Somewhere in the Skies - Project Grudge and the Fort Monmouth UFO Incident

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

On episode 350 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we dig deep into the early files of Project Grudge. Intended to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs and persuade the public that UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary, Project Grudge sought to explain away UFO sightings. Officials recommended that the project be reduced in scope because the very existence of Air Force interest encouraged people to believe in UFOs. Eventually, the Air Force announced the project's termination in December of 1949. However, it would come to light that it was actually still in operation, albeit covertly, until late 1951. And one of the cases investigated was that of the Fort Monmouth UFO in New Jersey. Buried deep in what many believe was a coverup, the most detailed version would come to light through the words of the man who ran Project Grudge, and eventually, Project Blue Book; Edward J. Ruppelt. This episode was co-written and researched by Marcus Lowth. To learn more, visit: UFOinsight.com Special thanks to our voiceover talents: Bryce Johnson: https://brycejohnson.actor/ John Rearick: https://www.johnrearickactor.com/ Jeff Bugonian: https://pacificvoiceover.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies PayPal: [e-mail] Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2024. Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before the official UFO investigation by the United States Air Force, known as Project Blue Book, there was Project Grudge. Project Grudge was intended to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs and persuade the public that UFOs constituted nothing unusual or extraordinary. The Air Force interest in flying saucers has been due to our feeling of an obligation to identify, and analyze to the best of our ability, anything in the air that may have the possibility of threat or menace to the United States. In pursuit of this obligation since 1947, we have received and analyzed between one and two thousand reports that have come to us from all kinds of sources. Of this great mass of reports, we have been able adequately to explain the great bulk of them, explain them to our own satisfaction.

We've been able to explain them as hoaxes, as erroneously identified friendly aircraft, as meteorological or electronic phenomena, or as light aberrations. However, there have been a certain percentage of this volume of reports that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things.

It is this group of observations. It is this group of observations that we now are attempting to resolve. Officials recommended that the project be reduced in scope because the very existence of Air Force interest encouraged people to believe in the UFOs. Eventually, the Air Force announced the project's termination in December of 1949. However, it would come to light that it was actually still in operation,

albeit covertly until late 1951. And one of the cases investigated was that of the Fort Monmouth UFO in New Jersey, a case that was buried deep in the files of Project Grudge, only to be led out into the light

some decades later. This is Project Grudge in the Fort Monmouth UFO incident. Look, regardless of what I say, or what the Air Force says or what anyone says, we are stuck with flying saucers. And as long as people report unidentified objects in the air, it's the Air Force's responsibility to explain them.

This is somewhere in the skies with Brian Sprague. On the morning of September 10th, 1951, at 1118 in the morning, at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, an Army Signal Corps student radar operator, Eugene Clark noticed something strange on his radar monitor. An unidentified object that moved so fast, the automatic setting mode couldn't keep up with it. If he had wanted to keep this anomaly to himself, he had little opportunity. By pure coincidence, several visiting high-ranking officers stood right behind his station when the object showed up on his screen.

All watched in with much amazement. The object took only seconds to travel up the northeast coast of the U.S. Estimates were suggested that it was traveling at a speed of at least 700 miles per hour. The strange object would disappear off the radar screen somewhere near Sandy Hook, and very close to New York City. Urgent and dramatic debate filled the room immediately following. Then, 17 minutes later, at 1135 a.m., came a visual sighting just south of Sandy Hook. And what's more, the witnesses were two U.S. Air Force pilots in the air in their T-33 jet.

The pair, Lieutenant Wilbert Rogers, who piloted the jet, and Major Edward Ballard, Jr., who was in the rear seat, were flying northward at an altitude of about 20,000 feet over Point Pleasant, New Jersey. They were heading towards Sandy Hook when they encountered the mystery craft. Rogers would state the following. We gave chase the object for over 30 miles, which according to our estimates, traveled in excess of 900 miles per hour. I don't know if it was a flying saucer, but it sure is how it was something I'd never seen before. It was as they made their way towards Sandy Hook that Rogers,

spotted the object. It was a dull silvery object. It passed beneath us, and it was moving in the opposite direction. I'd estimated it to be around 12,000 feet below our height, which would have put it at an altitude of around 8,000 feet. I tilted the plane slightly to the left to keep the objects in sight and get a better look. That's when I noticed it was disc-shaped, and had to be between 30 to 50 feet wide. All the while, the conversation between Rogers and the control tower was constant.

and alerting the tower of the strange craft. By the time the object had completed a 90-degree turn, it was obvious it was heading out towards the sea. But Rogers wasn't done with trying to figure out what it was. I tended to follow it. I lowered my altitude to 17,000 feet, still about 10,000 feet above the object. But even then, I was losing pace with it.

