Pentagon confirms the existence of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force

[marauder2048]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

It's a vitally important distinction in a heavily compartmentalized era.
It wasn't even SECRET codeword.

 

[edwest4]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

You are saying nothing. Or you have no idea how document classification and handling actually work. There were flying saucer related documents at the time that were classified Top Secret. When a writer from Life magazine requested to see Air Force documents about flying saucers at the time, he was allowed to see those classified Secret and below. There is no reason to believe he was shown anything except what the Air Force gave him. Since then, a few flying saucer researchers have identified documents previously unknown.

I have an original, declassified Counter-Intelligence Corps report from 1945. One page has the distribution list.

 

[marauder2048]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

You are saying nothing. Or you have no idea how document classification and handling actually work. There were flying saucer related documents at the time that were classified Top Secret. When a writer from Life magazine requested to see Air Force documents about flying saucers at the time, he was allowed to see those classified Secret and below. There is no reason to believe he was shown anything except what the Air Force gave him. Since then, a few flying saucer researchers have identified documents previously unknown.

I have an original, declassified Counter-Intelligence Corps report from 1945. One page has the distribution list.

Yeah..there is a long Top Secret document where the analysts at RAND reject the space ship hypothesis. How does that help your case?
You brought up Twining; I brought up that it had a low classification. Certainly lower than Mogul or any AEC work on atomics.

 

[edwest4]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

It's a vitally important distinction in a heavily compartmentalized era.
It wasn't even SECRET codeword.

I have seen a document from 1946 classified Top Secret code word. Compartmentalized requires someone to oversee document handling. Even those with a Top Secret, or above, clearance were not required to see everything or be shown everything. Compartmentalization means being given specific documents related to your specific task, nothing else. That way, if some Russian spy figured out who you were, you could only spill the beans about your current job - nothing else.

 

[marauder2048]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

It's a vitally important distinction in a heavily compartmentalized era.
It wasn't even SECRET codeword.

I have seen a document from 1946 classified Top Secret code word. Compartmentalized requires someone to oversee document handling. Even those with a Top Secret, or above, clearance were not required to see everything or be shown everything. Compartmentalization means being given specific documents related to your specific task, nothing else. That way, if some Russian spy figured out who you were, you could only spill the beans about your current job - nothing else.

It's also about distribution and attribution. And briefing. The actual reports and analysis would cite
other documents and could only cite other documents at or below the level of classification.

 

[edwest4]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

You are saying nothing. Or you have no idea how document classification and handling actually work. There were flying saucer related documents at the time that were classified Top Secret. When a writer from Life magazine requested to see Air Force documents about flying saucers at the time, he was allowed to see those classified Secret and below. There is no reason to believe he was shown anything except what the Air Force gave him. Since then, a few flying saucer researchers have identified documents previously unknown.

I have an original, declassified Counter-Intelligence Corps report from 1945. One page has the distribution list.

Yeah..there is a long Top Secret document where the analysts at RAND reject the space ship hypothesis. How does that help your case?
You brought up Twining; I brought up that it had a low classification. Certainly lower than Mogul or any AEC work on atomics.

I am aware of various opinions published in the 1940s. RAND rejecting spaceships tells me that the flying saucers were made on earth. The Air Force and a certain retired military officer, preferred the spaceships explanation, after they decided that blaming it on the Russians would be bad for business.

The AEC? Someone decided to publish a list of AEC documents about another subject and the response was silence.

 

[marauder2048]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

You are saying nothing. Or you have no idea how document classification and handling actually work. There were flying saucer related documents at the time that were classified Top Secret. When a writer from Life magazine requested to see Air Force documents about flying saucers at the time, he was allowed to see those classified Secret and below. There is no reason to believe he was shown anything except what the Air Force gave him. Since then, a few flying saucer researchers have identified documents previously unknown.

I have an original, declassified Counter-Intelligence Corps report from 1945. One page has the distribution list.

Yeah..there is a long Top Secret document where the analysts at RAND reject the space ship hypothesis. How does that help your case?
You brought up Twining; I brought up that it had a low classification. Certainly lower than Mogul or any AEC work on atomics.

