planned to
do. He explained our basic policy, that of setting aside the unknowns
and not speculating on them, and he told how the scientists visiting
ATIC had liked the plans for the new Project Grudge.

There was some discussion about the Air Force's and ATIC's
responsibility for the UFO reports. General Garland stated, and it
was later confirmed in writing, that the Air Force was solely
responsible for investigating and evaluating all UFO reports. Within
the Air Force, ATIC was the responsible agency. This in turn meant
that Project Grudge was responsible for all UFO reports made by any
branch of the military service. I started my briefing by telling
General Samford and his staff about the present UFO situation.

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 scie