existed but actuall
y were huge balloons used in high-altltude cosmic ray studies.
Dr. Urner Liddell (sic), chief of the nuclear physics branch of the Office of
Naval Research, made this disclosure in an article in the current Look magazine
.
Dr. Liddel, in Washington, discussed the Look story further when newsmen quer
ied him.
The Navy balloons. Dr. Liddel declared, were 100 feet in diameter and sometim
es rose to a height of 19 miles. He added that winds might sweep them along at
200 miles an hour.
At dusk, the slanting rays of the sun lighted up the balloons' bottoms, givin
g them the saucer-like appearances, Dr. Liddel said.
He added that many of the disks were sighted as the sun set.
Dr. Liddell said the existence of the big balloons was kept secret because th
e project was connected wtih atomic developments.
Dr. Liddel, who was in charge of the balloon tests, said they carried instrum
ents to record the results of collisions between cosmic rays and atoms In the ea
rth's atmosphere.
He added that secrecy was "no longer" necessary.
The physicist said 2,000 reports of "flying saucers" were checked, and those
considered "whimsical" were eliminated. Of the "reliable" reports, he said "the
re is not a single . . . observation which is not attributable to the cosmic bal
loons."
These balloons, called "Skyhooks" by the Navy, were first used in 1947, about
the time the disks were flrst sighted. Dr. Llddel said reports of "flying sauce
rs" increased in proportion to the number of balloons sent aloft.
Dr. Liddel said he was conivinced that a "saucer" photographed at 77,000 feet
altitude over Minnesota was a "Skyhook."

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Associated Press, Dayton, Ohio - Feb 15, 1951
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"STRANGE OBJECT" IN SKY
Fliers Watch Dime-Like Thing
Hover Near Balloon

Two Wright-Patterson Air Force base officers last night reported they recently "
saw a strange object" in the sky over Alamagordo, N. M.
Capt. J. E. Cocker of the all-weather flying division and Capt. E. W. Spradle
y of the aerial photographic laboratory said they spotted the object as they tra
cked a large weather balloon. The balloon was similar to the type used in Navy
weather observations and which the Navy said explained "flying saucer" reports.
"We were following the balloon when I noticed a strange object in the sky," s
aid Captain Spradley. "It was flat and looked like a dime. It was a milky colo
r. It wasn't doing anything, just hovering near the balloon."
The fliers estimated the object and balloon were "somewhere around 50,000 or
60,000 feet." They said that just before it disappeared there were "three brilli
ant flashes, like photo flashes."

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AVIATION WEEK - Feb 19, 1951
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EDITORIAL

