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Right: A very advanced flying wing aircraft design, produced by Alfred Loedding during the 1930s. The envisaged propulsion system would probably have proven inadequate. US Patent Office tion of this new department, which he initially called Project Saucer, before the USAF re- named it as the more sedate Project Sign. However, when Project Sign officially started in 1948 there was a real concern from within T-2 that UFOs might be new types of Soviet aircraft. Why Loedding was so keen to head this department is unclear, but the fact that he had been studying advanced German avia- tion technology rather intensely for the previ- ous two years, and was on cordial terms with many of the best German designers, does suggest that he had knowledge of things we can only guess at. Needless to say, if the elu- sive German designer Richard Miethe was taken to America after the war (as would seem to be the case), there can be little doubt that Loedding was involved in his debriefing. While it is debatable just how good Loedding was as a field investigator, he was undoubt- edly a superbly qualified, very down-to-earth research engineer who had secured an invaluable amount of high-grade German know-how for the US Government. By 1948 Howard M McCoy, who headed T-2 Intelligence Section, and his immediate superiors at the Pentagon were largely sold on the idea that Russian flying discs were invading US airspace. Because these craft were obviously developed from advanced Nazi technology, it made Loedding the per- fect candidate to head the new investigative department. During the months that followed Loedding’s team were requested to study and analyse all the highest profile UFO reports, which included the Arnold Sighting and the Roswell and Mantell Incidents. One especially interesting UFO sighting that was investigated by Loedding’s team took place on 10th July 1947 at Harmon Field. A mechanic working for the Pan American airline had seen an unidentified object that appeared to be powered by turbojet propul- sion, which generated a bluish-black trail. This was exactly the kind of report that senior T-2 staff were looking for and they decided that the mechanic had seen a conventional aircraft of foreign origin; as a consequence Loedding’s findings were initially classified Secret. UFO sightings gathered momentum during this period, but Loedding became less certain Is. 83 Below right: Cross-section of Alfred Loedding’s prewar flying wing aircraft design. US Patent Office Postwar Discplane Development i ooo