I am aware of various opinions published in the 1940s. RAND rejecting spaceships tells me that the flying saucers were made on earth. The Air Force and a certain retired military officer, preferred the spaceships explanation, after they decided that blaming it on the Russians would be bad for business.

The AEC? Someone decided to publish a list of AEC documents about another subject and the response was silence.

"Blaming it on the Russians:" no sane power would openly display super secret capability over another country for a prolonged
period of time. One crash and the secrets are no more.

The number of declassified AEC documents on atomic aircraft was and is still sparse and redacted.
It's a bit like the US work on CBW in WW2. It will always be this way because blabbing about
miniaturizing nuclear power sources is analogous to blabbing about how to do industrial production of
CBW agents.

We're talking about an era where a balloon eavesdropping project on aboveground
Soviet atomic testing was Top Secret codeword.

 

[edwest4]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

It's a vitally important distinction in a heavily compartmentalized era.
It wasn't even SECRET codeword.

I have seen a document from 1946 classified Top Secret code word. Compartmentalized requires someone to oversee document handling. Even those with a Top Secret, or above, clearance were not required to see everything or be shown everything. Compartmentalization means being given specific documents related to your specific task, nothing else. That way, if some Russian spy figured out who you were, you could only spill the beans about your current job - nothing else.

It's also about distribution and attribution. And briefing. The actual reports and analysis would cite
other documents and could only cite other documents at or below the level of classification.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but yeah, so? And what about briefings? From day one, Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio got flying saucer reports. Why them? I have built up a list of the various departments at Wright Field during and after the war. They did not just have an engineering department (referred to as T-3), they had other departments that I had not seen mentioned until relatively recently.

There is a difference between a briefing and a report from that briefing. Anything could be excluded at the discretion of those who worked with and evaluated intelligence coming in. This raw intelligence had to be verified, and then, a classification was assigned. This assigning of a classification was not done by some junior clerk but by those who understood the big picture and who were trying to get more information to establish a more complete picture. A briefing could be nothing more than: "We've got reports of flying saucers, here, here and here. We would like more information to help identify these objects. Remember, gentlemen, we don't want any Russian bombers sneaking through."

What better way to get an intelligence job done than by telling those in command of this or that fighter or intelligence group that the only concern was Russian bombers, and not "flying saucers"?

 

[marauder2048]

There is a difference between a briefing and a report from that briefing.

There isn't actually unless the minute taker was directed to leave things out.
Minutes/reports are what the staffs that action the outcomes of briefings have to work on.

Otherwise, the attendees have to go back and regurgitate in toto what they were briefed on
to their staffs. And there would be differing accounts.

Intelligence classification in this period tended towards secrecy and compartmentalization
largely due to inertia.

And No one is going to get reprimanded for assigning a higher classification
to something. But you could be court martialed for mishandling/underclassifying something.

 

[edwest4]

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

You are saying nothing. Or you have no idea how document classification and handling actually work. There were flying saucer related documents at the time that were classified Top Secret. When a writer from Life magazine requested to see Air Force documents about flying saucers at the time, he was allowed to see those classified Secret and below. There is no reason to believe he was shown anything except what the Air Force gave him. Since then, a few flying saucer researchers have identified documents previously unknown.

I have an original, declassified Counter-Intelligence Corps report from 1945. One page has the distribution list.

Yeah..there is a long Top Secret document where the analysts at RAND reject the space ship hypothesis. How does that help your case?
You brought up Twining; I brought up that it had a low classification. Certainly lower than Mogul or any AEC work on atomics.

I am aware of various opinions published in the 1940s. RAND rejecting spaceships tells me that the flying saucers were made on earth. The Air Force and a certain retired military officer, preferred the spaceships explanation, after they decided that blaming it on the Russians would be bad for business.

The AEC? Someone decided to publish a list of AEC documents about another subject and the response was silence.

"Blaming it on the Russians:" no sane power would openly display super secret capability over another country for a prolonged
period of time. One crash and the secrets are no more.