Saucers, Secrecy & Security
We congratulate Look Magazine for smoking out the 3 year flying saucer mystery.
We are sorry Aviation Week didn't solve it. Our alibi is that apparently very f
ew knew the story outside of the Office of Naval Researchnot even the Air Force,
which sent or permitted its pilots to go on wild saucer chases. As it happened,
though the project was not an aviation matter, Aviation Week came very close to
the story in 1949.
Look Magazine has performed a public service. But its revelation is a tragic
commentary on the low state of the Administration's sense of public duty, and a
n increasing trend toward unnecessary secrecy. For some three years government
spokesmen, from President Truman and the former Secretary of the Air Force on do
wn, told the people impatiently, as though they were children, that what they we
re seeing were mirages, misinterpretations of various conventional objects or no
thing at all.
Yet now it comes out that even while the government was telling the people th
ese things the ONR was busily surveying 2000 reports of flying disks and culling o
ut a solid base of reports from plane pilots, scientific observers and reliable
laymen. After a thorough investigation we find there is not a single reliable re
port of an observation which is not attributable to the cosmic balloons, said Dr.
Urner Liddel, the project director.
We hope the Office of Naval Research can pull itself out of this scandal with
a sensible reason for keeping this explanation secret for so long. It will hav
e to be a very good reason to satisfy many of us. Otherwise we must charge off
the supercolossal flying saucer hoax of the twentieth century as one more exampl
e of the chronic Washington tendency to classify everything as secret. Readers
of this magazine have often read the opinion here that secrecy is overdone in th
e national capital; we have seen no better example than this.
The hoax the ONR has perpetrated brought on something akin to public hysteria
in some areas, cost the Air Force, National Guard and other public services nee
dless wasted monies in investigations and flights and, most tragic of all, cost
the life of an Air Force pilot, Capt. Thomas F. Mantell, whose plane crashed whi
le he was pursuing a saucer in 1948. Apparently then, months after the ONR balloo
n ascensions began, neither ONR nor high Navy officials had tipped off the Air F
orce, else we can presume the USAF would not order or permit its pilots to try t
o chase already identified objects that were known to rise to 19-mile-altitudes.
Even if the objectives were considered secret by the ONR, there could have be
en no apparent security breach in issuing a brief announcement as soon as newspa
per reports about saucers began popping up. The announcement could have been re
stricted to a few words tying the eyewitness reports to new and larger balloons
that were making upper air cosmic ray observations and the like. The public wou
ld have been satisfied immediately. Because it has known ever since Dr. Robert A
. Millikan began taking them 30 years ago that observations of cosmic rays have
been going on with balloons. And it also knows that weather balloons are in the
air coast to coast, around the clock.
Look Magazine's story quotes Dr. Liddel as saying; When this project first beg
an, it was kept secret. Now, there is no longer any need for secrecy on a scient
ific basis. And certainly there is no longer any need to keep the public in the
dark about what flying saucers are.
The citizens who have been reading about these things for several years might
ask why there was ever any need for secrecy as far as letting them in on the si
mple fact that larger balloons were being used than formerly to obtain secret in
formation upstairs. What possible military secrecy is revealed by telling the p
eople they are seeing balloons. What secrets does a balloon's configuration bet
ray? Why permit a silly thing like this to develop to the point where human lif
e is lost and the public begins reading about little creatures riding on flying
saucers through inter-planetary space and crashing on earth?
The citizens might also askif the project was so secret until last weekwhy the
ONR permitted one of its employes to write an official paper for delivery at a p
ublic scientific meeting two years ago.
Aviation Week itself in its issue of Feb. 7, 1949, carried a brief digest of
a paper delivered in January, 1949, at the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences me
eting in New York. The full text of the paper, by E. G. Droessler, a meteorolog
ist of the Geophysics Branch of ONR, was never made available to us. The digest
came to us from the Institute. Our headline said The Navy Has a Skyhook. The dig
est, as we printed it in early 1949, said:

Comparatively successful plastic balloon has been developed and is being utilized
in broad program of upper atmosphere research. In 52 flights, heavy loads have
been carried to altitudes exceeding 30 km. (NoteThis is 98,400 feet.) Scientifi
c instruments are carried aloft to collect new information on cosmic rays, biolo
gical phenomena, meteorological parameters, etc.

So the public has a right to know the answers to some questions.
If a public address could be delivered in early 1949 describing this hush-hus
h project even to the extent just quoted how could national security have been b
reached with the added simple statement that these new balloons could well be re
sponsible for the frequent public reports of flying saucers?
Why was the flying saucer mystery permitted to grow out of all reasonable bou
nds after the first public response to seeing these new balloons? Why was it pe
rmitted to build up for three years to the extent of a world wide mystery and ev
en loss of life? Even if ONR had its own reasons for wishing to maintain secrec
y, why did not some high Navy official overrule his underlings and break the sil
ence? And if the Navy still wished to keep its own counsel, why was it not over
ruled by someone even higher in our National Administration who had a serise of
public duty and some perspective on this subject of secrecy and national securit
y.
It may be a fair question to ask the ONR whether it deliberately maintained i
ts secrecy not because of national security but in order to encourage the press
to continue reporting flying saucers for it, so ONR could obtain its 2000 observ
ations. Now that it has them, perhaps this is why Dr. Liddel says, There is no l
onger any need for secrecy.
If this is the explanation for the iron curtain around Project flying saucers,
we are more than ever certain that this country needs a free press as it never n
eeded it before.
Robert H. Wood