Whatever it was, it was unbelievably fast. Rogers tried to accelerate enough to keep up. with the object, but as soon became clear that whatever it was, it was just too quick. It eventually disappeared out of sight. Based on the report's notes of the radar operator during the initial sighting, the operator commented on how unusually strong the radar return was on the object, so strong in fact that it was comparable to what was usually received from a coastal ship. The operator in question had first believed the return was from a ship off the east coast of the United States.

Only when he noticed just how fast the object was moving, did he realize this clearly was not some sort of ship on the water. Whatever it was, it wasn't only moving extremely fast, but it was massive in size. In fact, so fast was this object moving that radar operators had to switch to manual tracking in order to hold the target. They would continue to do this for the maximum tracking range of 32,000 yards. Furthermore, the object was moving at a speed several hundred miles per hour,

higher than the maximum added tracking ability of the radar sets. That it might have been an incident due to radar operator error was ruled out, as both operators quite obviously tracked the same object and experienced the same difficulties in doing so. that the two operator sightings was the same object seen by two experienced aircraft pilots is almost beyond doubt. Only hours after the incident on the afternoon of September 10th, another sighting occurred. At 3.15 p.m., once more at Fort Monmouth, an excited almost frantic call came from headquarters directly to the radar control room. They were to pick up a target in the same place where the mysterious object had vanished earlier, and they were to pick it up in a hurry.

When they did so, it was traveling slowly at 93,000 feet. Furthermore, they would have several officers go outside to attempt visual identification. Shockingly, they could indeed see the object as a silver speck in the afternoon sky. The next day, yet another pair of radar sightings took place. Neither could be tracked automatically, such was their speed. But both would climb, level off, climb again, and then go into a dive. When it climbed, it went almost straight up, certainly not the behavior that could be attributed to any known conventional aircraft of its day. The second sighting was, like the previous afternoon, of a much slower object,

which remained in range for several minutes before it too vanished. And with that, the Fort Monmouth events were seemingly over. However, the official investigation into those events was not. Project Grudge would have the final say. And they just so happened to have just selected, a new director. An Air Force captain who was ready to take this case on with a skeptical yet open mind. This would be Captain Edward J. Ruppelt. In his 1956 book, the report on unidentified flying objects, Captain Ruppelt would state the following about his role in Project Grudge and his perspective on the Fort Monmouth event.

as it played out. Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarde and called me into his office. The colonel was chief of the aircraft and missiles branch, and one of his many responsibilities was Project Grudge. He said that he knew that I was busy as leader in my regular group, but if he gave me enough people, he asked me if I could take on Project Grudge. All he wanted me to do was get it straightened out in operating,

then I could go back to trying to outguess the Russians. He threw in a few nice comments about the good job I'd done straightening out the other fouled-up projects. So with my ego sufficiently inflated, I said yes. Thrown to the wolves to make sense of the Fort Monmouth incident, and several other incidents at the time, repelled while on assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, recalled the following about that day. A teletype machine began to chatter out a message.

36 inches of paper rolled out of the machine before the operator ripped off the copy, stamped it operational immediate, and gave it to a special messenger to deliver to air technical intelligence center. The report was from the Army Signal Corps radar center at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and believe me when I tell you, it was red hot. The copy of the message had also gone to Washington. Before everyone could fully digest the 36 inches of facts, A-TIC's new chief, Colonel Frank Dunn, got a phone call. It came from the office of the Director of Intelligence of the Air Force,

Major General C.P. Cabell. General Cabell wanted somebody from A-TIC to get to New Jersey and fast, to find out what was going on. As soon as the reports had been thoroughly investigated, the general said that he wanted a complete personal report on his desk as soon as possible. In a matter of hours, Lieutenant Cummings and Lieutenant Colonel N.R. Rosengarde were on an airliner, New Jersey bound.

The two officers worked around the clock interrogating the radar operators, their instructors, and the technicians at Fort Monmouth. The pilot who had chased the UFO in the T-33 trainer and his passenger were flown to New York, and they talked to Cummings and Rosengarden. All other radar stations in the area were checked, but their radars hadn't picked up anything unusual.