The number of declassified AEC documents on atomic aircraft was and is still sparse and redacted.
It's a bit like the US work on CBW in WW2. It will always be this way because blabbing about
miniaturizing nuclear power sources is analogous to blabbing about how to do industrial production of
CBW agents.

We're talking about an era where a balloon eavesdropping project on aboveground
Soviet atomic testing was Top Secret codeword.

Why do you keep bringing up the desperate, obviously counterproductive CIA balloon project? Yes, the Russians quickly figured out what was going on. One dropping to low level and spilling its gondola contents was the end of the story. But, just like the CIA continuing to drop agents into Eastern bloc countries, it's obvious that capturing more than one or two means that approach didn't work. But, it appears, that agents continued to be sent in after an unknown number disappeared. Perhaps it was thought that if one or two out of one hundred made it in that that was acceptanble losses.

Soviet atomic testing? Again, yeah, so? What has that got to do with flying saucers except the fictional desire to link all saucer reports to balloons? Air Material Command referred to discs and building discs based on "present US knowledge." Wright Field was ordered to build wind tunnel models.

A bit more: "By 1948 Howard M McCoy, who headed T-2 Intelligence Section, [at Wright Field] and his immediate superiors at the Pentagon were largely sold on the idea that Russian flying discs were invading US airspace." Flying Saucer Aircraft, page 83.

 

[edwest4]

There is a difference between a briefing and a report from that briefing.

There isn't actually unless the minute taker was directed to leave things out.
Minutes/reports are what the staffs that action the outcomes of briefings have to work on.

Otherwise, the attendees have to go back and regurgitate in toto what they were briefed on
to their staffs. And there would be differing accounts.

Intelligence classification in this period tended towards secrecy and compartmentalization
largely due to inertia.

And No one is going to get reprimanded for assigning a higher classification
to something. But you could be court martialed for mishandling/underclassifying something.

Classifying raw intelligence was a critical function. Some junior level person would have little to no idea of the value of what he had until someone, or a group of someones, who operated at the Above Top Secret level made their assessments based on a broad set of knowledge and skills. Then, it gets Top Secret code word or whatever other appropriate classification. The NSA produces tons of paper printouts per day, and the majority end up being turned into the equivalent of flour.

I used a briefing example where only the most essential information is included in the briefing. Briefings can update or set up a context for a series of orders to do something, without further explanation. "Do the job, report your findings" and that's all.

 

[marauder2048]

A bit more: "By 1948 Howard M McCoy, who headed T-2 Intelligence Section, [at Wright Field] and his immediate superiors at the Pentagon were largely sold on the idea that Russian flying discs were invading US airspace." Flying Saucer Aircraft, page 83.

McCoy was probably the reason that Wright Field did a lot of the "flying saucer" stuff. He had been involved in the "Foo Fighter"
investigations in 1944. Led the Lusty recovery effort against German air force weapons and had been the lead
investigator for the so-called "Ghost Rockets" observed in and around Scandinavia in 1946.

He seemed to be the go-to guy for foreign tech and unexplained aerial phenomena.

 

[marauder2048]

There is a difference between a briefing and a report from that briefing.

There isn't actually unless the minute taker was directed to leave things out.
Minutes/reports are what the staffs that action the outcomes of briefings have to work on.

Otherwise, the attendees have to go back and regurgitate in toto what they were briefed on
to their staffs. And there would be differing accounts.

Intelligence classification in this period tended towards secrecy and compartmentalization
largely due to inertia.

And No one is going to get reprimanded for assigning a higher classification
to something. But you could be court martialed for mishandling/underclassifying something.

Classifying raw intelligence was a critical function. Some junior level person would have little to no idea of the value of what he had until someone, or a group of someones, who operated at the Above Top Secret level made their assessments based on a broad set of knowledge and skills.

Classification levels are going to be assigned by the analyst(s) who "productizes" the intelligence.
The raw intelligence could be completely open source/public domain but the sources, methods and techniques
used to marshall that data into something are often not.

 

[edwest4]

A bit more: "By 1948 Howard M McCoy, who headed T-2 Intelligence Section, [at Wright Field] and his immediate superiors at the Pentagon were largely sold on the idea that Russian flying discs were invading US airspace." Flying Saucer Aircraft, page 83.

