Project Sign Progress Report, 1948
One of the earliest formal military attempts to make sense of the UFO wave gripping postwar America, this progress report from Air Materiel Command documents 100 sightings collected between 1947 and 1948 — the raw casework behind Project Sign's short-lived, serious investigation. What makes this file stand out is the inclusion of a clipped article from *The Aeroplane* titled "The Biology of the Flying Saucer," a reminder that even mainstream aviation media was wrestling publicly with questions the military was quietly trying to answer behind closed doors.
This file contains an initial report from the Air Materiel Command regarding Project Sign. Project Sign was a 1948-1949 U.S. Air Force program to investigate the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFO). The report details 100 UFO sightings from 1947-1948. The file also contains an article excerpted from “The Aeroplane,” an aviation-focused periodical magazine published between 1911 and 1968, titled “The Biology of the Flying Saucer.”