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investigations such as those currently being conducted were taking place as much as a year before the Roswell Incident. Wainwright and other project officers had been able to debunk such theories, though their investigations did not always lead to evidence of alien activity. Doubts in the higher echelons of government and the military soon began to take their toll. Despite credible witnesses, compelling photographic evidence, and other collected findings, a lack of tangible, actionable proof had begun to chip away at the support Project Sign had enjoyed at its inception. A report submitted by Captain Sneider to the Air Force chief of staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, containing a comprehensive assessment that many of the reported sightings could be attributed to extraterrestrial activity, was rejected. When the project became public, this invited more skepticism and even ridicule, resulting in Sign’s deactivation and subsequent replacement by a new initiative, Project Grudge.
    Straightening a stack of papers before putting them inside a brown file folder stamped “TOP SECRET,” Marshall placed the completed file in a cardboard box containing several more folders of identical design.
    “While I’m waiting on the photos from the Kansas City trip, I thought I might catch up on some filing, sir. We’ve got several older case logs here that need to go into storage next door.”
    “Probably a good idea,” Wainwright said, eyeing the other file boxes and folders littering the office. Captain Ruppelt had been keeping him and Marshall busy during these past fewmonths, leaving little time for the mundane yet necessary paperwork that accompanied each investigation. “Double check with the master list, and make sure we keep anything from an active file here, even if it’s just for something small. Until we get used to the new system, I don’t want anything to get lost.”
    Marshall nodded as she picked up the file box and headed for the door. “Yes, sir. It’s nice to have people actually being interested in what we’re doing, for a change.”
    “You can say that again.”
    Following the debacle that Project Grudge turned into, a new attitude now gripped Wainwright, his fellow officers, and everyone connected to the secret work with which they had been charged.
    Prior to this new shift, Project Grudge’s former primary directive—at least so far as the Air Force and the Pentagon were concerned—had been to find plausible explanations for any “UFO sightings” that did not point to extraterrestrial causes. It was a definite shift in mindset when compared to the attitudes that had driven Project Sign. The prior effort, which worked outward from the truth of what really had happened at Roswell, was motivated by a need to understand the larger ramifications of the aliens’ presence on Earth, and what it might mean for humanity in the years to come.
    Now Project Grudge’s aim was to ignore or debunk any claims of extraterrestrial activity, engaging in a more organized public relations effort with the aim of presenting the results of its investigations to the citizenry, rather than pursuing the truth. Wainwright had come close to resigning his commission on two separate occasions, but Professor Carlson had talked him out of it, convinced that soon, something would happen to change the minds of skeptical leaders.
    It did happen, on September 10, 1951, when both civilianand military pilots reported sightings and near collisions with varying numbers of unidentified disk-like craft in the skies over New Jersey. The mass sighting and sheer number of corroborating reports demanded an investigation, during which Project Grudge was called to answer for its seemingly apathetic approach to UFO sightings. In the aftermath of that investigation, Grudge was deactivated and a new project put into motion; one that would treat sightings and reports seriously, but with no bias for or against any extraterrestrial explanation. Indeed, the