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UNCLASSIFIED OPERATION INTERLOPER - RECENT REPORTS
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INCIDENT #26 - From Major Dewey Fournet's "Briefcase Files"

February 21, 1951
Source: Lt. George P. Williams, USN, Class IX, Naval Intelligence School
Lt. Williams reports the following personal experience which happened to hi
m about 0300 on the night of 21 February 1951, while he was piloting a Navy Flee
t Logistics Air Wing plane:
We had taken off from Keflavic airport, Iceland, about three hours earlier,
and had climbed to cruise at 10,000 feet, heading toward New foundland. It was
one of those beautiful nights with a large, almost full moon and a thin layer of
broken cumulus below us with tops about 3,000 feet. As we cruised along, I gla
nced idly about and noticed an unusually bright light through the clouds ahead.
At first thinking it was a ship, I called the co-pilot forward. He was in the
next compartment talking with other members of the crew.
We along with others in the 9 man crew watched the light. It rose up from be
neath the clouds and approached us at a terrific closing rate. We froze in wond
er. It veered to our port side and hovered momentarily as if to examine us. It
then rose at an amazingly rapid rate, and disappeared off our port quarter.
The object was difficult to judge as far as size, but our general estimate w
as that it was a minium of 200 feet in diameter (and probably larger). It was f
lat eliptical or cigar-shaped by side view, and seemed to be sqewing (sic) a rin
g of red-orange exhaust all along the periphery. . No cockpit-type enclosure was
noted. Its speed was so great that we could not comprehend its coming from eart
h. The one main outstanding feature other than the fire around the edge was its l
arge sizelarger than an R5D. The question is: Where could such a large object be
hangared on earth and be kept a secret?
Lt. Williams says the sighting occurred at approximately Latitude 60 N, Long
itude 33 W. The object was in sight for about five minutes.
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Nairobi (Kenya) Sunday Post, February 25, 1951
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THE FLYING SAUCER

Captain Bicknell's Own Story

On a clear morning this week, the pilot, radio officer and passengers of an East
African Airways Lodestar saw what they took to be a flying machine of unknown t
ype high over Mount Kilimanjaro. What this machine was, where it had come from
and where it was bound, no one knows.

Theories that it was a mirage, a meteorological balloon or the reflection of
a normal aircraft have been checked and cross-checked and fallen flat. Highly
coloured reports of the incident have been discredited. But the plain facts rel
ated by the crew of the Lodestar are themselves enough to baffle the sceptics.

The Lodestar was on the normal Monday morning (2/19) service from Nairobi to
Mombasa. It left Nairobi West at 7 a.m. with nine passengers. What happened af
ter that to bast described in the words of the pilot, Captain Jack Bicknell and
his radio officer, Mr. D. W. Merrifield, as told to the Sunday Post on Wednesday
.

At 7.20 a.m., said Captain Bicknell, "the radio officer drew my attention to a
bright object like a white star hanging motionless about 10,000 feet above Kili
manjaro. My first reaction was to say nothing. We watched it for three minutes
. Then we told the passengers about it. One of them had a very powerful pair o
f binoculars with him and he began to study it. In the meantime we put a radio
message through to Eastleigh describing it. Eastleigh asked us to check whether
it was a 'Met' balloon. I then examined it for several minutes through the bin
oculars.

No 'Portholes'

When we first saw it we were about 85 miles from the mountain. Our course to
ok us nearer until we were about 50 miles away from the object.
Through the glasses I saw a metallic, bullet-shaped object which must have be
en over 200 feet long.

At one end was a square cut vertical fin. Its colour was a dull silver and a
t regular intervals along the fuselage were vertical dark bands. Its whole outl
ine was clear and sharp and there was no haziness about it at all.

