FOIA: Project Grudge Special Report No: 1

SpecialReport1.pdf
Special Report Number 1: Project Grudge
A Special Report on visual and radar UFO sightings at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey on 10th and 11th September 1951
Document date: 1951-12-28
Department: Air Technical Intelligence Center, Wright-Patterson AFB
Author: ATIC
Document type: Report
pages: 9


Archivist's Notes: This document is unclear to read in places. It discusses sightings in Fort Monmouth which were recorded by an Air Force Pilot of a T-33 and student radar operators. It give plenty of detail about the sightings and draws conclusions giving explanations accounting for the sightings, dismissing them generally as weather balloons, although one is unexplained and the ability of the radar student is questioned.

This report is from the last series of reports done by Project Grudge which stopped in September 1951 thus opening the way for Project Blue Book.
In this special report are investigated two different sightings respectively on September 10 and 11, 1951 over the skies of Monmouth, New Jersey area. According to the document, the pilot and the member of a T-33 aircraft while flying over Sandy Hook, New Jersey, spotted an unidentified flying object in the altitude between 5-8 thousands feet from where they were directed. T-33 was approximately flying over Point Pleasant, New Jersey at the time of initial sighting. Upon seeing the object the pilot started descending at 360° to the left in the attempt to intercept the object. During this maneuver from the pilot, the object increased the speed from 450 mph to 550 mph and decreased the altitude from 20.000 feet to 17.000 feet.

The object looked to be silver in color but not reflecting the sunlight, with a diameter approximately 30-50 feet.

In the same day at approximately the sime time of the sighting from Evans Signal laboratory in New Jersey were released two balloons with a diameter of 7-8 feet. By the investigating team were made attempts to use the information obtained from the interrogation of the T-33 crew and the data on the balloon launching to prove that the pilot and the passenger had observed a balloon. However not all the data given was consistent with such a conclusion.

In the document there are some schematics and design from the investigating team trying to prove that the object was indeed a balloon.

The second sighting was a radar sighting at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey of an object traveling with a speed greater that 700 mph. All radars at that time were able to track an object flying with a speed up to 700 mph. Greater speeds than that were not possible for the radar to track it. Since the observers were students, their conclusion was considered inaccurate due to their lack of experience. A test was made with one of the observers by asking him to identify the speed of a flying object in the radar and determain the flight path and the altitude. The student failed to do so correctly. Thus this sighting has been concluded as incomplete.

The Fort Monmouth sightings are a well known fact. As I said this report and few more after this were the last to be made for Project Grudge. Here is an excerpt that deals with Project Grudge and this sighting aswell:

There were a series of UFO sightings near Fort Monmouth, New Jersey in 1951. Pilots and radar operators reported encounters with a number of fast-moving, highly maneuverable disc-shaped aircraft. A Life Magazine reporter was at Monmouth for some of the sightings, and the case received significant publicity.

When General Charles P. Cabell asked Project Grudge for their analysis of this UFO encounter, he learned that Grudge had essentially swept UFO reports under the carpet and was essentially non operational, he became furious. The Fort Monmouth sighting had highlighted Air Material Command's debunking, and at a meeting, a frustrated Cabell was reported to have said, "I want an open mind; in fact, I order an open mind! Anyone who doesn't keep an open mind can get our now! ... Why do I have to stir up the action? Anyone can see that we do not have a satisfactory answer to the saucer question." At another meeting Cabell said, "I've been lied to, and lied to, and lied to. I want it to stop. I want the answer to the saucers and I want a good answer." Cabell also commented that the 1949 Grudge report was "tripe".

Lt. Col. N.R. Rosegarten wanted Ruppelt to take over as project leader in late 1951, partly because Ruppelt "had a reputation as a good organizer." While Cabell wanted Project Grudge reactivated, he did not want the general public to know that the military took UFOs seriously, and ordered the project to keep a low profile. This, he hoped, would protect the military's reputation. If the saucer phenomenon was groundless, they could not be accused of sensationalism, but if the UFO sightings proved to have some basis in fact, the military could produce serious studies of the subject. Cabell especially did not want the military to be perceived as “belittling civilians” who had reported the UFO sightings.

www.where-is-area-51.com...

For more info about Project Grudge check the ATS FOIA related link: FOIA: Project Grudge