McCoy was probably the reason that Wright Field did a lot of the "flying saucer" stuff. He had been involved in the "Foo Fighter"
investigations in 1944. Led the Lusty recovery effort against German air force weapons and had been the lead
investigator for the so-called "Ghost Rockets" observed in and around Scandinavia in 1946.

He seemed to be the go-to guy for foreign tech and unexplained aerial phenomena.

Which lends credence to the idea that all of the above was late-war German technology, which was further developed by the Russians and called "Ghost Rockets. The Foo Fighters were given a very thorough cover-up, and with the Ghost Rockets, more of the same.

 

[edwest4]

There is a difference between a briefing and a report from that briefing.

There isn't actually unless the minute taker was directed to leave things out.
Minutes/reports are what the staffs that action the outcomes of briefings have to work on.

Otherwise, the attendees have to go back and regurgitate in toto what they were briefed on
to their staffs. And there would be differing accounts.

Intelligence classification in this period tended towards secrecy and compartmentalization
largely due to inertia.

And No one is going to get reprimanded for assigning a higher classification
to something. But you could be court martialed for mishandling/underclassifying something.

Classifying raw intelligence was a critical function. Some junior level person would have little to no idea of the value of what he had until someone, or a group of someones, who operated at the Above Top Secret level made their assessments based on a broad set of knowledge and skills.

Classification levels are going to be assigned by the analyst(s) who "productizes" the intelligence.
The raw intelligence could be completely open source/public domain but the sources, methods and techniques
used to marshall that data into something are often not.

Not true. And I think you know this. Raw intelligence comes in from various sources. That's why dedicated analysts are needed. Someone needs to sort through it, decide on what gets classified and then it is passed on, to the right people. The analysts are likely to recognize something incredible as possible or even connected to some seemingly unrelated report. The puzzle then gets put together by the Above Top Secret people.

 

[marauder2048]

Which lends credence to the idea that all of the above was late-war German technology, which was further developed by the Russians and called "Ghost Rockets. The Foo Fighters were given a very thorough cover-up, and with the Ghost Rockets, more of the same.

Despite the utter absence of materiel recoveries.

 

[edwest4]

Which lends credence to the idea that all of the above was late-war German technology, which was further developed by the Russians and called "Ghost Rockets. The Foo Fighters were given a very thorough cover-up, and with the Ghost Rockets, more of the same.

Despite the utter absence of material recoveries.

There were a number of messages between the British and Americans about recovered Ghost Rocket debris. The determination was that the 'rockets' were built using lightweight materials and plastics and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first. Among the British and American aircraft used during the first overflights over Soviet territory, how many crashed and revealed the sensitive equipment they carried? Other aircraft were shot down. This is not the sort of thing you tell just anyone about.

 

[marauder2048]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter.

Meanwhile, there's not the slightest hint from access to Russian archives that they were conducting overflights of CONUS.
Why would they need to? The US was an open book and the Russians had their huge intelligence gathering network
that the US couldn't dismantle.

 

[edwest4]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter (forget the specific designation)
that I think came from the Soviet far east.

Yak fighter? A conventional aircraft? No comparison between that and a radical, circular Russian flying saucer.

The Ghost Rockets were determined to be Russian test articles. Assuming a few did not burn up as intended, this would be highly frightening. The Swedish government tried the upcoming typical US explanation for flying saucers already in 1946. "They are meteors." As time passed, people were seeing too many meteors and reporting details unrelated to meteors. So they did what any responsible government would do, they denied and ignored reports, publicly. It was also determined that the Russians were using the 'rockets' to intimidate the Swedish government over issues like refugees.

 

[marauder2048]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter (forget the specific designation)
that I think came from the Soviet far east.

Yak fighter? A conventional aircraft? No comparison between that and a radical, circular Russian flying saucer.

The point is McCoy, *the* man on the "flying saucer "front was excited about it and (I believe)
in the same briefing indicates that's the only thing they've gotten their hands on.