At about 4 a.m., the second morning after they had arrived, the investigation was completed. Cummings and Rosengarde flew back to the Pentagon by 10 a.m. where they were to give their report of the incident to the top brass, primarily Major General Charles Cabell, the actual creator

of the original Project Grudge. Wuppelt attended the meeting and noted the members present and the nature of this highly anticipated meeting. Major General Cabell presided over the meeting and it was attended by his entire staff, plus Lieutenant Cummings, Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarde,

and a special representative from Republic Aircraft Corporation. The man from Republic supposedly represented a group of top U.S. industrialists and scientists who thought that there should be a lot more sensible answers coming from the Air Force regarding UFOs.

But as the meeting went on, those sensible answers weren't so popular. Every word of the two-hour meeting was recorded on a wire recorder. The recording was so hot that it was later destroyed. I can't tell everything that was said, but to be conservative, it didn't exactly follow the debunking tone of the official Air Force releases. And many of the people present at the meeting weren't as convinced that the old

hoax, hallucination, and misidentification answer was sufficient. Something more was going on, something we needed to investigate thoroughly. and the Fort Monmouth incident would prove to be the beginning of that meticulous approach to UFO investigations moving forward. The report given to Cabell that day on the Monmouth incident would state the following. According to the final report by Lieutenant Cummings and Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarten, the UFO that the student radar operator had assumed to be traveling at a terrific speed because he couldn't lock onto it turned out to be a 400-mile-an-hour conventional air. plane. He'd just gotten fouled up on his procedures for putting the radar set on automatic tracking.

The siding by the two officers in the T-33 jet fell apart as well when Metcher showed how they'd seen a balloon. The second radar sighting of the series also turned out to be a balloon. The frantic phone call from headquarters requesting a reading on the object's altitude was to settle a bet. Some officers in headquarters had seen the balloon launched and were betting on how high it was. The second day's radar sightings were caused by another balloon in weather. Air Force records would be discovered that did indeed show that military balloons were in the same location as the T-33 jet. However, they indicate that their altitude was much higher than that of the anomalous object. In fact, they were almost at the same height as the jet itself at 18,000 feet.

Furthermore, as opposed to descending, both balloons would continue to rise until a height of 104,000 feet, where they promptly would burst. While this would be the final conclusion by Project Grudge on the Fort Monmouth incident, the pilots would remain steadfast with their initial claims of a disc-shaped craft. Hey everyone, Ryan Sprague here, host of Somewhere in the Skies. If you've ever thought about supporting us, we have great two easy options for you right now. If you listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, you can click the subscribe button at the top of your Apple feed. Or you can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Both of these options give you the same benefits, early access to the main show, bonus episodes and content, and priority to ask our guests. your listener questions.

So to help support Somewhere in the Skies, click that subscribe button on Apple or visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you so much for your support. And keep looking up. Mommy. A Lego Duplo set is a gift that always clicks. Let's go.

And clicks. And clicks. For all the kids who love to stack and play, Choose a Lego Duplosec, a gift that always clicks. Although we know today the timeline of the incident surrounding the Fort Monument incident at the time, the full intention was to keep the incident well away from the press until it had been seen by Major General Charles Cabell. This was in accordance with several new and, in reality, rushed regulations in response to sightings of unconventional aircraft by Air Force personnel. Not only were they to report such sightings immediately, but reports should be maintained at a strict confidential level, until other instructions were received.

In short, knowledge of any incidents should be denied and certainly not pass to the press or media. However, it would appear whether through error or purposeful leaking details of the incidents involving the T-33 jet, found their way to the press. And this happened long before General Cabell was aware of the details of the incident himself. As imagined, he was not too happy. It wasn't merely the press who showed interest in sightings of UFOs. There were many other people in the background, each with their own agendas who would come to the surface amid the sightings over Fort Monmouth.

As mentioned by Repelt about those present at the Pentagon Media, were representatives from Republic Aircraft Corporation. They would be confirmed to have been Robert Johnson and one Mr. Brewster, an American aircraft manufacturer out of Long Island, New York. Both were rumored to have unusually tenacious interest in many UFO sightings of the early 1950s, and this was certainly the case with the Fort Monmouth incident. Both men would seek permission from the eastern eastern...

Air Defense Command to speak with the two pilots from the T-33 jet, and they were in fact given permission to do so. And on September 20th, still before Cabell knew all the details of the case, Johnson and Brewster would speak privately with the pilots about what they'd seen. It would very much seem that Cabell was also a friend to those who wished to get to the bottom of the UFO mystery, and was so since the rise of such sight. in the late 1940s. Cabell initially appeared happy to let those under him at the Advanced Technology Intelligence Center deal with the UFO reports on his behalf. However, by late 1950 to early 1951, it seems he was not only concerned with the increased number of sightings, but also of the

apparent lack of commitment to properly investigate them. This is where Repelt would truly shine, and keep Cabell in the know of every single case and investigated procedure. He was so adamant on proper investigation that he would issue orders that he was to, quote, be awakened during the middle of the night if he was needed. But not only that, he would actively confront those who he saw as conspiring to kill the UFO project. Returning to the press leak issue, though it is mere speculation, perhaps the leak was done not by those wishing to get the truth out to the population, but by those retaining that very information.

