Twining memo (1947)

Twining memo (1947)

Date	23 September 1947
Topics	Crashes & retrievals (topic), Nuclear & missile sites (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic)
People	Nathan Twining, George Schulgen
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 39
Year	1947 in UFO history
Timeline	1947 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	12

The Twining memo is a letter of 23 September 1947 from Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining, commander of the Army Air Forces' Air Materiel Command (AMC) at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. Titled "AMC Opinion Concerning 'Flying Discs'", it gave the command's considered view that the flying discs then being reported were "something real and not visionary or fictitious".^[1][2] It also listed the objects' common features, weighed whether they might be secret American or foreign aircraft, and noted the "lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits". It recommended a formal, classified study with a code name, which became Project Sign.^[1][12] Once classified Secret, the memo was later released and printed as Appendix R of the Condon Report.^[2] It is genuine, unlike the disputed 1954 "Cutler–Twining memo" of the Majestic 12 papers.^[5]

Background

• The 1947 wave. The memo was written about three months after Kenneth Arnold's sighting of 24 June 1947, which set off a wave of "flying disc" reports.^[8]
• The request. The letter was addressed to the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, for the attention of Brigadier General George Schulgen of the air intelligence staff (AC/AS-2), who had asked for AMC's opinion.^[1][2]
• How the opinion was reached. The opinion was based on interrogation reports supplied by AC/AS-2 and on preliminary studies by AMC's intelligence section (T-2) and its Aircraft Laboratory (T-3). It was settled at a conference of staff from the Air Institute of Technology, T-2, the office of the Chief of the Engineering Division, and the Aircraft, Power Plant and Propeller Laboratories.^[1][2]
• The reference code. The letter carries the office symbol TSDIN and the reference "TSDIN/HMM/ig/6-4100".^[1][8]

The earlier version of this article said the memo is "often attributed to Colonel Howard McCoy, AMC's intelligence chief", on the strength of those reference initials. That attribution is not made in the sources read here, which give only the initials.^[1][8]

The opinions

Paragraph 2 of the memo set out AMC's views.^[1][2]

• Real. "The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious."^[2]
• Size and shape. There were objects "probably approximating the shape of a disc", large enough "to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft".^[1]
• Natural causes. Some incidents might be caused by natural phenomena such as meteors.^[1]
• Control. Extreme rates of climb, manoeuvrability "particularly in roll", and evasive action when sighted or tracked by friendly aircraft and radar "lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically or remotely".^[1]
• Common description. The objects were described as having a metallic or light-reflecting surface and no trail, except a few apparently operating "under high performance conditions". They were circular or elliptical, "flat on bottom and domed on top". There were several reports of well-kept formations of three to nine. They were normally silent, though a "substantial rumbling roar" was heard three times. Level speeds were estimated as normally above 300 knots.^[1][2]
• Could the US build one? With "extensive detailed development", the US could build a piloted aircraft of that description with a range of about 7,000 miles at subsonic speeds. But it would be "extremely expensive, time consuming" and should be set up apart from existing projects.^[1]

Three possibilities

The memo said "due consideration" must be given to three points.^[1][2]

• Domestic origin. The objects might be "of domestic origin – the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command".^[1]
• No crash evidence. There was a "lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects".^[2]
• Foreign propulsion. "Some foreign nation" might have "a form of propulsion possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge".^[1]

Recommendations

• A formal study. Twining recommended that Army Air Forces headquarters issue a directive giving "a priority, security classification and Code Name" to a detailed study.^[1]
• Sharing the data. Complete sets of data were to be shared for comment with the Army, the Navy, the Atomic Energy Commission, the "JRDB", the Air Force Scientific Advisory Group, NACA, and the RAND and NEPA projects.^[1][2]
• Regular reports. A preliminary report was to follow within 15 days and a detailed report every 30 days thereafter, with "a complete interchange of data".^[1]
• In the meantime. Pending a directive, AMC would continue to investigate "within its current resources" and draw up detailed "Essential Elements of Information".^[1]

According to the 2024 UFO timeline compiled by Michael Shellenberger for the House Oversight Committee, the letter "led to the creation of Project Sign", whose reports went to the bodies named in the memo. The timeline spells out NEPA as the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft project at Oak Ridge.^[12] (See Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book.) The earlier version of this article dated Sign's launch to January 1948, a date not given in the sources read here.

How it became public

• Ruppelt. According to the Wikipedia account, Edward Ruppelt's book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects was the first to reveal the memo. Its general tone was that the objects were not weather or astronomical phenomena but warranted further investigation.^[4][3]
• Condon Report. The full text appears as Appendix R of the Condon Report, "Letter from General N. F. Twining to Commanding General, Army Air Forces".^[2]
• Transcriptions online. The original, marked Secret and numbered U-39552, is transcribed by Project 1947, and scans are held by NICAP and others.^[1][7][8]
• Other sources. A 2020 Skeptical Inquirer article on "General Nathan F. Twining and the flying disc problem of 1947" is listed for this article but could not be read. A CUFOS copy of an Air Force Roswell report, and the pages of Timothy Good's Above Top Secret cited by the timeline, were also not read.^{[6][9][10][11]}

Nathan Twining

• Career. Twining was a "mustang" officer who rose from private to four-star general.^[3]
• In 1947. After the Second World War he became commander of AMC, and in 1947 he took over Alaskan Air Command.^[3]
• Later posts. He was Chief of Staff of the Air Force from 1953 to 1957 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1957 to 1960, the first airman to hold that post.^[3]

Significance and confusion

• The founding document. The memo is widely treated as the founding document of official US military UFO investigation, the starting point of Sign, Grudge and Blue Book.^[8]
• The Cutler–Twining memo. It is often confused with the so-called "Cutler/Twining memo", a supposed note of 14 July 1954 from Eisenhower's aide Robert Cutler to Twining that mentions Majestic 12. That paper was "found" in the National Archives in 1985 after anonymous tips to the ufologists Jaime Shandera and Bill Moore.^[5]
• Why it is doubted. The National Archives noted that it was found among unrelated papers, and bore a "Top Secret Restricted Information" marking not used until the Nixon administration. It was typed on "dictation onionskin", referred to a National Security Council meeting that did not happen, and was dated when Cutler was overseas. It is widely held to be a forgery.^[5]
• The crash-evidence line. The memo's reference to a "lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits" is often cited in arguments about the Roswell incident a few months earlier. The congressional timeline reads it simply as stating that no such evidence had been found "to date".^[12] The earlier version of this article said some researchers take this as evidence that no crash recovery had happened, while others argue Twining's staff were not told. That debate is not set out in the sources read here.

The congressional timeline describes the letter as written "to AAF Commanding Gen. George Schulgen". In fact it was addressed to the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, for the attention of Brigadier General Schulgen.^[1][12]

People and topics

• Nathan Twining — Commander of Air Materiel Command who wrote the 1947 memo calling the flying discs "something real".
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
• George Schulgen — Air Force intelligence general who asked for the 1947 Twining memo and issued the Schulgen memo on flying discs.
• U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
• Department of Energy — The U.S. department that runs the nuclear weapons laboratories.
• Project Sign — The Air Force's first formal UFO study (1948), whose staff reportedly favoured an interplanetary explanation.
• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• Condon Report — Condon Report
• MJ-12 — Disputed documents describing a secret committee managing crashed saucers.
• Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.

On the Timeline

• 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.
• Hillenkoetter letter of 24 September 1947 (24 September 1947) — A letter attributed to the CIA director allegedly names Air Force and Navy intelligence units as leads on recovered objects.

See every 1947 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Nathan F. Twining”, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects”, “Majestic 12”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.