The UFO reports had never stopped coming in since they had first started in June 1947.  There was some correlation between publicity and the number of sightings, but it was not an established fact that reports came in only when the press was playing up UFO’s.  Just within the past few months the number of good reports had increased sharply and there had been no publicity.

UFO’s were seen more frequently around areas vital to the defense of the United States.  The Los Alamos-Albuquerque area, Oak Ridge, and White Sands Proving Ground rated high.  Port areas, Strategic Air Command bases, and industrial areas ranked next.  UFO’s had been reported from every state in the Union and from every foreign country.  The U.S. did not have a monopoly.

The frequency of the UFO reports was interesting.  Every July there was a sudden increase in the number of reports and July was always the peak month of the year.  Just before Christmas there was usually a minor peak.

The Grudge Report had not been the solution to the UFO problem.  It was true that a large percentage of the reports were due to the “mis-identification of known objects”; people were seeing balloons, airplanes, planets, but this was not the final answer.  There were a few hoaxes, hallucinations, publicity-seekers, and fatigued pilots, but reports from these people constituted less than 1 per cent of the total.  Left over was a residue of very good and very “unexplainable” UFO sightings that were classified as unknown.

The quality of the reports was getting better, I told the officers; they contained more details that could be used for analysis and the details were more precise and accurate.  But still they left much to be desired.

Every one of the nine scientists and engineers who had reviewed the UFO material at ATIC had made one strong point:  we should give top priority to getting reasonably accurate measurements of the speed, altitude, and size of reported UFO’s.  This would serve two purposes.  First, it would make it easy to sort out reports of common things, such as balloons, airplanes, etc.  Second, and more important, if we could get even one fairly accurate measurement that showed that some object was traveling through the atmosphere at high speed, and that it wasn’t a meteor, the UFO riddle would be much easier to solve.

I had worked out a plan to get some measured data, and I presented it to the group for their comments.

I felt sure that before long the press would get wind of the Air Force’s renewed effort to identify UFO’s.  When this happened, instead of being mysterious about the whole thing, we would freely admit the existence of the new project, explain the situation thoroughly and exactly as it was, and say that all UFO reports made to the Air Force would be given careful consideration.  In this way we would encourage more people to report what they were seeing and we might get some good data.