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- NUMBER 8 JUST CAUSE JUNE 1986
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-
- PROJECT MOON DUST
-
-
- (In our last issue, we alluded to one of those many project code names
- which turn up from time to time in released government documents. Few
- of these are ever identified in more than brief detail. However,
- Project Moon Dust, as named in recently-released DIA files is an ex-
- ception. We have several documents which do seem to link UFOs with
- this colorfully named project. Our thanks to Robert Todd for providing
- us with the backround information on his several-years-old research
- into Moon Dust.)
-
- We have heard of stories, or more accurately -- rumors, of crashed UFOs
- and alien bodies recovered. Dozens of them are presently on file. Often in
- these accounts, military personnel respond quickly to a developing situation,
- enact a carefully-planned set of procedures (like photography, mapping,
- interviews, etc.); then, usually, the evidence is carted away to an unknown
- location for further study. That's what the rumors tell us.
- You must have thought at times, while digesting these rumors, that such
- step-by-step action must have been scripted; that there muct have been guide-
- lines to follow for everuthing to have been done so thoroughly and properly
- that not a stick of residue was left. You know how the military does everything
- by the book, as they tell us! If all this is so, then these procedures must be
- available for consultation when needed.
-
- It's possible that we now have been pointed in the right direction to
- verify whether or not these procedures are on the record.
-
- Salted through out some recent document releases, mainly from the Defense
- Intelligence Agency (DIA) and State Department, are references to "Project Moon
- Dust." The context of this codename to the rest of the published data was
- unclear, but the fact that it repeatedly turned up in documents dealing with
- UFOs told us that is was worth checking. A feeler was put into the March 1986
- issue of Just Cause, requesting that anyone who had knowledge of Project Moon
- Dust to please contact us.
-
- Not long afterwards, Robert Todd, a well-known CAUS researcher, informed
- us that he had researched Moon Dust in the late l970's. What he had found was
- quite revealing.
- As a result of inquiries by Todd about Moon Dust, and other matters, the
- Air Force released a letter on August 20, 1979. It was identified as "AFCIN-1E-
- O", dated 3 November 1961. The letter was partly deleted, but enough was left
- to open the door on Moon Dust: (emphasis added where necessary--ed.)
-
- Extract, page 1: "c. In addition to their staff duty assignments,
- intelligence team personnel have peacetime duty functions in support of such
- Air Force projects as Moondust, Bluefly, and UFO, and other AFCIN directed
- quick reaction projects which require intelligence team operational
- capabilitied (see Definitions)."
-
- Extract, page 2: "f. Blue Fly: Operation Blue Fly has been established
- to facilitate expeditious delivery to FTD of Moon Dust or other items of great
- technical intelligence interest. ACIN SOP for Blue Fly operations, February
- 1960 provides for 1127th participation."
-
- "g. Moon Dust: As a specialized aspect of it's
- over-all material exploitation program, Headquarters USAF has established
- Project Moon Dust to locate, recover and deliver descended foreign space
- vehicles. ICGL #4, 25 April, l961, delineates collection responsibilities."
-
- Extract, page 3: "c. Peacetime employment of AFCIN intelligence team
- capability is provided for in UFO investigation (AFR 200-2) and in support of
- Air Force Systems Command (AFCS) Foreign Technology Division (FTD) Projects
- Moon Dust and Blue Fly. These three peacetime ptojects all involve a poten-
- tial for employment of qualified field intelligence personnel on a quick
- reaction basis to recover or perform field exploitation of unidentified flying
- objects, or known Soviet/Bloc aerospace vehicles, weapons sustems, and/or
- residual components of such equipment. The intelligence team capability to
- gain rapid access, regardless of location, to recover or perform field
- exploita- tion, to communicate and provide intelligence reports is the only
- such collec- tion capability available to AFCIN, and it is vitally necessary
- in view of current intelligence gaps concerning Soviet/Bloc technological
- capabilities."
-
- Let's pause a moment to absorb this.
-
- The letter immediately indicates that Moon Dust, "Blue Fly", and "UFO"
- are among A.F. Intelligence's quick reaction projects. It is probable here that
- "UFO" refers to Blue Book.
-
- We have pointed out in CLEAR INTENT (pg. 9) that often the prefix word
- "Blue" has been used in connection with high-altitude vehicles, and it appears
- in several fact, and rumor, UFO projects. Here we see it again in "Blue Fly,"
- which provided for transportation of Moon Dust material. And what did Moon
- Dust material include? Among other things, it included things acquired from
- the recovery and/or field exploitation of UFOs! Note how UFOs are set apart
- from Soviet/Bloc aerospace vehicles. Since the Soviets were the only other
- real space power in the world at the time, besides the U.S., what could have
- been meant by setting off UFOs as a separate subject of investigation? If they
- were British, or another nation's space vehicle, why not say this, as it was
- said for the Soviets?
-
- Note that Moon Dust and "other items of great technical intelligence
- interest" were sent to the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson
- AFB in Ohio, under Project Blue Fly. FTD was the parent group for Project
- Blue Book. Coincidence?
-
- Originally, Blue Book's investigative functions were partly aided by
- personnel of the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS). Part of it's
- mission during WW2, and later in peacetime, was to "exploit downed people,
- paper and hardware" for intelligence information. The 4602nd's operations were
- trans- ferred to AFCIN in July 1957, which then assigned the 1006th AISS most
- of the 4602nd's operations. The 1006th was re-designated the 1127th Field
- Activities Group in 1960. These units all performed UFO investigations for
- Blue Book, but were trained for and capable of additional activities in the
- event that one of these UFOs had crashed somewhere.
