Project Magnet

From TinWiki.org

In the 1950's, it became increasingly obvious that the "flying saucer" phenomenon was not going away. While the Canadian government realized many UFO sightings could be explained away as misidentification of natural or manmade objects, there was a certain percentage which could not be easily dismissed. Thus in December of 1950, Project Magnet was begun. The goal of Project Magnet was to make a detailed study of the flying saucer phenomenon. Commander O.P. Edwards, then deputy minister of transport for the Air Services, was put in charge.

1 Human Perceptions
2 Obtaining data
3 Conclusions
4 References
5 External Links
6 Relevant Discussion Threads

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Human Perceptions

The Canadian government new very well that the natural reaction of the human mind is to classify observations into established patterns. However, when something is observed that does not fit into a pattern, three things can happen:

First, we may completely deny the obsevation.
Second, we may pass off the observation as having no consequence.
Third, we may accept the discepancies as real and go to work on them.

In the matter of saucer sightings, all three of these reactions were seen as being apparent. The first two conclusions are negative, and thus a conclusion can never be reached. The third possibility, acceptance of the observations and data, and subsequent research, was the focus of Project Magnet.

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Obtaining data

Data for the project was collected from reported sightings in a random manner from around Canada. Many of the reported sightings came from the extensive field organization of the Department of Transport, whose job it is to watch the skies. These reports were considered especially valuable as the people making them were considered expert observers. It was much less likely that they would misidentify natural phenomenon or manmade objects. As for the eyewitnesses, they were given questionaires to fill out about their sighting. The interrogator was also given an instructional manual to help with questioning the witness. These questionaires and instructional manuals were provided be the Project Second Storey Committee, a committee sponsored by the Defense Research Board.

The data was then placed into two categories. A sighting was either considered something we knew alot about, or something we knew very little about. Sightings that were identifiable were quickly dismissed. Sightings that were not identifiable were then looked at in one of the three manners described above.

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Conclusions

After looking at dozens of cases, the Project concluded that 11 sightings were of alien origin.[1] This was after all other possibilities were considered. One of those possibilities was that the craft were originating from inside the Soviet Union. This was of great concern to governments outside of the iron curtain. From the study of the crafts, several characteristics were observed.

They were over a hundred feet in diameter.
They could fly at several thousands of miles per hour.
They could reach altitudes well above that of present day aircraft and balloons.

Given these performance characteristics, it was impossible to reconcile these craft with anything that might have been created by human beings. Therefore, the Project concluded that the most likely origin of these craft was extra-terrestrial! The report concludes that the next logical step to understanding the phenomenon was to retrieve one of these crafts for study.

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