I watched closely for any signs of movement. It was absolutely stationary, a
nd remained that way for 17 minutes.

The passengers took turns with the binoculars and two of them were taking pho
tographs. Then it began to move eastwards, rising as it did so. It disappeared
at about 40,000 feet.

We've calculated that in the three minutes sf visible movement it covered abo
ut 60 miles. That gives you a speed of well ever 1,000 m.p.h.

Reports that it had windows or portholes are false, and so is the statement th
at we saw it rising to about 60,000 feet.
There were no cloud formations about at all. The machine left no vapour trai
l, and had no visible means of propulsion.

Lockheed Lodestar Similar To Bicknell's craft

500 Years Ahead of Schedule

Asked if he had any theory about the nature of the machine, the radio office
r, Mr. Merrifield said, "If it was a flying machine, it was 500 years ahead of a
nything we have today."
My impression," said Captain Bicknell, "was that it was definitely a flying m
achine of some kind.
I would like to believe that it was some kind of mirage, added Mr. Merrifield,
but I never heard of a mirage without cloud, and that wouldn't explain the movem
ent.
If this report had come from a few isolated individuals it would soon be dis
csunted. But it came from two responsible airline officials and nine ordinary t
ravellers. Captein Bicknell took the precaution before landing of asking his pa
ssengers to sign a statement verifying his radio report to Eastleigh. It is undo
ubtedly the best authenticated of all flying saucer stories.

The Theories Break Up
Now let us examine some of the mere plausible theories put forward to explai
n the phenomenon.
1. The mirage theory is discounted owing to the absence of cloud and the m
ovement of the mystery machine.
2. A meteorological department official said that the giant Skyhook balloo
n used in America - which are the oause of many saucer stories - could not reach E
ast Africa, as they burst after 30 hours in the air. In any case there was not
even a remote resemblance to a balloon in the machine seen over Kilimanjaro.
3. The Air France Constellation in the vicinity at the time was moving in
a different direction to the 'saucer' as the machine could not have been a disto
rted reflection of an ordinary aircraft.
So, hopes of a natural explanation begin to fade. Other theories range from M
artian visitors to radio controlled secret weapons.
One day we shall know the answer to the flying saucer riddle. Until then an
y light on the subject would be welcome.
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Richmond INDEPENDENT, Ca. - Feb 26, 1951
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Flying Saucer Radar, Spotter Posts Are Urged

SCITUATE, Mass . Feb 26. AP
--Dr. Anthony O. Mirarchi former Air Force scientist, urged today that radar
and spotter observation posts be set up to track down flying saucers that may lea
d to another Pearl Harbor.
Dr. Mirarchi, who investigated more than 300 reports or flying saucers as chi
ef of the Air Force's atmospheric composition bureau of the geographical researc
h division in Watertown last year, brushed aside recent statements by Dr. Urner
Liddell (sic), a Navy scientist.
He said Liddell's conclusion that flying saucers really were plastic balloons
sent into the upper atmosphere by the Navy for radiation research does not tell
the whole story.
The results of my own investigation, he said. indicate that we cannot exclude th
e possibility that the so-called flying saucer is the result of experiments by a
potential enemy of the United States.
If they were launched by a foreign power, then they could lead to a worse Pear
l Harbor than we have ever experienced, he said.
Dr. Mirarchi urged that a considerable appropriation be granted the Air Force
to set up photographic, radar and spotter tracking points to study the mysteriou
s phenomena.
He said he had issued a report to the Air Force on his findings last year, bu
t did not know whether the Inquiry had been continued.
He said he was surprised to learn the Navy's opinion of flying saucers and sa
id it was inaccurate.
Some of the reports gathered might well have been of radiation balloons, but t
hat would not account for other observations which seem to exclude them, he said.
The Navy's report is erroneous. It lulls people into a false sense of securit
y, he added.
Asked about an Air Force statement that more than 500 investigations were mad
e without one bit of concrete evidence to back up reports of flying saucers, Dr.
Mirarchi said, I thought I was the only one making such an investigation. And a
s far as I'm concerned, there certainly was evidence to back up my conclusion.

