Destruction (UFO)
"Destruction" is the ninth episode aired of the first series of "UFO" - a 1970 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth. The screenplay was written Dennis Spooner and the director was Ken Turner. The episode was filmed between 4 June to 16 June 1970 and aired on the ATV Midlands on 2 December 1970. Though shown as the ninth episode, it was actually the twentieth to have been filmed.
Ufology
The first official USAF investigations of UFOs were Project Sign (1947–1949) and its successor Project Grudge (1949). Several hundred sightings were examined, a majority of them having a mundane explanation. Some sightings were classified as credible but inexplicable, and in these cases the possibility of an advanced unknown aircraft could not be ruled out.
The initial memos of the project took the UFO question seriously. After surveying 16 early reports, Lt. Col. George D. Garrett estimated that the sightings were not imaginary or exaggerations of natural phenomena. Lt. General Nathan F. Twining expressed the same estimate in a letter to Brig. General Schulgen, and urged a concerted investigation by the Air Force and other government agencies. Twining's memo led to the formation of Project Sign at the end of 1947. In the summer of 1948, Sign's first intelligence estimate (Estimate of the Situation) concluded that some UFO reports were extraterrestrial in origin. The rejection of the estimate by USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg led to the dissolution of Sign and the formation of Project Grudge.