Office of the Secretary of Defense: 05_AARO_Historical_Record_Report

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staff. He also realized that he needed a range of scientific expertise which he sourced through a
contract he dubbed Project BEAR. Capt Ruppelt set a policy that was intended to foster
objectivity. Unlike the previous Project GRUDGE, he allowed his staff to create an “unknown”
category of cases which he hoped would dissuade the forcing of a particular answer to any case.
The new Project GRUDGE reviewed all of the previous cases in Project SIGN, old Project
GRUDGE, and from the ATIC interim period.21
Results: The new Project GRUDGE noticed that there was some correlation between
sightings and the publication of UFO stories in the media. Capt Ruppelt noted that there were
concentrations of cases in the Los Alamos-Albuquerque area, Oak Ridge, White Sands, Strategic
Air Command locations, ports, and industrial sites.22
• No evidence of extraterrestrial origin of UFO/UAP were discovered.
Project BEAR (Late 1951–Late 1954)
Background: Project BEAR was an informal name given by Capt Ruppelt, Chief of
Project GRUDGE, to a contract he created with the Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) to provide
scientific support to the new Project GRUDGE. BMI provided technical support, studied the
reliability of interviewee information recall from UFO sightings, created an improved debriefing
questionnaire for observers, and developed a computer punch-card system. This system helped
automate the statistical study of all the UFO reports in Project GRUDGE’s holdings and those in
Project BLUE BOOK.23 BMI released a report under the cover of ATIC to maintain its
anonymity. Completed in late 1954, the report was titled “Special Report No. 14.”24
Results: The Project BEAR report was based on a statistical analysis of UFO sightings
and contained graphs showing their frequency and distribution by time, date, location, shape,
color, duration, azimuth, and elevation. It concluded that all cases that had enough data were
resolved and readily explainable. The report assessed that if more data were available on cases
marked unknown, most of those cases could be explained as well. It also concluded that it was
highly improbable that any of these cases represented technology beyond their “present day
scientific knowledge.”25
CIA Special Study Group (1952)
Background: After an increase in UFO sightings in 1952, particularly those that gained
widespread attention over the Washington, D.C. area during that summer, CIA’s Deputy Director
for Intelligence, Robert Amory Jr., tasked the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence’s (OSI)
Physics and Electronics Division to review UFO cases. A. Ray Gordon took lead on this project,
and the Study Group he established reviewed all of ATIC’s data (from Projects SIGN through
GRUDGE).26
Results: The Study Group assessed that 90 percent of the reports were explainable and
the other 10 percent amounted to “incredible” claims but rejected the notion that they represented
Soviet or extraterrestrial technology. The group also studied Soviet press and found no reports
of UFOs, leading the group to assume that the Soviets were deliberately suppressing such05Page determined to be Unclassified
Review by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841 (a)(1)(C)
Date: 02/05/2025