One thing should be dispensed with right at the beginning: that is the viewpoint that no such thing as an extraterrestrial Estimate ever happened. We have three intelligence operatives who are on record as having seen a copy of it {Edward Ruppelt; Harry Woo of the Photo Interpretation Center team which analyzed the Tremonton films and presented that analysis to the Robertson Panel; and Dewey Fournet, who occupied the UFO desk in the Ruppelt era}. One of these {Fournet} gave a succinct affidavit to NICAP once he was out of the service. It is reproduced [from an originally-signed copy out of NICAP files] at the left. It also mentions that he himself did a study of [details not mentioned but known elsewhere] UFO motions, which was never "published", even internally, and denied as to having ever existed by the Air Force. The Estimate was said to be ordered to be destroyed, but that word has a funny context when you are speaking about secret documents copies may be destroyed but the reports seem to remain in files nevertheless.
"People are of differing opinions as to when the Estimate actually was written. It doesn't make any difference but gives people something to argue about. the controversy seems in part due to Donald Keyhoe remarking that he saw/heard about the Estimate being composed in August 1948. I doubt it. McCoy would likely have given the Pentagon early warning about this document that early, but the real presentation of the thing would be later. Again it's of no importance, because either way it began a mini-project in the Pentagon to counter it. Even then, there seemed to be some lackadaisical behavior in Pentagon Intel until a full-blown confrontation was imminent in the late fall. By that time Jere Boggs with help [surprisingly] from the Office of Naval" Intelligence had constructed what I call the "Nemesis of The Estimate", Air Intelligence Report 100-203-79. [The title page, contents, and summary of which appear on the right.] This set up a situation in the Pentagon where two competing "estimates" [both in unfinished form] were making rounds in high places. The battle over the ETH was taking place not in one climactic confrontation but over weeks of time.
In the middle of this came the October 1 Fargo, ND "dogfight" incident, known most commonly as the "Gorman case". George Gorman, national guard pilot, engaged in a tricky chase with what seemed to be a small luminous source, sphere-like in nature. Another pilot, passenger, and tower control watched parts of this as well. Gorman, rightly or wrongly, had a strong feeling that the light source moved according to some form of intelligence. Project SIGN got right on this. Their investigation had an element in it which shows just what they were thinking: they had the plane tested for radioactivity. They were looking for the advanced ["extraterrestrial"] power source which was powering the Chiles-Whitted device and the disks. They didn't find it--no excess radioactivity. Captain Robert Sneider's report stated the thinking in question form: "from the technical analysis standpoint, to what degree is it possible to draw upon rumored present-day attainments [foreign or domestic] in the fields of equipment, propulsion, fuels, electronics (radar control), atomic research, and any other applicable field, to account for the aforestated flying characteristics attributed this small missile.....Is it plausible to assume possible interplanetary visitations?" SIGN was not doubting the Gorman case. They saw it as one more example of probable ET technology.
The Pentagon and the Boggs/Porter/Hearn [Hearn was Boggs' immediate boss] school were not amused. At this time probably occurred a mild form of the famous "slapping down" of the ETH for explaining the disks. The documents at the right tell part of that tale. [Hopefully you'll be able to read them upon clicking]. The letter in the upper left is from General Cabell telling SIGN what its job is. It admits that everyone has made the case that there is something really flying around that we don't understand. It specifically says that SIGN must exert more effort to find out what they are. But in a veiled threat, it says: give us an estimate that says "domestic" or "foreign". And we want a reply now. Albert Deyarmond then writes SIGN's response for McCoy's signature. This response, given the heat that they're taking over the ET estimate, is interesting. They begin by saying that it's obvious that things are flying around, and then brag about everything that they've been doing to do their job. They don't come out directly in the face of Cabell, but refuse to give up on the ET idea ["the possibility that the reported objects are vehicles from another planet has not been ignored."] But, with political-correctness in this formal letter, they say that they have no "tangible" [read: parts of a crashed disk] to prove that. They follow that remark up, however by saying that they have found a relationship between disk waves and the approach of planetary bodies. They are, in my opinion, doing everything they can to tell the Pentagon:we're not backing off the ETH.
