Editing Unidentified flying object (section)

=====USAF=====

====== Projects Sign (1947–1949), Grudge (1948–1951), and Blue Book (1951–1970) ======
{{main|Project Sign|Project Grudge|Project Blue Book}}
Project Sign's final report, published in early 1949, stated that while some UFOs appeared to represent actual aircraft, there was not enough data to determine their origin.<ref name="Blum1990">Blum, Howard, Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials. Simon and Schuster, 1990</ref>

The Air Force's Project Sign was created at the end of 1947, and was one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect, but the [[Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force|Air Force Chief of Staff]] [[Hoyt Vandenberg]] ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF's Project Blue Book.<ref>[[#Ruppelt|Ruppelt 1956]], Chapter 3: [http://www.nicap.org/rufo/rufo-03.htm "The Classics"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070906190034/http://www.nicap.org/rufo/rufo-03.htm |date=September 6, 2007 }}</ref>

Another highly classified U.S. study was conducted by the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) in the latter half of 1952 in response to orders from the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] (NSC). This study concluded UFOs were real physical objects of potential threat to national security. One OS/I memo to the CIA Director (DCI) in December read that "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention&nbsp;... Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such a nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or any known types of aerial vehicles."<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html |title=CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90 |last=Haines |first=Gerald K. |date=1997 |publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]] |oclc=713270503 |access-date=July 13, 2013 |archive-date=October 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001174318/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The matter was considered so urgent that OS/I drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the NSC proposing that the NSC establish an investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. It also urged the DCI to establish an external research project of top-level scientists, now known as the Robertson Panel to analyze the problem of UFOs. The OS/I investigation was called off after the Robertson Panel's negative conclusions in January 1953.<ref name="auto"/>

Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. [[J. Allen Hynek]], a trained astronomer who served as a scientific advisor for Project Blue Book, was initially skeptical of UFO reports, but eventually came to the conclusion that many of them could not be satisfactorily explained and was highly critical of what he described as "the cavalier disregard by Project Blue Book of the principles of scientific investigation".<ref>[[#Hynek 1972|Hynek 1972]], p. 76</ref> Leaving government work, he founded the privately funded [[Center for UFO Studies|CUFOS]], to whose work he devoted the rest of his life. Other private groups studying the phenomenon include the [[Mutual UFO Network|MUFON]], a grassroots organization whose investigator's handbooks go into great detail on the documentation of alleged UFO sightings.

====== USAF Regulation 200-2 (1953–1954) ======

[[s:Air Force Regulation 200-2, Unidentified Flying Objects Reporting|Air Force Regulation 200-2]],<ref name="AFD-070703-004">{{cite web |url=http://www.foia.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070703-004.pdf |title=AFD-070703-004.pdf |work=Air Force Freedom of Information Act |publisher=United States Air Force |access-date=September 7, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120910051437/http://www.foia.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070703-004.pdf |archive-date=September 10, 2012  }}</ref> issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object ("UFOB") as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a "possible threat to the security of the United States" and "to determine technical aspects involved." The regulation went on to say that "it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB's when the object is positively identified as a familiar object" but added: "For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved."<ref name="AFD-070703-004" />