The Report on Unidentified Flying ObjectsRuppelt, Edward J.
History
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
Ruppelt, Edward J.
Unidentified flying objects
The Air Defense Command UFO directive did not mention shooting at a
UFO. This question came up during our planning meeting at Colorado
Springs, but, like the authority to scramble, the authority to shoot
at anything in the air had been established long ago. Every ADC pilot
knows the rules for engagement, the rules that tell him when he can
shoot the loaded guns that he always carries. If anything in the air
over the United States commits any act that is covered by the rules
for engagement, the pilot has the authority to open fire.
The third thing that ADC would do would be to integrate the Ground
Observer Corps into the UFO reporting net. As a second priority, the
GOC would report UFO's--first priority would still be reporting
aircraft.
Ever since the new Project Grudge had been organized, we hadn't had
to deal with any large-scale publicity about UFO's. Occasionally
someone would bring in a local item from some newspaper about a UFO
sighting, but the sightings never rated more than an inch or two
column space. But on February 19, 1952, the calm was broken by the
story of how a huge ball of fire paced two B-29's in Korea. The story
didn't start a rash of reports as the story of the first UFO sighting
did in June 1947, but it was significant in that it started a slow
build-up of publicity that was far to surpass anything in the past.
This Korean sighting also added to the growing official interest in
Washington. Almost every day I was getting one or two telephone calls
from some branch of the government, and I was going to Washington at
least once every two weeks. I was beginning to spend as much time
telling people what was going on as I was doing anything about it.
The answer was to get somebody in the Directorate of Intelligence in
the Pentagon to act as a liaison officer. I could keep this person
informed and he could handle the "branch office" in Washington.
Colonel Dunn bought this idea, and Major Dewey J. Fournet got the
additional duty of manager of the Pentagon branch. In the future all
Pentagon inquiries went to Major Fournet, and if he couldn't answer
them he would call me. The arrangement was excellent because Major
Fournet took a very serious interest in UFO's and could always be
counted on to do a good job.
Sometime in February 1952 I had a visit from two Royal Canadian Air
Force officers. For some time, I learned, Canada had been getting her
share of UFO reports. One of the latest ones, and the one that
prompted the visit by the RCAF officers, occurred at North Bay,
Ontario, about 250 miles north of Buffalo, New York. On two occasions
an orange-red disk had been seen from a new jet fighter base in the
area.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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