In December 1947, the USAF Headquarters approved Special Project HT-304, codename, Project Sign, to investigate and analyze the proliferating number of reports of flying-disc sightings and phenomenon in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security. Assuming that the reports might be caused by Soviet innovations recovered from the Germans, the logical place to conduct the investigation was the Technical Intelligence Division at Wright-Patterson AFB.  Most of the early analysis work was carried out by highly trained aeronautical engineers, in the T-3 Engineering Division.  Their conclusion after seven months, drafted in an Estimate of the Situation was that the phenomena were best explained as being of interplanetary origin. The Pentagon refused to accept this, which resulted in the breakup of the Sign team and set the tone for USAF behavior toward UFOs for the next two years.  The Estimate was declassified and all copies ordered burned, and for years the Air Force would deny that any such report ever existed.

This is one of the few photos taken of the team inside the T-2 Conference Room at Wright Patterson AFB in 1948.

Personnel from the left and around the table are:  Lt. Col. Malcolm Seashore, chief of the Material Command Intelligence Technical Analysis (MCIAT);  [unidentifiable person blocked by Seashore];  Lt. Col. J.J. Hausman;  Col. Howard McCoy, director of Air Material Command T-2 Intelligence Division;  [believed to be] Capt. Robert Sneider, Project officer under McCoy and Clingerman;  [believed to be]  Col. William Clingerman, executive officer for Material Command Intelligence Analysis (MCIA);  and John "Red" Honaker, liaison to the AMC Commander Lt Gen. Nathan Twining, with a pipe in his mouth.