Who Were the Scientific Advisors of the Air Force Before 1948?

 When the odd objects began to ramp up their sightings in early 1947, most of the investigations were all in-house but occasionally an outside consultant would be used. 

Newspaper articles of June and July 1947 were filled with the suggestions and theories of scientists in several fields. 

In a late 1947 report on the "investigation" into the objects being reported there was mention of "scientists" consulted. Who were they?

Harvard, M.I.T., C.I.T. were all institutions deeply involved with a variety of research from the 1920's onward in the fields of aeronautics, astronomy, physics, electricity, and more. 

Most sources suggest Dr. J. Allen Hynek was not contracted as a consultant until 1948, as Project Sign swung into action.

Language, handwriting, and other factors in files related to Project Blue Book seems to indicate there were at least two consultants (perhaps more) who were utilized at one point or another. At some point, J. Allen Hynek began to sign his comments with "JAH."  I suspect it was because of the motives of the individuals making the comments were driven by opposing goals. 

Identifying who and when various consultants worked with the program would go a long way to illuminating the process, attitudes, and shifting sands of the entire project from 1947 to 1969 and, maybe, even bring light to today's approach to the topic. 

Here are some of the names who were consulted circa 1947- 

Dr. Irving Langmuir - Nobel winning scientist in the field of chemistry. He also worked in other fields, was the father of the incandescent light bulb, and early work in the field of plasma (both electrical and the biological type, in fact he gave plasma to the discovery of blood platelets).  He was called in to examine the photographs of William Rhoads in Phoenix, Arizona taken on 7 July 1947. Just two weeks after the sighting by Kenneth Arnold the similarity to his original sketch and the photos taken by Rhoads will be remarked on in a special analysis report of 18 Dec 1947 among the AMC and the Directorate of Intelligence for the Air Force. They will note the similar appearance of the two sightings and the "fact" that the sightings to date had a common look to them: a rounded front end and a straight back edge. It gave a slight shoe heel shape. The only suggested craft made by human industry, even the ones on the drawing board, all looked more delta or like variations on the Flying Pancake. Rhoades noted that he thought the object looked similar to the Flying Flapjack depicted on the May 1947 cover of Mechanics Illustrated "but the thing he saw was flying backwards."  The flapjack shaped aircraft was rounded at the back and the front had two sharp jut outs which held propellers. It looked more like a half circle with two prongs out in front.  Yet, Rhodes indicated the rounded part was in front and the image looks more like a rubber heel in shape.  Models were being advertised for the Flying Flapjack in hobby magazines in January of 1947 and Rhoades liked modeling and radio as well as remote control were interests of the ex- Navy man. Yet, as deeply as the FBI and OSI looked into his story at the beginning in 1947 , surely they would have uncovered all that and been able to labeled it a prank of remote control model at that time. No, instead the copies of his pictures show up in a classified file of  "unknonw missiles" in the files of the USAF. "Missile" was one of the terms used in the early days of the period for the unknowns: flying discs, flying objects, flying saucers, flying missiles.