Culture and science
Scientific studies, academic projects, panels and surveys. 281 events, newest first.
Media1950
During a lunchtime walk at Los Alamos, physicist Enrico Fermi joined a talk about flying saucer reports and a New Yorker cartoon, then asked where everybody was. A 1985 Los Alamos report gathered the participants' recollections; the question became the Fermi paradox.
Photo: Department of Energy-Office of Public Affairs, restored by Yann, Public domain
Military24 Apr 1949
A Navy-led crew readying a Skyhook balloon at White Sands Proving Ground said they followed a whitish, elliptical object through a theodolite for about a minute and later worked out an extreme altitude and speed. Astronomer Donald Menzel argued they saw a refracted image of their own balloon.
Photo: Office of Naval Research, Public domain
Military1949
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek reviewed the 237 reports gathered by the Air Force's Project Sign. His final report attributed about a third to astronomical causes such as planets and meteors, about a third more to balloons, rockets, flares or birds, and left about a fifth unidentified.
Photo: US Air Force, Public domain
Government13 Dec 1948
RAND scientist James Lipp answered Brig. Gen. Donald Putt's request with a letter weighing whether flying objects could be spaceships. He judged such visits possible but very improbable, and the letter was printed as Appendix D of the February 1949 Project Sign report.
Photo: Cbl62, CC BY-SA 3.0
Government1948
In early 1948, Air Force officers from Wright-Patterson asked J. Allen Hynek, director of Ohio State's McMillin Observatory, to help Project Sign find which saucer reports were astronomical. Hynek, then a skeptic, had no role in Grudge but returned as Blue Book's consultant from 1952 to 1969.
Photo: United States Government, Public domain
Sightings12 Feb 1947
A brilliant daytime bolide broke apart over the Sikhote-Alin mountains north of Vladivostok, leaving over 100 pits. Soviet scientist E. L. Krinov investigated; a historian later suggested his mistaken flight path may have led U.S. meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz to suspect a missile.
Photo: H. Raab ( User:Vesta ), CC BY-SA 3.0