That's the recurring theme through all of McCoy et al.: there were no materiel recoveries in the US.
In fact, McCoy stated to the AF Scientific Advisory Board that he *wished* one of these would crash.

I await any materiel recoveries from a Ghost Rocket. After all, the Danes had recovered a V-1 from the sea.
Did anti-tampering/anti-recovery technologies advance dramatically between then and 1946?!

 

[greenmartian2017]

I will put my two cents here also.

Back in 2011, I had the second of a two-part article serial appear in Space Chronicle (published by the BIS). Its title is "Before Sputnik: A Glimpse into What Western Intelligence Knew about Soviet Rocketry Personalities and Activities--Part 2." In that article, I devoted a whole section about the "Ghost Rockets of 1946" and the very meticulous/assiduous effort by the Allied Intelligence units to figure out who launched these, and wherefrom. They couldn't get any concrete conclusions. They talked to a lot of people who lived along the German/Polish coastline, to be sure.

Here is the citation.

Before Sputnik: A Glimpse into What Western Intelligence Knew About Soviet Rocketry and Personalities. Part 2. Space Chronicle 64 (JBIS Supplement 1):25-44, 2011.

 

[edwest4]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter (forget the specific designation)
that I think came from the Soviet far east.

Yak fighter? A conventional aircraft? No comparison between that and a radical, circular Russian flying saucer.

The point is McCoy, *the* man on the "flying saucer "front was excited about it and (I believe)
in the same briefing indicates that's the only thing they've gotten their hands on.

That's the recurring theme through all of McCoy et al.: there were no materiel recoveries in the US.
In fact, McCoy stated to the AF Scientific Advisory Board that he *wished* one of these would crash.

I await any materiel recoveries from a Ghost Rocket. After all, the Danes had recovered a V-1 from the sea.
Did anti-tampering/anti-recovery technologies advance dramatically between then and 1946?!

No need to focus on McCoy. At AV Roe Canada, John Frost was building the elliptical and then circular flying saucers for the Americans. And Canada had a lot of open country for test flights.

A poster was issued at the time showing various "Ghost Rockets." They were all German missiles. And for more information, see The V1 and its Soviet Successors by Wilfried Kopenhagen. Some reports told of the rockets making a U-turn in flight back to a point near their point of launch. Other reports clearly described V-1s in flight.

 

[marauder2048]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter (forget the specific designation)
that I think came from the Soviet far east.

Yak fighter? A conventional aircraft? No comparison between that and a radical, circular Russian flying saucer.

The point is McCoy, *the* man on the "flying saucer "front was excited about it and (I believe)
in the same briefing indicates that's the only thing they've gotten their hands on.

That's the recurring theme through all of McCoy et al.: there were no materiel recoveries in the US.
In fact, McCoy stated to the AF Scientific Advisory Board that he *wished* one of these would crash.

I await any materiel recoveries from a Ghost Rocket. After all, the Danes had recovered a V-1 from the sea.
Did anti-tampering/anti-recovery technologies advance dramatically between then and 1946?!

No need to focus on McCoy. At AV Roe Canada, John Frost was building the elliptical and then circular flying saucers for the Americans. And Canada had a lot of open country for test flights.

The focus on McCoy is highly relevant since he was *the* man doing all the work during the war on unidentified
aerial phenomena and the immediate post-war period through at least Korea. That's why Wright Field became
the hub for the investigations.

His views and analysis carried enormous weight.

 

[edwest4]

I will put my two cents here also.

Back in 2011, I had the second of a two-part article serial appear in Space Chronicle (published by the BIS). Its title is "Before Sputnik: A Glimpse into What Western Intelligence Knew about Soviet Rocketry Personalities and Activities--Part 2." In that article, I devoted a whole section about the "Ghost Rockets of 1946" and the very meticulous/assiduous effort by the Allied Intelligence units to figure out who launched these, and wherefrom. They couldn't get any concrete conclusions. They talked to a lot of people who lived along the German/Polish coastline, to be sure.

Here is the citation.

Before Sputnik: A Glimpse into What Western Intelligence Knew About Soviet Rocketry and Personalities. Part 2. Space Chronicle 64 (JBIS Supplement 1):25-44, 2011.

