Here’s another positive
from the latest from AARO. Well, it’s not exactly anything they published, but
is a consequence of research into their list of various projects and
investigations. I was going back through some of the material that I had gathered
on Project MOON DUST and found something interesting there.
First, a little
background. While I was writing The Government UFO Files, I was reading
documents that had been created around the time of the Levelland, Texas,
sightings of November 2/3, 1957. I found a document addressed to one of those
Air Force officers investigating the sightings who had been complaining about
the workload as the number of sightings expanded beyond Levelland. Hundreds of
sightings had been made and dozens of them reported to the Air Force. The reference
I found was a response to that complaint. More on the response later.
The second part of this
is that there had been a discussion about the beginning of MOON DUST with
everyone pointing to the early 1950s as the starting point. As I reported in a
previous post, the 4602d AISS had been created to find downed enemy airmen, recover
wreckage of enemy aircraft, and interrogate the aircrew captured. When the
Korean War ended, that mission also ended, to a degree. Captain Edward Ruppelt
was complaining that he didn’t have the staff to follow up on all the UFO reports
coming in during the wave of 1952. At that point the 4602d was tasked with
interviewing the witnesses and recovering any physical evidence that might have
been found.
This was treated more
as a training exercise for those assigned to the 4602d because it would give
them some real-world experience. It would also reduce the workload of those
assigned to Project Blue Book. It was a win-win situation for everyone. Those in
the UFO community believed this was the beginning of Project MOON DUST.
However, in my research
into the sightings of November 1957, I found a document in the Blue Book files
that provided some insight into the situation. The document, from Headquarters,
U.S. Air Force Message #54322 and dated December 23, 1957, discussed a new
project called MOON DUST. The mission was to “collect and analyze raw
intelligence reports from the field on fallen space debris and objects of
unknown origin.” Remember, I have mentioned a complaint about the workload generated
by the sightings in 1957.
I believe that this was
a response to the Soviet launch of the first artificial satellites, but since
the message was in a file relating to the UFO sightings that began in November,
1957, it suggests a connection there.
I found this message on
microfilm and had no way of making a hard copy at the time and I have been
unable to locate it again. I wrote down the relevant information and have
searched for it. I filed a couple of FOIA requests hoping that the information
I did have would allow someone at those various government offices to locate a
copy, but no such luck.
The point is that this
seemed to suggest that MOON DUST began as a real project in October 1957. The
information about the 4602d was a precursor to the MOON DUST, but it wasn’t actually
MOON DUST.
So, you’re wondering,
what’s the point. Well, I was rereading the letters that Air Force officers had
sent to U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, when he requested information about MOON
DUST. I won’t add all that here, other to say, that it appears in the following
posting.
Here’s what caught my eye. In a letter written by Air Force Colonel George Mattingley, Jr., he noted, “As the occasion never arose to use these air defense teams, the mission was assigned to Headquarters, United States Air Force in 1957 [emphasis added] and expanded to include the following peace-time functions: a) Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), to investigate reliably reported UFOs in the United States…”
Mattingley had
confirmed my discovery that MOON DUST began, not during the Korean War, but
during the Cold War and was inspired by the Soviet satellite launches in 1957.
While I still haven’t found that original message, here was Mattingley
confirming the date for the beginning of MOON DUST. Had it not been for the
AARO report, I wouldn’t have been looking for the specific information about
MOON DUST and wanted to show how the Air Force had misrepresented their
original response to Bingaman. (Yes, I said misrepresented, but you could
interpret it to be more nefarious than that.)
Question does remain, however. How did AARO miss MOON DUST in their review of the chronology of UFO projects?
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteAARO is obviously avoiding any events that may have undisputable physical evidence of an off world origin. Project Moon Dust, as well as other projects that they ignored, may have had that evidence. More importantly, by doing so they intentionally sidestep any questions about their reasons for showing us their technology and what their purpose is. Was their purpose to bring about our technological revolution since the invention of the transistor in 1947? A technology that may bring us an unlimited energy source from the vacuum of space and eliminate our ability to control others and profit by waging war? Just speculation on my part unlike your hard evidence proofs Kevin.
If the origin of Moon Dust was associated with the launch of Sputnik, would there be any information about it in the Moonwatch Project archives at the Smithsonian? Moonwatch teams did excellent work in tracking the first satellites, including looking for re-entries. J. Allen Hynek was, of course, associated with Moonwatch as well as Blue Book.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Horace Smith