Twining Letter Issued

1947 September 23rd

More detail can be found on the NICAP site, here: http://www.nicap.org/twining_letter.htm

In his book The Report on UFOs, Edward Ruppelt provides the following account:

On September 23, 1947, the chief of the Air Technical Intelligence Center, one of the Air Force’s most highly specialized intelligence units, sent a letter to the Commanding General of the then Army Air Forces.

The letter was in answer to the Commanding General’s verbal request to make a preliminary study of the reports of unidentified flying objects. The letter said that after a preliminary study of UFO reports, ATIC concluded that, to quote from the letter, “the reported phenomena were real.” The letter strongly urged that a permanent project be established at ATIC to investigate and analyze future UFO reports. It requested a priority for the project, a registered code name, and an over-all security classification. ATICs request was granted and Project Sign, the forerunner of Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, was launched. It was given a 2A priority, 1A being the highest priority an Air Force project could have.

…

ATICs intelligence specialists were confident that within a few months or a year they would have the answer to the question, “What are UFO’s?” The question, “Do UFO’s exist?” was never mentioned. The only problem that confronted the people at ATIC was, “Were the UFO’s of Russian or interplanetary origin?” Either case called for a serious, secrecy-shrouded project. Only top people at ATIC were assigned to Project Sign.