User:Panyd/Estimate of the Situation

The Estimate of the Situation was a document supposedly written in 1948 by the personnel of United States Air Force's Project Sign -including the project's director, Captain Robert R. Sneider - which explained their reasons for concluding that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the best explanation for unidentified flying objects.

As late as 1960, USAF personnel stated that the document never existed. However, several Air Force officers, and one consultant, claim the report as being a real document that was suppressed. Jenny Randles and Peter Hough describe the Estimate as the "Holy Grail of ufology" and state that Freedom of Information Act requests for the document have been fruitless.

Chiles-Whitted Encounter
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Alfred Loedding and Col. Albert Deyarmond had been sent to interview Chiles and Whitted, and after reviewing the evidence believed that the craft that had been described could operate within the Prandtl Theory of Lift. However, the amount of power required to propel the craft was beyond the means of the US or Russia at the time, and as such, Project SIGN (and Alfred Loedding especially) were drawn to the conclusion that the craft was extraterrestrial in nature.

Crafting an Estimate report, if one had been written, would need to be done by November 12, 1948, when a review of the project was due in the National Bureau of Standards. Though the proceedings were closed, the opposing 'Estimate' from the Office of Defensive Air has been made available to the public. The author was Major Jere Boggs, the only confirmed attendee.

Captain Edward Ruppelt had noted that other sightings had been included in the Estimate - the last one being a sighting at the Los Alamos Laboratory who reported a sighting of a 'disk-like object' on the 23rd September.

According to Michael D. Swords, Sign personnel "intensely investigated" the Chiles-Whitted sighting for several months. Despite the lack of physical evidence, some Sign personnel judged this and other UFO reports quite persuasive, and concluded that UFOs could have only a non-earthly source.

Swords writes,

Given that there was no evidence that either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. had anything remotely like the UFOs reported, Sign personnel gradually began considering extraterrestrial origins for the objects.

Swords argues that this consideration of non-earthly origin was "not as incredible in intelligence circles as one might think." Because many in the military were "pilots, engineers and technical people" they had a "'can do' attitude" and tended to regard unavailable technologies not as impossibilities, but as challenges to be overcome. Rather than dismissing UFO reports out of hand, they considered how such objects might function. This perspective, argues Swords, "contrasted markedly with many scientists' characterizations of such concepts as impossible, unthinkable or absurd."

Proof
A 1958 letter from Major Dewey Fournet to NICAP confirmed the existence of two US Air Force documents that he had worked on, one of which was the Estimate. He emphasised that as these were classified, he could not release the contents of the reports.

Writing, submission and evaluation
Placeholder because there is nothing to do with it at all apart from Swords bloody 'writings'

Rejection
According to Ruppelt, the Estimate was rejected by Vandenberg primarily due to lack of supporting physical evidence, and was "batted back down" the chain of command. In a letter dated November 3, 1948, Cabell wrote to Sign, via McCoy, describing flying saucers as real, but rejecting the interplanetary hypothesis and asking for another Estimate.

Cabell wrote:

McCoy responded in a somewhat defensive letter dated November 8, 1948. He noted that many of the UFO reports were misidentified everyday phenomena (see Identified flying object), but also restated the rejected ideas of the Estimate without explicitly endorsing the interplanetary hypothesis; as Swords writes," [Project Sign] just had their knuckles rapped, so they defended themselves."

McCoy wrote,

When Sign personnel refused to abandon the interplanetary hypothesis, many were reassigned, and Sign was renamed Project Grudge in 1949. According to Ruppelt, "The Estimate died a quick death. Some months later it was completely declassified and relegated to the incinerator. A few copies, one of which I saw, were kept as mementos of the golden days of the UFOs."

Publicity
The first public report of the Estimate was in Captain Edward J. Ruppelt's 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.

He wrote:

Clark notes that "No copies of this near-legendary document have surfaced since."

Ruppelt's 1956 book, which first publicly disclosed the Estimate, was cleared by the Air Force. Clark writes, that as late as 1960, Air Force officials denied that the Estimate was real, despite the fact that censors had approved Ruppelt's book a few years before. According to Clark, the U.S. Air Force later formally admitted the Estimate was real, but Clark's bibliography does not make clear what statement or document confirmed the Estimate's reality.

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In the 1950's, Marine Corps aviator Donald Keyhoe participated in The Armstrong Circle Theatre for CBS. The program was supposed to present a number of views on the UFO phenomenon from various members of the military and intelligence community. Chiles, of the Chiles-Whitted Encounter, pulled out of the show unexpectedly, as did Edward Ruppelt. Kenneth Arnold refused to attend at the last minute, claiming that the program 'seemed like an Air-force rigged program'.

This gave Donald Keyhoe 11 minutes to speak on camera, five more than was initially planned, and he intended to discuss the 'Estimate' as part of an overarching criticism of transparency with regards to UFOs. However, on arrival he was given a script, approved by the US Air Force, that had this detail scrubbed as a matter of 'national security'. Deviating from the script regardless, Keyhoe managed three sentences before the audio feed was cut.

Making a second television appearance on The Mike Wallace Interview two months later, Keyhoe again attempted to discuss the Estimate. ---

Additionally, according to Clark, the Estimate's existence was confirmed by U.S. Air Force Major Dewey J. Fournet, who as an Air Force major in the Pentagon served as liaison with official UFO project headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Fournet has been described as being "unimpressed" with the Estimate, and was furthermore quoted as describing the ET conclusion as an "extreme extrapolation" based on scant evidence.

An Air Force consultant, astronomer Dr. Allen Hynek, also verified the Estimate’s existence.