punch.

But the Air Force wasn't trying to cover up. It was just that they
didn't want Keyhoe or any other saucer fans in their hair. They
couldn't be bothered. They didn't believe in flying saucers and
couldn't feature anybody else believing. Believing, to the people in
ATIC in 1949, meant even raising the possibility that there might be
something to the reports.

The Air Force had a plan to counter the Keyhoe article, or any other
story that might appear. The plan originated at ATIC. It called for a
general officer to hold a short press conference, flash his stars,
and speak the magic words "hoaxes, hallucinations, and the
misidentification of known objects," _True_, Keyhoe and the rest
would go broke trying to peddle their magazines. The _True_ article
did come out, the general spoke, the public laughed, and Keyhoe and
_True_ got rich. Only the other magazines that had planned to run UFO
stories, and that were scooped by _True_, lost out. Their stories
were killed--they would have been an anti-climax to Keyhoe's potboiler.

The Air Force's short press conference was followed by a press
release. On December 27, 1949, it was announced that Project Grudge
had been closed out and the final report on UFO's would be released
to the press in a few days. When it was released it caused widespread
interest because, supposedly, this was all that the Air Force knew
about UFO's. Once again, instead of throwing large amounts of cold
water on the UFO's, it only caused more confusion.

The report was officially titled "Unidentified Flying Objects--
Project Grudge," Technical Report No. 102-AC-49/15-100. But it was
widely referred to as the Grudge Report.

The Grudge Report was a typical military report. There was the body
of the report, which contained the short discussion, conclusions, and
recommendations. Then there were several appendixes that were
supposed to substantiate the conclusions and recommendations made in
the report.

One of the appendixes was the final report of Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
Project Grudge's contract astronomer. Dr. Hynek and his staff had
studied 237 of the best UFO reports. They had spent several months
analyzing each report. By searching through astronomical journals and
checking the location of various celestial bodies, they found that
some UFO's could be explained. Of the 237 reports he and his staff
examined, 32 per cent could be explained astronomically.

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