Flying Saucers

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

1. Since 1947, there have been about 1500 official reports of sightings plus an enormous volume of letters, phone calls and press reports. During this July alone, official reports totaled 250. Of the 1500, Air Force carries 20% as unexplained and of those received since the first of this year, 28% unexplained.

2. The administrative unit now handling the Air Force inquiry on these phenomena is a small section headed by an Air Force Reserve Captain, E. J. Ruppelt, assisted by two lieutenants and two secretaries at Air Technical Intelligence Center, Wright Field. It is from this small group that the controlling collection directive to the entire Air Force originated and it is to this small group that the flood of reports on flying saucers comes for collation and analysis.

3. Research and analysis at this time is limited almost exclusively to the case history method. Reports, which are limited in their coverage to ten broad elements of information, are received from the field, mainly through the Air-intelligence reporting system, through also to a limited extent from the other services and from the Department of State.

4. Thos e in charge of the Air Force project at Air Technical Intelligence Center told the OSI team that it has not yet been decided what kind of an effort, or how extensive an inquiry should be undertaken in this field.

Center told the OSI team that it has not yet been decided what kind of an effort, or how extensive an inquiry should be undertaken in this field.

5. ATIC has roughly 20 percent of its cases in the "unexplained" category.

6. Of this 20 percent they feel that 10 percent would remain unexplained even with a full measure of available information. This residue of as-yet unexplainable reports was aptly described as a group of "incredible reports from credible observers."