Project Sign personnel in the T-2 Conference Room at Wright-Patterson AFB (1948).
Personnel from the left around the table:
- Lt. Col. Malcolm Seashore, chief of the Material Command Intelligence Technical Analysis (MCIAT)
- Unidentifiable person blocked by Seashore
- Lt. Col. J.J. Hausman
- Col. Howard McCoy, director of Air Material Command T-2 Intelligence Division
- Believed to be Capt. Robert Sneider, project officer under McCoy and Clingerman
- Believed to be Col. William Clingerman, executive officer for Material Command Intelligence Analysis (MCIA)
- John “Red” Honaker (with a pipe in his mouth), liaison to the AMC Commander Lt Gen. Nathan Twining.
The first Air Force Project to research the nature of UFOs.
Founded on December 30, 1947 by Maj Gen L C Craigie who issued an order creating a flying saucer investigation group to collect, collate, evaluate and distribute to interested government agencies and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security (Peebles, 19).
Project Sign was classified at the lowest rating, Restricted. The final report of Project Sign issued February 1949 was classified Secret, and contained a section by Dr. James Lipp which may constitute the first U.S. government sponsored study of extraterrestrial life.
Sidney Shallett of the Saturday Evening Post was given the assistance of the Air Force in writing a two-part anti-UFO article What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers. This article constitutes the first detailed public statements by the Air Force regarding flying saucers, and perhaps one of the first cases of officially produced UFO disinformation. (Peebles 40-41)