Perhaps in some sort of damage control exercise, the leaking of the case to the press, while divulging certain details of the incident, would take control away from Cabell, who very likely wouldn't settle for the balloon explanation either. Perhaps then, that is why it was a full 18-dosephemy, days after the leak of information to the press that Cabell learned of such a leak. This, despite it having made headlines in several national newspapers, perhaps most notably

the New York Daily Times. And it wasn't just Cabell that required information from ATIC. The Air Defense Command required a final report on the sightings involving their own pilots. In military circles at the time, and even more today with drone technology, UFOs and flying saucers are two completely different things. And at least for the vast majority of U.S. armed forces, flying saucers are of little concern. UFOs, on the other hand, were of immense interest, and this was never truer than in the days of the Cold War, when these strange crafts could be top-secret Soviet spy planes, or worse. That being said, however, they didn't ignore the Flying Sosser reports completely,

especially the ones where credible evidence was available, or multiple credible witnesses were prepared to speak publicly on their encounters. Once again in his book, Repel, would have this to say. The success with the Ford Monmouth incident had gone to our heads, and we were convinced that with a little diligent digging, we'd be knocking off saucers like an ace skeet shooter.

Ruppelt and his newly diligent crew at Project Crutch would go on next to investigate the famous Lubbock Lights incident of August and September of 51, with the Fort Monmouth incident firmly behind them. But the pilots at Fort Monmouth would insist. assist the mystery object was most definitely not a military balloon. And someone, many decades later, who would agree with them, was UFO researcher Brad Sparks. He would state the following.

The official records state two balloons left at the exact same time and from the same destination. Firstly, the most obvious discrepancy. The pilot would keep the UFO in his vision for the entirety of the incident. At no point did he see a second UFO. Not at any point did either pilot mention a second object, or for that matter, by radar operators, and nor is it on the radar records. There is also the issue with the rate at which the balloons would have climbed.

At a rate of approximately 1,300 feet per minute, assuming the balloons were released at 11.18 a.m. as indicated, by 11.35 a.m., the time of the video, visual sighting by the pilots, they would be approaching an altitude of 27,000 feet, around 7,000 feet higher than the pilot's position. Remember, they would clearly claim throughout that the object was a considerable distance below them. Such balloons would be 0.6 arc minute, basically meaning that they simply could not be seen by the naked eye. and especially from distances of over thousands of feet, while the pilots were themselves in motion at an impressive speed of their own.

So even today, the Fort Monmouth incident remains contentious, and most likely always will. But when it came to UFO sightings in the 50s, the New Jersey, New York area had its fair share of incidents. One of the most notable sightings took place a little bit of. under a year before the Fort Monmouth incident, this time in the Sandy Hook Atlantic Highlands area. At around 3 p.m. on October 11, 1950, the witness, only 18 years old at the time, was with their grandmother. They looked out over the Sandy Hook and New York Harbor from their 1947 Chevy,

the engine still running so they could feel the benefit of the car's heater. As they sat there, each noticed two triangular-shaped objects coming down from the Hudson, from the direction of the George Washington Bridge. From their position, the strange objects were at a much lower altitude to them. As they passed by them, the Chevy's engine suddenly stalled and went dead. Several moments after the objects were out of sight, the engine came back to life, as did the heater. Around two minutes later, two aircraft flew past. Plains that the witnesses would state were F-80 jets. A short time later, the two triangular objects flew past again and back towards the George Washington Bridge. The two F-80s followed them as close as they could. According to the witness,

the two objects would, quote, slow down and then speed up, as if they were playing with them. the objects would then head out to the water. If this account is true, aside from the similar ultimate destination of the strange craft, out to water, it would also appear the U.S. Air Force were aware of such strange craft at least a year earlier than the Fort Monmouth sighting. And not just aware of them, but aware enough to be scrambling aircraft. In late 1951, in Nova Scotia, Canada, a report came in from the child of the main witness, whose father was on a freighter heading back to the coast. The journey began under blue sunny skies, which out of nowhere would suddenly turn extremely dark.

