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348 Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries
ties and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena
in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national
security."
The project was given a 2A restricted classification security rating under
a system that acknowledged 1A as the highest, or most secret, designation.
The following year, three men from Wright-Patterson approached Dr. J.
Allen Hynek, an astronomer then employed by Ohio State University in
nearby Columbus. "They said they needed some astronomical consultation
because it was their job to find out what these flying saucer stories
were all about," Hynek recalls. Hynek was hired as a consultant with the
Air Force and remained in that capacity for over two decades as Sign
evolved into Projects Grudge and Blue Book, the last officially ceasing in
December of 1969.
According to Hynek, the Air Force had a simple, but effective, method
to explain UFOs: Dismiss all sightings as misidentified astronomical phenomena.
The problem, says Hynek, was the Air Force "regarded it as an
intelligence matter" instead of handing the investigation to an academic or
university group. Therefore, any serious investigation of the new phenomena
was stultified [rendered useless] because top military brass
believed it was an "intelligence" matter, another intrigue of the emerging
Cold War.
However, military personnel directly involved in Project Sign had a
different view. While 96 percent of reports turned out to be misidentified
astronomical phenomena (e.g., the planet Venus), the other 4 percent were
not so easily discredited or explained, and a minority of military personnel
took these seriously.
Minority intelligence opinion then divided into the two camps, namely,
those who saw UFOs as evidence of new Soviet technology, and those
who thought they might be precursors of an invasion by extraterrestrials.
"FLYING SAUCERS" AND THE CIA
Ever since 1948 the CIA has maintained an interest in UFOs and remains
tight-lipped to this very day on the subject, keeping evidence and documents
on the phenomena many levels above Top Secret.
A memo sent on January 29, 1952 to the CIA's deputy director of
Intelligence from Ralph Clark of the Office of Scientific Intelligence
(OSI) states: "In the past several weeks numerous UFOs have been sighted
visually and on special UFO group radar. This office has maintained a
continuing review of reputed sightings for the past three years and a special
group has been formed to review the sightings to date."
Many researchers believe that from the very beginning the CIA was
quite certain UFOs were not just Soviet technology. In fact, as evidence