I
have had sporadic luck with this sort of thing in the past. I need some help in
finding a document that I saw in the Project Blue Book files as I was working
on The Government UFO Files. I was working on the chapter that dealt
with the Levelland sightings of November 1957 when I found the following, which
tells us something about the beginning of Project Moon Dust:
For those that do not, put simply, the original mission of Project Moon Dust, as stated by US Air Force Message #54322, dated December 23, 1957, was to “to collect and analyze raw intelligence reports from the field on fallen space debris and objects of unknown origin”.
I
was working at home with the microfilm of the Project Blue Book files. I note
this, because those 96 rolls of microfilm contain everything that has been
released. I’m not sure that Fold3 or some of the other digital sources contains
everything.
The
point is that I have no way to print from my microfilm reader. I sometimes use
my iPad to take photos from the screen, but I don’t always do this. On this
occasion I copied everything relevant from the screen but didn’t take a
picture.
Well,
I guess you all can figure out where this is going. I can’t find the document
again. I have spent hours looking for it. I believe in was in a file for
another of the cases reported in 1957, but I don’t know which one. I have also
been through the administration files that might hold the relevant document,
but still no luck. I even sent out a number of inquiries to various government
installations that might have the message traffic archived by either message
number or date. No luck there either.
Yes,
I have seen the document, and I realized when I stumbled over it that it
provided a significant clue about the beginning of Moon Dust. It would be nice
to be able to find a copy of the document that I could publish here, or the
precise place where it is housed so that I might direct others to it. The document
is important because it shows that Moon Dust did not begin with the creation of
the 4602nd AISS in 1952, but that the inspiration was probably the
Soviet launch of Sputnik in October 1957. The message suggested the “recent”
creation of Moon Dust (though, if I remember it correctly, it didn’t use the
name Moon Dust), it was the context that made that clear.
Any
help would be greatly appreciated. And, yes, I continue to search for it
myself. If we can find it, we would have a nice bit of documentation.