aluation_ of intelligence data. But it doesn't take a great deal
of study of the old UFO files to see that standard intelligence
procedures were no longer being used by Project Grudge. Everything
was being evaluated on the premise that UFO's couldn't exist. No
matter what you see or hear, don't believe it.

New people took over Project Grudge. ATIC's top intelligence
specialists who had been so eager to work on Project Sign were no
longer working on Project Grudge. Some of them had drastically and
hurriedly changed their minds about UFO's when they thought that the
Pentagon was no longer sympathetic to the UFO cause. They were now
directing their talents toward more socially acceptable projects.
Other charter members of Project Sign had been "purged." These were
the people who had refused to change their original opinions about
UFO's.

With the new name and the new personnel came the new objective, get
rid of the UFO's. It was never specified this way in writing but it
didn't take much effort to see that this was the goal of Project
Grudge. This unwritten objective was reflected in every memo, report,
and directive.

To reach their objective Project Grudge launched into a campaign
that opened a new age in the history of the UFO. If a comparative age
in world history can be chosen, the Dark Ages would be most
appropriate. Webster's Dictionary defines the Dark Ages as a period
of "intellectual stagnation."

To one who is intimately familiar with UFO history it is clear that
Project Grudge had a two-phase program of UFO annihilation. The first
phase consisted of explaining every UFO report. The second phase was
to tell the public how the Air Force had solved all the sightings.
This, Project Grudge reasoned, would put an end to UFO reports.

Phase one had been started by the people of Project Sign. They
realized that a great many reports were caused by people seeing
balloons or such astronomical bodies as planets, meteors, or stars.
They also realized that before they could get to the heart of the UFO
problems they had to sift out this type of report. To do this they
had called on outside help. Air Weather Service had been asked to
screen the reports and check those that sounded like balloons against
their records of balloon flights. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, distinguished
astrophysicist and head of Ohio State University's Astronomy
Department, had been given a contract to sort out those reports that
could be blamed on sta