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Daily Journal, International Falls, MN - May 23, 1951
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Flying Saucer Excitement
Grips Falls-Fort District

Flying saucers real or imagined have border area citizens in whirl today.
Scores of people claim to have seen silvery discs streaking through the strat
osphere yesterday afternoon. Bill McClellan of CKFI was one of the many persons
who has joined the I-saw-a-saucer fraternity.
McCllelan said that the objects he saw resembled a jet plane flying at tremen
dous height and great speed. Every once in a while the object would stop and re
main stationary. The sun's rays glinted off the thing and it looked like silver, M
cClellan is reported as saying.
It would travel fast, then stop, drop, and rise again. The object was joined
by another and the two disappeared behind a cloud.
Reports of similar objects came from Duluth radio stations and one from Kansa
s, but the one that added to the interest and confusion was one from New York ea
rly this morning.
Don Hollenbeck, ace CBS newscaster and narrator of the News of America progra
m at 8 a.m. daily, reported that flying saucers were observed over International
Falls, Minn., yesterday. Hollenbeck stated they were travelling about 700 miles a
n hour.

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Letter to Donald Keyhoe - Otto Bock - August 22, 1951

Otto Bock
514 Edgewood Ave.
Dayton 7, Ohio.

Dayton August 22 1951.

Dear Mr. Keyhoe!
Since I was already during my childhood very much interested in everythin
g which happened to and with the celestial bodys (sic) I naturally read all of y
our articles about flying saucers I could obtain, particularly your book The flyi
ng saucers are real. My wife is also very much interested in those facts. Since
then we had a strong desire, to see them with our own eyes,(in order to get pro
of about the flying saucers by our self.)

Now, on Friday, Aug. 17. our wishes were unexpectedly fulfilled: By acci
dent I looked up to the sky,( 11.30 AM ) then my eyes were attracted to a very s
hining spot which remained at the same location in the contrary to the relativly
(sic) fast moving clouds and to my judgement the object must have been very hig
h above the clouds and of a tremendous size: it appeared to me approximately wi
th an angle correspondent to a diameter of about that of the sun. In order to c
heck closer on it, I got my telescop (sic) out (20 X ) and then I could see very
interesting details, that it was not a cloud but rather a metallic object, shin
ing much brighter then the white clouds, silvery with a slight greenish tint and
the sun reflecting on a very particular surface. The attemt (sic) to take a Ph
otograph failed because of the covering clauds; I had to wait always a long time
until there was a hole in the clouds to observe it again, but never long or cle
ar enough to take a photograph, which made me very sad. During the period of ab
out 2 hours the object was seen frequently and the observation confirmed by four
more persons.

That day I was on leaf (sic)) at my home in Dayton. In order to get more
information and confirmation I made several phone call with a News-Paper and Wr
ight Field. The News-Paper did not receive any more reports. With Wright Field
I made a somewhat funny experience during my 3 phone calls, but I hesitate to wr
ite about it freely in this letter, since I am a member of the group of German s
cientists at Wright Field. On the other hand we would like it very much to taIk
about it with you in case you should have an opportunity to stop hier (sic) in
Dayton while on a business trip. Therefore we would appreciate it very much if
you would send us a letter in reply to this.
Hoping to hear from you I am
ver
y truely yours



/s/ Otto Bock


Otto Bock was a German scientist who came to the U.S. as part of "Operation Pape
rclip", a program under which military and U.S. intelligence services extracted
German scientists from Nazi Germany during and after the final phases of World W
ar II.
Bock's speciality was in the area of optics and high-speed photographic instrume
ntation which played a major part in advancing U.S. Air Force development of aer
oballistic programs.
More information on Otto Bock's career can be found at the official U.S. Air For
ce site.

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