FOIA: Report of Sightings on March 13 & 14 1949

NM_MAR_13_1949.pdf
Unidentified Flying Object/Project Grudge Investigation Report
Two Seperate Reports one originating from the army one from the Air Force, apparantely related sightings.
Document date: 1949-03-18
Department: Headquarters Fourth Army & Inspector General USAF
Author: Charles Brooks
Document type: report summary(ies)
pages: 7


Archivist's Notes: A slightly confusing group of documents consisting of two seperate reports and a cover letter.

The first report is a sighting that took place on the 13th of March 1949 at Sandia Base(NM) Tech Area. A self-luminous, green white/blue white ball shaped object trailing a tail of the same color (tail twice as long as object) was spotted at 2153 hours was spotted moving either "directly toward or directly away from" two M.P.s on Sentry duty.

PFC. Robert Espino and Recruit Bill Nanny saw the object under clear skies and a full moon illuminating "moderate moon light" descending either directly toward or away from them, half the diamater of the visible moon and moving "slower than a falling star" for two to four seconds.

Both M.P.s are considered credible because they were on duty and because of the thorough background check undergone by potential personel before being stationed at sandia base.

The second document is from "Project Grudge". An investigation was requested by the Acting District Commander of Kirtland Airforce base.

A (civilian) Mr. Thomas J. Page observed an evidently similar object on 14, march 1949 while enroute from Honolulu to Canton Island.

Mr. Page seems to have sent a letter reporting his sighting of something he called a celestial object that he thought was either a meteor or comet.

In the cover letter dated 9 August 1949 written by Acting District Commander Jerome Braun and forwarded to the commanding general Air Material Command Wright-Patterson AFB; Mr. Braun states that "no investigation is pending" and that he is forwarding the report "Special Agent" Brooks took of the incident.

It is unclear wether Charles Brooks took the report of the Sandia M.P.s, but considering the similarity of the objects and date/times sighted it looks as if Jerome Braun thought they might be related.

I would like to note that in the cover letter Charles Brooks is referred to as "Special Agent" Charled Brooks.

I believe that military personel either from Army Intelligence or OSI/AF intelligence would not be referred to as special agent.

I believe special agent is a FBI designation, so perhaps this is a link that shows the FBI worked with the military on occasion in regards to UFOS.

This one was a bit of a jumble or perhaps I haven't had enough coffee so if I missed something important let me know.

reply to post by AboveTopSecret.com


The accounts of these events definitely raise some red-flags with regard to the overwhelming validity and believeablility of the accounts presented in this particular pdf.

Given the fact that the reports of this event were seemingly well documented and forwarded to various members up the chain of command, as well as the good mental and military standing of the eyewhitnesses, this does provide great evidence that these luminous balls of light were indeed sighted and observed until they disappeared from sight.

The descriptions given of the object that was sighted seem to evoke thoughts of a meteor at first, due to the description of a ball of light with a firey tail. This is morphed as the account goes on as the eyewhitness tells of a greenish-white to blue ball which under most circumstances would not match up with previous descriptions of a meteor.

Moreover, what also is interesting about this account is the forwarding of this information to one Charles Brooks, who is referred to as "Special Agent". This designation is very interesting given the accounts, as after project Blue Book, the notion of UFO's was said to be squashed by the report. This instance differs from that as why would the chain of command be forwarding this account to a FBI agent. Werent they supposed to have washed their hands of the UFO phenomenon after Blue Book was closed? On top of that, why would a special FBI agent be receiving this if there was no pending investigation of these events?

The evidence of these occurances is amazing, but the dots do not connect with regard to the necessity of the FBI to have this information.

If Sandia Base did not give creedance to the UFO phenomenon then why was it necessary to pass the accounts of these nights off to people that seemingly had no interest in them?

I have to say that at first, other than the timing of these reports, it is not immediately obvious why they have been linked together. However, whilst both reports appear relatively low key there are a couple of interesting elements to each which may give some clues. Whether they are unwarranted speculation or anything of significance is open to debate.

The Sandia Base report appears to have been closed off but the last page of the documents is so faded it is only possible to just about make out the word "Astro", (doc ref no. 0781 on the microfiche).

The interesting elements of the initial report are the size of the object, reported as half the size of the full moon, (and the report appears to indicate that the Moon was also visible), and the fact that as MPs the witnesses would probably be regarded as reliable.

You may, however, also ponder on why the report recommends "Thorough investigation required of all personnel of Sandia Base".

The second report as observed by Thomas Page was initially reported to Mount Wilson Observatory as Page was emphatic that what he saw "could not have been an aircraft in any form" and could "by no manner or means be anything but a celestial body". Page reported the sighting because of the size of the object, (no further detail on this element of the report is given).

The interesting part is why the file contains no copy of Page's initial letter to Mount Wilson and why that was passed on to the the Air Force to investigate.

Special Agent Brooks' report appears to reach no conclusions but is simply classified as closed.

So, open questions are:

- Why are two geographically disconnected reports of oversize aerial objects linked together?

- Why did a civilian report of something that was emphatically a "celestial object" and not an aircraft attract the attention of what sounds like a man from the FBI?

- Why were all the personnel of Sandia recommended for "thorough investigation"?

- Why did the AF Acting District Commander feel the need to write to the Commanding General of the Air Materiel Command at WP AFB to confirm that no investigation was ongoing into the Page report?

[edit on 20-11-2007 by timeless test]