Flying Saucer Fever

By the beginning of 1950, the US Air Force was onto its second official UFO investigation program, namely Project Grudge. The first, Project Sign, had ended with a disagreement over an intelligence "estimate of the situation" regarding the origin of the phenomenon. Grudge appeared to have one goal only - to prove a domestic source for UFOs, with Russian technology as a strong contender. But were secret, high-technology Soviet Air Force reconnaissance aircraft running rings around the latest USAF jet interceptors throughout the late 1940s and the first years of the 1950s, or was something else going on?

In 1950, 1951 and early 1952, the number of pilot and aircrew UFO sightings dramatically increased, involving civilian airliner crews as well as air force personnel. Rather than being simply an American-centric phenomenon, UFOs were being reported across the globe by this point, with stories coming out of South America, Africa and the Far East. Descriptions of the mystery objects encountered differed dramatically in terms of shape, size and colour, not to mention performance and manoeuvrability. If a secret Russian aircraft had been to blame, it appeared to have chameleon-like qualities.

However, matters came to a head when Washington D.C. was effectively besieged by UFOs over two successive weekends in July 1952. Radar and visual sightings abounded, some by airliner crews operating out of the capital's airports and others by jet interceptor pilots scrambled to intercept the unknown objects. However, identification proved elusive and the air force's response in dispatching fighters was painfully slow. A hastily arranged press conference after the second round of sightings managed to pacify reporters but further encounters continued for the remainder of the year.

Just four months before the Washington incidents, the third official USAF UFO investigation program was established, namely Project Blue Book. Initially, it seemed to throw off the restrictive nature of Grudge in terms of trying to work out what was going on, but this state of affairs did not last. The USAF never did get to grips with what was happening in the skies they were supposed to defend.

Using air force intelligence reports written at the time, official analysis, newspaper stories and eyewitness accounts, this book tells the story of the various pilot and aircrew sightings between 1950 and 1952 in detail. It also describes Grudge's inability to explain these encounters and the establishment of Blue Book, plus the fall-out following the two Washington weekends. This tumultuous period that occurred just a few years after the start of the modern-day UFO phenomenon plays an important part in our limited understanding of a mystery that continues to the present day.

The foreword to Flying Saucer Fever was kindly written by Luis Elizondo, former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a much more recent attempt to investigate UFO sightings by members of the American armed forces.