War Department denial of a U.S. disc program (1947)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 19 August 1947 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Government programs (topic) |
| People | George Schulgen |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 38 |
| Year | 1947 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1947 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
In the summer of 1947 the FBI and Army Air Forces intelligence were trying to work out whether the flying discs could be a secret American weapon. Military intelligence chiefs repeatedly said they knew of no U.S. program that explained the reports.[1][2]
The denials
Brigadier General George Schulgen, chief of the Air Intelligence Requirements Division, who had asked the FBI in July 1947 to help locate and question witnesses, told the Bureau that the objects were not the result of any Army or Navy experiment. His staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel George Garrett, had privately suspected a secret U.S. project, and the FBI worried its work might be wasted if so; the assurances were meant to settle that question.[1][2][3]
What followed
The denials are part of why the earliest government files treat the discs as genuinely unexplained rather than as cover for a known project. On 23 September 1947 General Nathan Twining, head of Air Materiel Command, wrote to Schulgen that the phenomenon was "something real and not visionary or fictitious" and recommended a classified study, which became Project Sign. On 28 October 1947 Schulgen's office issued a memo asking intelligence officers to collect information on how the discs might be built and powered, on the theory that they could be foreign, perhaps Soviet, aircraft built with German know-how.[2][3][4]
The limits of a denial
Historians note that a flat denial at this level does not rule out highly secret projects that even intelligence officers were not cleared to know about. Project Mogul, the classified balloon program later linked to the Roswell debris, was one example: in 1994 the Air Force said Mogul's balloon trains, designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests, explained the material found near Roswell in June–July 1947.[4][5]
Status
The documented position of the War Department in 1947 was simply that it had no explanation for the reports.[1]
People and topics
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — The U.S. federal police agency, which helped check flying disc reports from 1947 to 1950.
- George Schulgen — Air Force intelligence general who asked for the 1947 Twining memo and issued the Schulgen memo on flying discs.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Project Mogul — A secret Army Air Forces program using balloon trains to detect Soviet nuclear tests, blamed by the Air Force for the Roswell debris.
- Roswell — The New Mexico town at the center of the 1947 crash story.
On the Timeline
- Garrett's suspicion of secret U.S. tests (1947) (19 August 1947) — An Air Force officer tells the FBI he suspects secret U.S. military tests explain some flying disc reports.
- Hillenkoetter MJ-12 memo of 19 September 1947 (19 September 1947) — A disputed memo attributed to CIA Director Hillenkoetter calls for a presidential directive and scientific study of the discs.
See every 1947 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- FBI flying disc file, section 3 (PDF), The Black Vault · documents3.theblackvault.com · archived copy
- Kevin Randle, "The UAP report and the mini estimate of the situation", A Different Perspective (Jun 2021) · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
- George F. Schulgen — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Project Sign — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Project Mogul — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- The FBI and UFOs — FBI.gov · fbi.gov · archived copy
- mysteriousuniverse.org · mysteriousuniverse.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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