Svenska Dagbladet, 11 July: "The area is secluded, about 3 km from Bjorkovagen. One of the summer cabins...belongs to airline pilot Torvald Linden, who, when the 'meteor' came, had some visiting neighbors around a coffee table outside the cabin.... The projectile gave off a blinding light. It was indeed so bright that the sun's rays happened to dim. The projectile was quite low its highest speed at 50 meters per second. It descended at a 40-degree dive angle and fell into the sand, yet without any immediate report. At a distance of only 20 meters lay some young girls and bathers, and they saw how the sand spurted up. After some time we found the crater, which however was rather modest in size (couple of decimeters deep and a meter in diameter.) Spread all around was discovered thus a mass left by the mysterious sky-projectile. It mostly looked like porous slag of various colors -- from burned yellow to black. Some small bits were in powdered form, and when they were taken in the hands, they began to smart as if from lye...."


Sent to Defense Staff's Air Defense Division. Sundsvall air base press officer Capt R Westlin: "The projectile clearly produced a high temperature and the remains of the same were very hot when found. The slag produced by the projectile was burned black."

 

[edwest4]

and contained demolition or incendiary charges to burn them up should they hit the ground.

You would naturally expect 100% effectiveness for 40's era fuzes exposed to cold soaks and high impact speeds..

Nathan Twining wrote that he had no crash debris to examine for flying discs either. I'm sure someone outside his command would have neglected to mention the recovery of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, at least at first.

You're joking. McCoy was ecstatic that they had gotten their hands on a crashed Yak fighter (forget the specific designation)
that I think came from the Soviet far east.

Yak fighter? A conventional aircraft? No comparison between that and a radical, circular Russian flying saucer.

The point is McCoy, *the* man on the "flying saucer "front was excited about it and (I believe)
in the same briefing indicates that's the only thing they've gotten their hands on.

That's the recurring theme through all of McCoy et al.: there were no materiel recoveries in the US.
In fact, McCoy stated to the AF Scientific Advisory Board that he *wished* one of these would crash.

I await any materiel recoveries from a Ghost Rocket. After all, the Danes had recovered a V-1 from the sea.
Did anti-tampering/anti-recovery technologies advance dramatically between then and 1946?!

No need to focus on McCoy. At AV Roe Canada, John Frost was building the elliptical and then circular flying saucers for the Americans. And Canada had a lot of open country for test flights.

The focus on McCoy is highly relevant since he was *the* man doing all the work during the war on unidentified
aerial phenomena and the immediate post-war period through at least Korea. That's why Wright Field became
the hub for the investigations.

His views and analysis carried enormous weight.

I am now focusing on US/Canadian design and development.

 

[marauder2048]

I am now focusing on US/Canadian design and development.

Good to quit while you're ahead.

 

[aonestudio]

DoD Announces the Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG)

DoD Announces the Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synch

Today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, in close collaboration with the Director of National Intelligence, directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security to establish

www.defense.gov

Pentagon UFO Rapid Response Teams Ordered Up by Congress

The expansive measures come two weeks after the Pentagon announced a new group aimed at analyzing UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) incidents.

www.military.com

 

[rooster]

I used to live near Selfridge until recently and I can tell you if you I've seen several oddities near and over the base in over the years including large hovering orbs at night that accelerate away and daylight sightings of silver discs floating over the base. there seems to be a lot of activity there. If that's our stuff then thank god. I know there is a tremendously large underground complex there from sources that tell me where you can go and see underground protrusions from recent additions.

 

[RavenOne]

AARO is the answer, recent start up by the Pentagon...

AARO Home

https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/Dr%20K%20Bio%20Updated%2003-2023.pdf?ver=lku0RI_JEGIdJpWG17uB3w%3d%3d&timestamp=1693591258496

Welcome to Blue Book 2023

cheers

 

[donnage99]

hey siri set alarm for blue book 2033!