SIGN in their "optimism"/stubbornness was really naive. Can you imagine what Cabell was thinking when he thought of going to Vandenberg and telling him: oh, Van, we've concluded that flying disks are from other planets, and it's your job to decide how you're going to break it to the President and the rest of the military. And, uh, we don't have any tangible evidence to back that up, like a little alien in a jar. To think that the Pentagon would accept such an estimate [even if it seemed correct--and there was plenty of room to debate] was, in a way, stunning. Still, SIGN was making it obvious that they were not going to cave in. This caused there to be scheduled on November 12th, at the National Bureau of Standards, a gunfight at the OK corral, between SIGN and the analysis division of the Pentagon. We don't know who attended except that Robert Sneider brought the case for the defense [with, doubtless, the formally written-up ET Estimate in hand] and Jere Boggs brought the case for the prosecution [with AIR-100-203-79 in hand]. As we know, SIGN lost.
This defeat [probably in front of many of the players that we've been mentioning--McCoy, Clingerman, most of SIGN, USAF Collections {Garrett, Taylor et al}, USAF Analysis {Moore, Porter, Hearn et al}, Charles Cabell, and very probably, Vandenberg himself. ] was the likely moment when Vandenberg did the famous and final "slapping down". This "Slapping" was a hard slap indeed. It came with the requirement that, from now on, SIGN would have to send all reports on to other areas of Air Force Intelligence [ex. the Scientific Advisory Board, in the person of George Valley of MIT, bottom left] AND to the Office of Naval Intelligence [from where it would get to the Office of Naval Research and to our favorite idiot there, Urner Liddel]. How embarrassing can it get! SIGN was being told: you can not be trusted to make a proper estimate, and we are assigning "adult supervision" to you. After the holocaust was over, Alfred Loedding had reason to visit SAB advisor Irving Langmuir [In the collage at the upper right] and was given an ego-spanking there too. Loedding said years later: "my stock in Washington was never so low".
"The effect at SIGN was dramatic. Whether all of these things had direct connection to the battle at the NBS or not, every senior member of the intelligence stack relating to SIGN shortly was removed. Both McCoy and Clingerman were given "school" assignments, and afterwards never returned to Wright-Pat in any capacity. Loedding, Deyarmond, Truettner stayed at AMC but were removed from the project. Project officer Sneider disappeared from my radar, but I know that he no longer had anything to do with the project. In a few months only the two lowest ranks on the team were left to head the new Project Grudge. George Towles was a civilian. The military "chief" was Lieutenant Howard W. Smith. SIGN's demise was probably inevitable, but it brought down the most talented group of people ever assigned to the Air Force's UFO beat. As engineers they, even if you feel they got it wrong, tried to analyze things scientifically/technically and this was rarely ever done again. From this point forward, "sympathy" towards UFOs was hard to express at Wright-Pat [although during the 1952 year one could do so in the Pentagon]. And the Pentagon had left the situation in an unstable position, for the winning side had promulgated a doctrine that the disks were real, and likely or at least possibly the products of advances on the aeronautical thinking of people like the Horten Brothers [of Germany in WW2 a picture of Reimar Horten is below.] That hypothesis could not stand as time went on, even though the AF kept giving it a try. Lieutenant Smith [seen as a cocky lieutenant during WW2 in the bottom picture] was called to Washington in 1949 or 1950 to brief people on UFOs and was in a meeting with Colonel Hearn. Hearn showed him the "Nemesis" and asked Smith what he thought of it. Smith said that he thought that it was worthless and illogical. That" turned out to be the right answer. Smith wrote the Grudge report saying that there was really nothing to UFOs--neither as to ETs nor to Russians. Smith retired a Colonel.
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