-
- We discuss the operations of a possible "quick response unit" in CLEAR
- INTENT, pg 111. Our point in that discussion was that such a unit would come
- under the highest security classification. Any admission that a UFO phenomenon
- was real and unexplainable would not be in the government's best interest to
- state, considering the still-existent debunking policy. Certainly here we see
- UFO investigation linked to the highest levels of the U.S. Air Force.
-
- When did Moon Dust begin? We aren't sure but it likely dates from the
- beginnings of Blue Book at least, i.e. the early 1950s. It's entirely possible
- that the 1952 crashed disc incident reported in letters by Rear Admiral
- Herbert Knowles (see Just Cause, March 1986) could have been investigated
- under Moon Dust, if it were called that then. It certainly fits the criteria
- for attention, as described in the Air Force's 1961 letter.
-
- Compelling evidence for the Moon Dust/ crash retrieval link and its
- early origins appears in Donald Keyhoe's 1955 book, THE FLYING SAUCER CONSPIR-
- ACY. Note these extracts:
-
- [Pages 214-15]
- Two days after this Lou Corbin called me to report another develop-
- ment.
-
- "Do you know anything about a `crashed-object' program?" he asked me.
-
- "No. Whose project is it?"
-
- "It's an Air Force deal, unless somebody's trying to trick me. You've
- heard of the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron, of course?"
-
- "Yes. It's a hush-hush unit. They have investigators in all Air
- Defense Squadrons."
-
- "Well, I've been contacted by one of them. First I thought it might
- be some kind of hoax. But I've double-checked, He actually is with the
- 4602nd."
-
- "Sounds queer, Lou. They're not supposed to talk to anyone outside of
- intelligence."
-
- "I know. But he may be under special orders. Anyway, he's against the
- secrecy policy. He told me the 4602nd has a special program called the
- `investigation of unidentified crashed objects.'"
-
- "If it's true, that IS big." I said. "It could mean theyve actually
- got their hands on some flying saucers."
-
- "He wouldn't admit that," said Corbin. "But I got the impression they'
- they'd recovered some kind of `objects'--probably something dropped from
- a saucer."
-
- At 2:00 P.M. on November 30 [1954?] a mysterious bright flash in the
- sky was reported simultaneously in Atlanta, Newman, and Columbus,
- Georgia; in Sylacauga and Birmingham, Alabama; and as far away as
- Greenville, Mississippi. This brilliant light was immediately followed
- by a series of strange explosions, apparently centered high in the sky
- above Sylacauga.
-
- Moments later a black object, six inches in diameter, crashed into
- the home of Mrs. Hewlett Hodges.
-
- Smashing a three-foot-wide hole in the roof, the shining black object
- tore through the living-room ceiling. Striking the radio, it bounced
- off and gashed Mrs. Hodges' arm.
-
- Meanwhile, the mysterious explosions had caused a hurried Air Defense
- alert. A three-state search for fallen objects was immediately begun by
- squadrons of Air Force planes.
-
- When word of the "Sylacauga object" reached the Air Force, Intelli-
- gence officers flew to the scene from Maxwell Air Force Base at Mont-
- gomery . Explaining that "the Air Force is required to examine such
- strange objects," they whisked it away to Maxwell Field, from which it
- was flown immediately to ATIC.
-
- An hour or two later the object was labeled a meteorite.
-
- As soon as this appeared in the papers, I received a call from Lou
- Corbin. "It's plain that this is part of the Air Force `unidentified
- crashed-objects' investigation. They must believe the thing is linked
- with the saucers."
-
- "It doesn't look like a coincidence," I said, "that this object fell
- fell just after those explosions. If it had been a meteor exploding, it
- wouldn't have made such a bright flash in the daytime."
- "In the first news story," Corbin told me, "it was called an uniden-
- tified flying ovject. At least that's the way the Maxwell Field
- officers explained why they had started the search."
-
- "This reminds me of that East New Haven signboard case," I commented.
- "On that occasion the object wasn't recovered. Judging from the size of
- the hole it made, however, it was probably about the same size."
-
- Later FOIA requests have indicated that the DIA is currently the res-
- ponsible agency for Moon Dust documentation. However, access is not being
- allowed because such access would reveal intelligence methods and are thus
- exempt from FOIA.
-
- NASA has been involved as wall, as this extract from a Jan. 13, 1969,
- memo indicates:
-
- "The undersigned {Richard M. Schulherr} visited the Foreign Technology
- Division of the Air Force Systems Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio,
- 9 Jan. 1969. The purpose of this trip was to identify specific items of
- space debris which had been forwarded to NASA and to re-establish per-
- sonal liason with newly-assigned FTD Moondust personnel."
- The Air Force's Moon Dust activity, as well as Blue Fly, is, in their
- words "no longer active." Perhaps the projects no longer go by these names but
- surely the procedures have not become obsolete. There is still a need to react
- to unknown vehicles landing on our soil. At the very least, national defense is
- served by such reaction.
-
- One last thought. Could an MJ12-type committee have begun Moon Dust as
- a reaction to early UFO events like Roswell? It would be of interest to see
- exactly when Moon Dust began its operations.
-
-
- The Editor
-