In these early months of 1952, reports of radar sightings increased
rapidly, most of these reports coming from the Air Defence Command.
Soon
after the Alaskan incident Ruppelt got a telephone call from the chief
of one of the sections of a civilian experimental radar laboratory in
New York State. Ruppelt's caller said, "Some damn odd things are
happening that are beginning to worry me." The lab technicians had
checked everything they could think of, but still they were getting
many anomalous returns of such scope definition and such performance
peculiarity that they thought that the Air Force ought to be informed
as soon as possible. Ruppelt, in a rather limp moment, told them to
send in a report by mail to ATIC.
The report duly arrived, hand-carried by no less than a General from
Headquarters, Air Material Command. He had been at the radar laboratory
and, hearing of these events, had offered personally to deliver the
report to Wright-Patterson. Since the report concerned radar, Ruppelt
was obliged to give the report to ATIC's electronics branch, where
unfortunately it fell into the hands of the old anti-UFO veterans of
the previous Projects Sign and Grudge. He tells us that the head of the
Electronics Branch lectured the head of the laboratory (a man who
possibly wrote the textbooks the staff of the Electronics Branch had
used in college) all about how a weather inversion can cause false
targets. He was gracious enough to tell the chief of the radar lab to
call if he had any more "trouble."
The lab was never heard from again.
This kind of event made Ruppelt even more determined to improve
relations with Air Defence Command Headquarters. He travelled to
Colorado Springs in early February with a definite plan of how ADC
could assist ATIC in getting better data on UFOs. Again, meeting the
higher intelligence of the bigger boys, he made much better progress
than with the lower-case, garage-limited elements of ATIC. In contrast,
for a middle ranking Air Force enlisted officer, he was received like
royalty:
I briefed General Benjamin W. Chidlaw,
then the Commanding General of the Air Defence Command, and his staff,
telling them about our plan. They agreed with it in principle and
suggested that I work out the details with the Director of Intelligence
for the ADC, Brigadier W.M. Burgess. General Burgess designated Major
Verne Sadowski of his staff to be the ADC liaison officer with New
Grudge.
The result of Ruppelt's visit was that ADC issued a directive to all
their units explaining the UFO situation and how to take appropriate
action. All
radar units equipped with scope cameras would be required to take
photographs of targets that the operators considered to be in the UFO
category. Such photos, along with a completed questionnaire, would
be forwarded to New Grudge. The Ground Observer Corps would be
integrated into the UFO reporting net, and individual controllers had
the option to scramble fighters when quite anomalous, definite and
bright returns were
registered.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=NARA-PBB85-614
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=NARA-PBB85-615