tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post6624973657223040183..comments2024-03-28T15:55:33.435-07:00Comments on The Big Study: 1948: Jere Boggs Destroys The Estimate and Project SIGN.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811807639219365621noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-56653891463342574412010-02-09T11:23:25.207-08:002010-02-09T11:23:25.207-08:00To Alan: most of which you ask I'm not qualifi...To Alan: most of which you ask I'm not qualified to answer. The military at the time ,however, WAS in awe of scientists and the A-bomb project, or they wouldn't have given the "Nazi solution" the time-of-day. I believe that most of these guys came to a conclusion pretty quickly NOT that there was nothing to these sightings but that they weren't causing any trouble--at least that we could do anything about. Because of limited resources and severe budget fights, people like LeMay made the case that all of our effort must go to opposing the Soviets and the threat that we know. Only the intelligence community, which was forced by their duties to try to solve such mysteries to, as they said, "eliminate technological surprise", was lumbered with the unsolvable task of monitoring this stuff; But as time [rapidly] progressed had to do so without sufficient resources to make any difference [which it probably wouldn't have anyway, as we now know]. ---On question two: can't answer that in any intelligent way--too little facts at my disposal and not enough rein on my imagination. You know from the rest of the blog that I think that folkloric entities like Djinn have a reality basis and that would put them beyond Venusian plasma tails--but what do I know?The Professorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07811807639219365621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-45775696917158768592010-02-09T10:53:11.450-08:002010-02-09T10:53:11.450-08:00The real problem the Sign people and their opposer...The real problem the Sign people and their opposers both seem to've had was their explanations for the UFOs - foreign powers, visitors from other worlds - amounted to the same thing: someone has possession of technology not only superior to current US technical capabilities but also beyond our forseeable capacity to equal.<br /><br />Given how the US'd just developed the atomic bomb, the powers-that-be maybe either had a failure of imagination conceiving anyone could've outstripped them, or an attack of hubris that such a thing wasn't possible.<br /><br />But, Prof, I'm intrigued by this observation, "[they] found a relationship between disk waves and the approach of planetary bodies", bringing to mind the new knowledge about Venus having a sun-powered plasma 'tail' which, at time, all but touches Earth, and wonder what you make of the possibility the spheres of light which behaved as guided by intelligence might be electromagnetic lifeforms, perhaps even the source of ancient accounts of djinn?alanborkynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-83378435366215931592010-02-04T21:15:01.902-08:002010-02-04T21:15:01.902-08:00The above post was removed by me because I have no...The above post was removed by me because I have not a clue as to what it said. I assume that it was by some whacko as who else would post a post that it was unlikely that anyone in the english speaking world could read? If I'm wrong about that, I apologize, and would only suggest that the commenter honor the language of the blog and show some courtesy. But I really believe that this is the sort of juvenile pranksterism that is the stock and trade of an individual who is incapable of producing anything worthwhile and so reverts to destructive thuggism. Pathetic and a colossal waste of all our times. Sort of like Klass and Menzel when you think about it.The Professorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07811807639219365621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-48817041715561961022010-02-04T21:00:58.398-08:002010-02-04T21:00:58.398-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-31920423044972090812010-02-04T07:43:39.700-08:002010-02-04T07:43:39.700-08:00Facts noted. In the documents the main reason that...Facts noted. In the documents the main reason that the Intell people were giving for not believing the "soviet threat" concept was that its behavior wasn't making sense to them [i.e. flying a new weapons system over enemy territory and risking a crash and consequently giving their secrets away--or getting shot down]. That is why their thinking turned so quickly to psychological warfare--that the disks were going to be used not as an effective weapons system [they guessed that the soviets had made only a "shadow" of a truly operative fighter or delivery vehicle and even if it crashed we'd find out not a lot to advance our own aero-tech in a military sense] but rather as a panic-producing ploy in coordination with some other kind of attack. There is no one document that states this reasoning succinctly, by the way, but there are several which indicate the pieces of it. This is probably the source/basis of the Air Force always saying that the disks pose no threat [in and of themselves] to national security, but they DO present a threat to the orderly functioning of the public.The Professorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07811807639219365621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-79522186565001763032010-02-04T05:32:55.569-08:002010-02-04T05:32:55.569-08:00Great blog article. It makes me think how Ruppelt...Great blog article. It makes me think how Ruppelt did his best to lightly entertain the idea that a project's name had anything to do with its function or purpose. SIGN seems to be part of believing there might be something to these saucer reports, while GRUDGE seems to be just that - a GRUDGE, or the Air Force begrudgingly continuing to look into the mystery.