At the same time, the electrics on the ship all failed. All around the vessel was almost total darkness. The confused crew stood on the deck of the ship. They watched in awe at the marvelous but chilling sight around them. Suddenly, they saw six glowing lights in the water. They would be at a distance of around seven fathoms down and too cylindrical to be coral. Even stranger, just about all of the crew would struggle to recall the events afterwards. And somehow they'd strayed over a hundred miles off course.

that day. The Canadian military would approach the men and warn them not to speak about the incident. Just short of a year later, on the afternoon of July 29, 1952 in Passaic, New Jersey, in almost identical craft as described by the two pilots, during the Fort Monmouth incident was photographed by local resident George Stock as he stood in his backyard. In total, he took five photographs as the craft calmly passed overhead. The craft was very much disc-shaped, with a risen dome shape in the top and center. He would describe the craft as solid and metallic, with a transparent semi-projected dome. The exterior was a blue-gray, and perhaps at most interest, it was completely and utterly silent.

He was with his friend at the time of the sighting, which, occurred approximately at 4.30 p.m. They would estimate the craft to be around 200 feet high, and after moving relatively slowly, it stopped and hovered for several moments. Then, without warning, the craft took off at high speed and disappeared. The real treasure of the Fort Monmouth UFO incident really lay within the reactions and subsequent actions of those with immediate connections to it, it. Rather than offering proof of what UFOs are and what intelligence, if any, is behind them, it really laid bare the different and often competing agendas of the people who are, for all intents and purposes, on the same side. Captain Edward J. Ruppelt would receive a lot

of pushback as he continued his work on Project Grudge. Calm the nerves of the public. Find satisfying answers that would show that our skies were safe from both rival nations and space aliens. Prozaic verse fantastic. And Rupelt remained steadfast in his pursuit for nothing more than the simple truth to UFOs, knowing full well that when it came to UFOs, the truth was anything but simple. In fact, famed astronomer and consultant to Project Blue Book, J. Ellen Heinek would say of Ruppelt that he found him to be honest and seriously puzzled around the whole phenomenon. Here are some final words from Rupelt's book about Project Grudge and his genuine intentions.

I had one restriction with Project Grudge. I wouldn't have my people spending time doing a lot of wild speculating. Our job would be to analyze each and every UFO report and try to find what we believe. to be an honest, unbiased answer. If we could not identify the reported object as being a balloon, meteor, planet, or one of a half a hundred other common things that are sometimes called UFOs, we would mark the folder unknown and put it in a special file. At some later date, when we built up enough of these unknown reports, we'd go back and

study them again, trying to learn from them. We also learned from the cases that we did find explanations too. As long as I was chief of the UFO project, this was our basic rule. If anyone became anti-flying saucer and was no longer capable of making an unbiased evaluation of a report, out they went. Conversely, anyone who became a hardcore believer was through as well. We were too busy during the project to speculate. I had to let three people go for being two pro or two con. As mentioned, Project Grudge would eventually become Project Blue Book, and by 1953, with the departure of Hupelt, it became clear that the Air Force wanted to return to the dark ages of Project Grudge.

That same year, a panel of five scientists were brought together under the purview of chief scientist H.P. Robertson, openly hostile to the idea that, any UFO sighting could be contributed to something extraterrestrial, the panel would recommend an aggressive debunking campaign, aimed at convincing the media not to give any more credence to stories of UFO witnesses. Rupelt, to some in the UFO world, is regarded as something of a hero in a David and Goliath struggle to earn respectability for UFOs. To others, he was just another cause. in the cover-up machine.

But no matter what, he was a man hired to do a job, a job he most likely never expected. And, as a career Air Force officer, these parting words from his book seemed more than appropriate. Look, regardless of what I say, or what the Air Force says, or what anyone says, we are stuck with flying saucers. And as long as people report unidentified objects in the air, it's the Air Force's responsibility to explain them. No matter the case, it's quite clear that while a military itself may want answers to the UFO question for national security and technological superiority, many others who have witnessed UFOs want to truly know if what they saw could answer the age-old question, are we not alone? No matter those answers and no matter who or how they come, we will

continue just as Ruppelt and even J. L. and Hynick would have to ponder the possibilities somewhere in our skies. This episode was co-written and researched by Marcus Loth. To learn more, visit UFOinsight.com. Special thanks to our voiceover talents. Bryce Johnson, John Rierich, and Jeff Begonian. You can learn more about all of these talented voiceover actors at the links in the show notes. And you can follow us on Twitter at Somewhere Skies. And if you have a moment, please consider rating and reviewing Somewhere in the Skies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever possible.

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