This article appearing in today’s The Hill publication invokes the famous Twining memo, penned by Gen. Nathan Twining in 1947. In the memo, the general is quite specific about the performance characteristics of UFOs observed by military personnel.

The Pentagon’s UFO office is sending cryptic ‘alien’ messages

The Hill is correct to refer to this hugely important piece of UFO lore. However, I would argue, so-called ufologists have always focused on the memo for the wrong reasons.

Rather than referring to the document as evidence of extraterrestrial visitations, I think it points to an entirely different phenomenon: a top-secret U.S. military propulsion technology, a program so compartmentalized that it was unknown to Gen. Twining at the time.

Twining also said in the memo that “it was within U.S. knowledge” for American engineers to build a flying saucer. He was even specific enough to claim the saucers might have a range of seven thousand miles at subsonic speeds. Now, how would he know this unless these platforms were produced by Earthlings, not extraterrestrials?

Later, and very curiously, we never hear Twining talk about UFOs again. I think this is because he was let in on the secret when he was inducted into the Majestic Twelve group, which, I contend, was organized to keep this top-secret propulsion breakthrough under wraps.

It’s all in Chapter 9 of Flying Saucers!