Disputed

The 'Estimate of the Situation'

Catalog FG-011When Late summer 1948Where Project Sign, Wright Field, Ohio

A report said to conclude the saucers were interplanetary, then ordered destroyed.

According to Captain Edward Ruppelt, who later ran Project Blue Book, Project Sign staff wrote a top secret estimate arguing that some saucers were interplanetary craft. Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg rejected it for lack of proof, and copies were reportedly burned. Project Sign was replaced by the more dismissive Project Grudge in 1949.

Weigh the evidence

The ledger

What the record shows, what people say, and the best explanation available so far.

What's documented

  • Ruppelt described the estimate in his 1956 book.
  • The shift from Sign to Grudge is on the record.

What's claimed

  • Proof the Air Force privately concluded UFOs were alien.

Best explanation so far

No copy has ever surfaced. Whether it existed as described depends on secondhand accounts.

Where to look

Check the sources

Go to the originals. Every link opens the archive or record in a new tab.