<br /> Thanks for the blog - this definitely puts the "Estimate" in a more expanded and detailed context.Peter Saucerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349540965664679379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-24359220026923571782010-02-03T20:21:03.501-08:002010-02-03T20:21:03.501-08:00Professor, a quick correction/history lesson: with...Professor, a quick correction/history lesson: without getting into a bunch of boring aviation history, the Hortens actually built a number of powered aircraft modeled on their initial gliders (being seduced by the low drag/low 'wing loading' that a flying wing could offer). The most infamous was their jet-powered fighter which is reported to have flown well despite some instability and the use of unreliable engines (due to metallurgy problems the jet engines used by the Germans were good for roughly 20 hours of operation before needing to be replaced or failing outright). The top speed was designed to be over 600 mph.<br /><br />Additionally, the factory where the prototypes were assembled was in an area ceded to the Russians, so even though the brothers themselves weren't part of Paperclip's haul it was entirely possible that the Russians found other material relating to the flying wings.<br /><br />Additionally, Northrop had been developing the B-35/B-49 Flying Wing, part of the design process had been the construction of four single-man flying wings known as the N9M (one of which you can see in Chino, CA), and one of the characteristics of these wings was a tendency to 'hunt' for a stable flying position...which from a certain angle looks for all the world like either a porpoise OR (more importantly) as if the aircraft is skipping like a stone. <br /><br />Now this is sounding like Arnold's sighting, isn't it, especially when you realize that the estimated speed of the objects was just an estimate? To Boggs and his crew it was such a logical conclusion that somebody, somewhere, had advanced the state of the art in flying wing design that any other conclusions, like SIGN's Estimate, were seen as off-base. I think Boggs and company had already decided what the UFOs were; they were simply confused about the country of origin.<br /><br />Put yourself in their shoes and it's an easy mistake to make. I'd say it wasn't even a mistake but a good guess that turned out to be wrong.<br /><br />Sixty two years later, there aren't any aviation secrets left from that time period (even on the Russian side). No one was flying aircraft like that. <br /><br />It's odd to think that if the Horten brothers hadn't designed their aircraft maybe the Estimate would have been accepted.Steve Muisenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-12465069445567022182010-02-03T17:47:15.452-08:002010-02-03T17:47:15.452-08:00To Steve: thank you for speaking of things that UF...To Steve: thank you for speaking of things that UFO theorists need to understand. Just a small addition: most intelligence people really didn't believe that the Soviets had advanced Horten designs [The Horten Brothers were not part of their "haul" of Nazi scientists, and were well isolated from Soviet meddling]. Mainly Horten technology was oriented towards gliders and someone would have had to put a whale of a lot of breakthroughs together to create what the USAF was seeing. Still, there it was flying, so they had to take it seriously. In early 1952, this doubtful hypothesis was still very much in the minds of the Pentagon and caused the Special Study Group to make a european trip to gather intel about it. This whole business is [to my mind] very strong "proof" that the flying disk phenomenon was/is real--the AF was seriously concerned about it for several years despite not being able to come up with a solution no matter how hard they tried. What happened was basically exhaustion. No way to solve it; yet no harm done. The brass ultimately seem to have tossed up their hands and said: we've got better things to do. -----------------------------------------------------To Eric: I don't have any way to guess about Condon. He would not have to know. But he might. My guts tell me that they wouldn't include him if they could avoid it because he was thought of as a loose cannon back then.The Professorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07811807639219365621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-34236834175840162872010-02-03T16:46:20.818-08:002010-02-03T16:46:20.818-08:00Yow, I don't know why I wrote NRB. I meant NBS...Yow, I don't know why I wrote NRB. I meant NBS, of course. I might still have the RDB on my mind.Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-21285972133148327472010-02-03T16:43:50.608-08:002010-02-03T16:43:50.608-08:00I wonder if Edward Condon, as director of the NRB ...I wonder if Edward Condon, as director of the NRB at the time, would have been involved with that meeting that slapped down SIGN. He would at least have known about it, right?Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2019724693487670016.post-84563373105836765342010-02-03T15:44:01.423-08:002010-02-03T15:44:01.423-08:00Dear Professor,
Fascinating stuff!
I can unders...Dear Professor, <br /><br />Fascinating stuff!<br /><br />I can understand the 'Nemesis' side of things; the objects that Arnold sighted (and the object that Rhodes photographed) had more in common with the Horten designs than with flying 'discs'. <br /><br />On the surface, it looks like someone was flying Horten-inspired aircraft. If I'd been investigating back in 47-48 I'd reach that conclusion long before I'd even consider ETH.<br /><br />However, what often gets forgotten is that the Horten brothers flew *one* jet-powered flying wing (which crashed on its third flight) and that, like all flying wing designs of the day, it exhibited lateral instabilty (pivoting around its vertical axis from left to right). There's a reason that, with the exception of the Stealth bomber, there are no flying wings today; they're too hard to fly and need pretty sophisticated computers and software to keep them stable (Northrop learned that the hard way with the XB-35 and YB-49, the British learned it with the AW-52). <br /><br />At the time in question, though, flying wings hadn't been completely ruled out due to instability and they had distinct advantages over conventional designs.<br /><br />So I'd think that the Nemesis group reached a perfectly reasonable conclusion, one that made a lot more sense *at the time* than ETH. The fact that they turned out to be wrong wasn't really apparent until much later in the game.Steve Muisenoreply@blogger.com