 

[Scott Kenny]

A quarter century ago I explained to a friend that the whole idea was as ridiculous as a P-51 Mustang shooting down the USS Enterprise. And for a few years that got me thinking, and I had an idea for a short-ish story. Some physics whiz-kid is recruited straight out of college to Area 51, where he is shown the crashed alien spacecraft from Roswell. His studies relate to the FTL drive the Army recovered, so he's set to work trying to reverse engineer it. Eventually the team realizes that such a system can be made with modern tech, but:
1: It will be ruinously expensive, requiring large amounts of extremely rare elements
2: It will have a top speed of something like 1.5 c
3: It will require the equivalent of the entire US power grid to keep functioning
4: Amazingly radioactive

So, some of the team are thrilled: FTL is possible. Our Hero, however, doesn't like it, so he transfers to another department; studying the material the crashed vessel is made of. The various bits are proven to be incredibly tough; so tough as to shrug off all attempts at analysis. Can't melt it with anything short of a nuclear blast, can't drill it, cut it, tear it. But Our Hero wonders why, if the ship was so incredibly tough, it kerploded into bits when it crashed... to do that much damage would have required an H-bomb. Our Hero eventually concludes that the alien spaceship was *planted* here. The aliens saw humans enter the atomic age and decided that we are sufficiently scary as to require being kept out of the Galactic Federation for as long as possible. So rather than contact us and give us the warp drive that can be built in a well equipped home workshop and powered by a Briggs & Stratton, or allowing us to figure that system out for ourselves and then swarm out into the heavens spreading our hijinks all over, they deliberately gave us the *worst* form of hyperdrive ever invented. Overly complex, expensive and power-ravenous, but clearly functional. And clearly what the aliens are using, so it *must* be what works. Keep the monkey-boys busy with the crap-drive, and they'll be tied up in knots for generations.

Please tell me you've expanded this into a short story!!! And if you have, where might I get a copy?

Exception?

A spark plug is metals and ceramics, though it would have required a Roman discovery of electricity to put to use.

Making one was completely within their capabilities.

So why haven'tyou written and published this story? Sounds terrific.

Seconded!

AFAIK, Twining's efforts were not classified higher than SECRET.

You realise this sentence has absolutely null value?

That question indicates that you have no clue how classification works at all.

A letter or report classified Secret can have paragraphs that are unclassified, confidential, or secret. It cannot contain any material classified Top Secret or "above." (Not really "above" so much as compartmentalized into smaller and smaller groups that are specifically briefed into any given codeword group. I am not aware of any codeword groups that held further codewords inside them, they're all equally TS-codeword officially. Arguably the "Yankee White" Presidential Aide codeword that is automatically assumed to have Need To Know for any and all programs is the only classification "above" Top Secret, but it's still written as Top Secret - Yankee White. And yes, that particular keyword and the statement about of assumed NTK is unclassified.)

One of my favorites from when I was in the Navy was a report on a particular submarine's continuing nuclear power training program, it had a sentence in there that read something like "Tests were insufficiently rigorous, in that there were no overall examination failures, and no individual question failures." Because my Dad was a teacher, I asked if that particular sentence was classified so I could share it with him. It's not classified, though the overall report was Confidential - Restricted Data IIRC (it's been almost 20 years since I worked on it as the Squadron Yeoman).

And yes, the Navy's Nuclear Power training pipeline is that evil, tests must be so hard that at least one person will not pass, and at least one question per test must be so hard that none of the crew can answer correctly. All so that remedial training can be assigned to at least one individual for failing the exam, and given to the entire engineering department on that subject for failing the question.

As to those "oblique references"?

(1) The possibillity that these objects are of domestic origin - the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command.
(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these subjects.
(3) The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of propulsion possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge.

Those aren't references, because (1) would have been redacted or more likely never put into the memo in the first place if there was such a program in the US. (2) is a simple statement that they didn't have any crash remains. (3) is an acknowledgement that someone else may have such a propulsion system, and also would have been redacted if the US did have any knowledge about the existence of such.

 

[Nigelhg]

Rather than join this debate AARO have a mission summary now up

https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/AARO%20Mission%20Brief_DOPSR%20Reviewed%20July%202023.pdf?ver=AUKVC88CXaAahA7nL6sZ3Q%3d%3d&timestamp=1693591189645