Description

LeMay, as the Army Air Forces’ Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development, was telling A-2 intelligence that AAF R&D had no such research project and that the “flying saucer” reports not matched any secret or known AAF research project at the time.

This is not necessarily a “never before seen” document, because versions of this correspondence have circulated in UFO research circles before and have been cited in historical UFO literature.

But this copy is important and huge, because it appears in the fresh newly released documents by the Department of War official UAP disclosure release package with a fresh official provenance/context, acknowledging it as an authentic government held record.

18\_100754\_ General 1946-7\_Vol\_2

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AF HQ-33 (20 MAY 44)

RESTRICTED

HEADQUARTERS ARMY AIR FORCES

ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET

SUBJECT: Flying Saucer Phenomena

TO: Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research & Development

DATE 22 August 1947

FROM: AC/AS-2, Air Intelligence Requirements Division
Collection Branch

COMMENT No. 1
Lt Col Garrett/nc/7544

1. From a detailed study of certain reported observations on the flying saucers, selected for their veracity and reliability, it is apparent that several aspects of their appearance have a common pattern.

2. Before pursuing its investigation of these objects any further, this Office requests assurance that no research project of the Army Air Forces, at present being test-flown, has the following characteristics and that it may therefore be assumed the recent flying saucer "mystery" is not of United States origin:

a. Surface is metallic -- indicating a metallic skin, at least.

b. When a trail is observed, it is a lightly colored blue-brown haze, similar to a rocket engine's exhaust. Contrary to a rocket of the solid type, one observation indicates that the fuel may be throttled, which would indicate a liquid rocket engine.

c. As to shape, all observations state that the object is circular, or at least elliptical, flat on the bottom and slightly domed on the top.

d. Size estimates place it somewhere near the size of a C-54 or Constellation as they would appear while flying at 10,000'.

e. Some reports describe two tabs located at the rear and symmetrical about axis of flight motion.

f. Flights have been reported containing from three to nine objects, flying in good formation on each other, with speeds always above 300 knots.

g. The discs oscillate laterally while flying along, which could be snaking.

ROBERT TAYLOR 3RD
Colonel, Air Corps
Chief, Collection Branch
Air Intelligence Requirements Division
AC/AS-2

RESTRICTED

For those who don't know, for some later context, about what Senator Barry Goldwater said about Curtis E. LeMay.

Barry Goldwater's own 1975 letter says that he had tried to access the Wright-Patterson UFO/“Blue Room” material “about ten or twelve years ago.” Since the letter is dated March 28, 1975, that points to roughly 1963-1965 Curtis LeMay was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force (4 star general) from 1961 to 1965, so Goldwater was talking about a conversation during LeMay’s top Air Force period.

He later described the LeMay confrontation publicly in 1988. Goldwater later repeated the story publicly. In a reported Larry King radio interview on October 13, 1988, Goldwater said he went to his old friend General Curtis LeMay and asked about the room at Wright-Patterson. He said LeMay used “pretty plain language” and, in effect, told him to “go to hell.”



My speculation on the compartmentalized Roswell Crash that only happenned weeks before this document was written:

If Roswell involved real recovered exotic material and it was taken to Wright Field, then I do not think “Air Materiel Command knew nothing” is realistic. Somebody inside Wright Field / AMC would almost certainly have known, because that was the logical technical evaluation destination.

The more realistic question is: who inside AMC knew, and how widely was it shared?

AMC was a large command. “AMC knew” does not mean every AMC division, branch, report writer, or liaison officer knew. A small restricted cell inside Wright Field could have handled the material under special security while the normal Air Force bureaucracy continued operating outside that compartment.

In that scenario, Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, as commander of Air Materiel Command, is one of the people who plausibly could have known, or at least could have known that a highly sensitive technical exploitation matter existed. If anything exotic was physically stored or studied at Wright Field under AMC authority, Twining is much harder to exclude than lower-level staff officers.

But that still does not mean the broader AMC organization knew the full story.

The same applies to AC/AS-2, the Army Air Forces intelligence staff. Brig. Gen. George Schulgen’s A-2 office was clearly involved in collecting and evaluating flying saucer reports. But under a compartmented scenario, the Collection Branch might have been working the general saucer report problem without being read into a crash recovery program. They may have known “there are serious unexplained reports,” but not “there is recovered material in a restricted Wright Field compartment.”

That could explain why AC/AS-2, LeMay’s R&D staff, and later AMC paperwork could still ask normal questions like:

“Are these reports connected to any Army Air Forces research project?”

And LeMay’s office could still answer:

“The Army Air Forces has no research project with the characteristics described in Comment No. 1.”

That answer would not necessarily rule out a recovered object, because a recovered object would not have to be categorized as an official AAF “research project.” It could have been treated as technical exploitation, intelligence materiel, foreign/exotic materiel analysis, or some other restricted compartment.

So my view is:

If Roswell material really went to Wright Field, then selected people inside AMC almost certainly would have known. Twining is one of the most plausible senior officers who could have been briefed. But the broader AMC bureaucracy, AC/AS-2 Collection Branch, and LeMay’s regular R&D staff channel might still not have known the full crash recovery picture.

That makes the 1947 paper trail interesting to me. It could show the visible AAF intelligence and R&D bureaucracy being told:

No known Army Air Forces research project matches the saucer reports.

But that is not exactly the same thing as proving:

No recovered object existed.


About LeMay with Roswell:

He could have been briefed as early as August 1947, but the document does not prove that.

If he was not briefed then, the most plausible later time would be when he became Vice Chief of Staff, and especially when he became Chief of Staff of the Air Force from 1961-1965.

By the time of the Goldwater “Blue Room” story, LeMay was high enough that he could plausibly have known about any deeply compartmented Wright-Patterson UFO related program, if such a program existed.