Preliminary Findings — Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE
7 November 1954
SUBJECT: Preliminary Findings — Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE
TO: W. Seaton, Division Chief, Western Europe
Attention: , Western Europe Division
Reference is made to the directive of the Chief of Operations dated 4 May 1954, authorizing the establishment of Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE under the technical supervision of this Office, and to the working agreement concluded with the Western Europe Division on 19 May 1954 governing the conduct of the preliminary investigative phase.
The preliminary phase, conducted at the facility between 1 June and 31 October 1954, has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The findings set forth below are submitted for the consideration of your Division in advance of the formal briefing now scheduled for January of the coming year.
The apparatus recovered in the course of the incident of July 1947, and held in storage at since that time, has been subjected to systematic examination by the technical group attached to this Office. Reconstruction of the principal assembly has been carried out under the direction of Dr. , working in concert with three additional specialists acquired under Operation PAPERCLIP whose particulars are set forth in the inclosed annex. It is the consensus of the technical group that the apparatus is operative within parameters not previously thought attainable and that its function is consistent with the displacement of physical matter along the temporal axis, in a direction prior to the present moment. The mechanism by which this is accomplished is at present imperfectly understood; the German specialists are, however, agreed that the phenomenon is reproducible and that displacement in the forward direction does not appear to be possible by means of the present apparatus.
Bench trials conducted upon inanimate test articles of small mass have yielded results which, while subject to certain anomalies in the recovery phase, are sufficient in the view of this Office to warrant proceeding to a field trial of larger scale. The anomalies referred to are principally concerned with minor positional drift upon recovery and with a measurable but not, in the present judgment, hazardous deterioration of organic materials placed within the displacement field. Inanimate articles of metallic or ceramic composition have been recovered without apparent alteration.
Two matters arising from the preliminary phase require the particular attention of your Division. The first is the question of scale. The technical group is of the opinion that the apparatus, as presently configured, is capable of displacing a body of substantially greater mass than has thus far been tested, and that no useful purpose is served by further bench trials at the present scale. A field trial upon an object of significant mass is accordingly recommended at the earliest practicable date. The second matter concerns the selection of temporal coordinates for any such trial. The technical group advises that displacement to coordinates within the historical period now documented carries with it a risk, however small, of inadvertent observation, and that coordinates of substantial antiquity are to be preferred. The selection of such coordinates is, however, a matter properly belonging to your Division and to such historical consultants as your Division may see fit to engage.
This Office has not, at the present stage, formed a recommendation as to the nature of the object to be employed in the field trial. It is the view of this Office, however, that any such object should be of a character permitting recovery and instrumental examination upon return, and that personnel ought not to be employed in the trial until such time as the question of organic deterioration referred to above has been more fully resolved.
A complete technical report covering the preliminary phase, together with the photographic record and the schedule of bench trial results, is held by this Office and is available to the cleared personnel of your Division upon request. The formal briefing of January next will address such further matters as may be raised by your Division upon review of the present memorandum.
Asst. Director, Office of Scientific Intelligence
Inclosures: Annex A — Particulars of PAPERCLIP Personnel Attached to Operation BRAVO-CHARLIE (under separate cover, ); Annex B — Schedule of Bench Trial Results, 1 June – 31 October 1954 (under separate cover, )