On July 30 1947 Brigadier General George Schulgen asked Air Materiel Command for an appraisal of the fast-moving "flying discs" then alarming defense planners.1 Nathan Twining and his T-2 intelligence engineers gathered radar plots, pilot interviews, and technical evaluations, producing the reply dated September 23 1947. The memorandum opens with a terse judgment: the phenomenon is "something real and not visionary or fictitious."2
Technical Observations
Witness data distilled at Wright Field pointed to distinctive performance traits:
- Circular planform with estimated diameters of 15–30 meters.
- Dome-shaped canopy on the upper surface, absent tail assemblies.
- Bright metallic finish, often accompanied by a blue-white glow along the rim.
- Near-silent propulsion during level flight.
- Rapid climb, abrupt acceleration, and tight banking without stall.
Engineers dismissed meteorological balloons and conventional aircraft. They weighed three working hypotheses: a classified domestic project, a Soviet development, or an unknown natural phenomenon. None could be confirmed within the evidence available in 1947.
Institutional Response
Twining directed that all commands adopt a standard sighting form, forward material debris to Wright Field, and keep photographic negatives for technical study.3 His recommendations shaped Project Sign in January 1948 and set the framework followed by Project Grudge and Project Blue Book over the next two decades.
Archival Trail
The memo circulated under security classification "SECRET" until the late-1960s Blue Book declassification review. Higher-resolution scans reached scholars in the 1970s through Freedom of Information Act requests. The carbon original now rests in National Archives Record Group 342, Entry 214, Box 273.4
Scholarly Assessment
Historians such as Michael Swords and David Jacobs treat the memorandum as a policy watershed: senior Air Force leadership publicly conceded that unconventional aerial objects demanded sustained technical analysis, even while their origin remained unknown. The single sentence "real and not visionary" continues to inform debates inside contemporary defense and scientific communities.