“After 22 years of “stewardship” of the UFO problem, the air force terminated its “Project Blue Book”, the name given to the major portion of its UFO investigation program. Originally termed “Project Sign” and initiated in September, 1947, on February 11, 1949, it became “Project Grudge”; then from summer of 1951 to late 1969 it was called, “Project Blue Book”. Code names are not supposed to have any special significance, but the reader may read into them whatever he wishes.

Throughout this period the project was located at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, first as part of the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) and later under the aegis of the Foreign Technology Division (FTD). The air force’s formal public association with the UFO problem ended in December, 1969, when Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans officially terminated Project Blue Book, largely upon the recommendation of the Condon Report, the work of the air force-sponsored scientific group at the University of Colorado under the direction of Dr. E. U. Condon.”

“In my association with the UFO phenomenon I was somewhat like the proverbial “innocent bystander who got shot”. Project Sign needed an astronomer to weed out obvious cases of astronomical phenomena ━ meteors, planets, twinkling stars, and other natural occurrences that could give rise to the flying saucer reports then being received, and I was a natural choice. I was then director of Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory and, as such, the closest professional astronomer at hand.”

“Before I began my association with the air force, I had joined my scientific colleagues in many a hearty guffaw at the “psychological postwar craze” for flying saucers that seemed to be sweeping the country and at the naiveté and gullibility of our fellow human beings who were being taken in by such obvious “nonsense”. It was thus almost in a sense of sport that I accepted the invitation to have a look at the flying saucer reports ━ they were called “flying saucers” then. I also had a feeling that I might be doing a service by helping to clear away “nonscience”. After all, wasn’t this a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the public how the scientific method works, how the application of the impersonal and unbiased logic of the scientific method (I conveniently forgot my own bias for the moment) could be used to show that flying saucers were figments of the imagination? Although many of my colleagues at the university looked askance at my association with such “unscientific” activity, I felt secure. I had ample “files protection”; as an astronomer I had been invited to examine the subject.

Such was my initiation and my inclination at the time. However, the opportunity to demonstrate to the public how the scientific method works, using the analysis of flying saucer reports as the vehicle, never materialized. While I was still working on my report for Project Sign, it became Project Grudge, and the Pentagon began to treat the subject with subtle ridicule. Furthermore, even though many UFO reports were not militarily classified, they were still by no means open to public examination. Such strictures effectively prevented letting the public in on the results of flying saucer investigations, let alone the process of investigation. The public was given only the end results ━ in cryptic news releases that, on the whole, left their questions unanswered and lowered the public’s estimation of the air force’s scientific image.”

“I played essentially no part in Project Grudge, and it was not until after the organization of Project Blue Book, under Captain Ruppelt in 1952, that I again became scientific consultant on UFO matters. Although my chief responsibility was as astronomical consultant, I concerned myself with all reports as they came in, each month reviewing current reports. Thus I became aware of some very interesting cases, most of which were submerged in a veritable quagmire of nonsense reports.”

“The termination of Project Blue Book heightened my sense of obligation to set forth my experiences, many of them startling, with the UFO problem and with the air force over a period of more than 20 years. Now I feel somewhat like a traveler returned from a long journey through unexplored, strange, and exotic lands, who finds it incumbent upon himself to set down an account of his travels and of the bizarre antics and customs of the “natives” of that strange land for the benefit of those who stayed at home.

I have had an opportunity to read and study all the reports in the Blue Book files, to interview many hundreds of witnesses ━ the reporters of UFO experiences ━ and even to testify several times before Congressional groups, which expressed considerable interest in the antics of the natives of UFO land.”

“The prestigious Robertson panel had labored for parts of five days (January 14 to 18, 1953) and had brought forth these conclusions and policy recommendations:

(a.) That the evidence presented on Unidentified Flying Objects shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security. We firmly believe that there is no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena that are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts, and that there is no evidence that the phenomena indicate a need for the revision of current scientific concepts.

(b.) That the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic. We cite as examples the clogging of channels of communication by irrelevant reports, the danger of being led by continued false alarms to ignore real indications of hostile action, and the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted authority.

The panel recommended:

(a.) That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired.

(b.) That the national security agencies institute policies on intelligence, training, and public education designed to prepare the material defenses and the morale of the country to recognize most promptly and to react most effectively to true indications of hostile intent or action.

It would seem that the panel’s attention was directed largely to a defense and security problem rather than to a scientific one. This could have been expected in a sense since the meeting had been called by and they had been instructed by the CIA. No mention was made of or explanations offered for the great many “Unidentified” cases already in the Blue Book files. Since the cases had been selected for them by Blue Book, which already had stated views on the subject of UFOs, the prejudicial nature of the “trial of the UFOs” is obvious. The august panel members were examples of the old saying, “When you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs, you don’t understand the situation”. The panel was not given access to many of the truly puzzling cases.

At the time the panel was called into existence, the Battelle Memorial Institute, of Columbus, Ohio, was engaged in a statistical study (which eventually appeared as Blue Book Report No. 14, a remarkable document if one reads between the lines), and in a proper scientific spirit the officers of Battelle had pointed out that there was a distinct lack of reliable data and that even the well-documented reports presented an element of doubt about the data. They called for an upgrading of the data before any broad policy decisions were made, and they implied (though they were too diplomatic to say so) that the whole Robertson panel was premature and not likely to get anyplace. The Robertson panel did get someplace: they made the subject of UFOs scientifically unrespectable, and for nearly 20 years not enough attention was paid to the subject to acquire the kind of data needed even to decide the nature of the UFO phenomenon. Air force public relations in this area was egregious, and the public was left with its own decisions to make: was the air force attitude a result of “cover-up” or of foul-up and confusion?”

“The air force officially entered the “flying saucer arena” on January 22, 1948, in response to an exchange of letters, in the latter part of 1947, between the commanding general of what were then the army air forces and the chief of the Air Materiel Command, Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio.

The events of the summer of 1947 had been disturbing: too many reports of strange objects seen in the sky had been made by seemingly responsible people ━ mountain pilots, policemen, commercial pilots, military observers, etc. Charged with the defense of the country from the air, the air force had become instantly concerned. The first explanation to come to mind was, of course, that a foreign power had developed a new and potentially sinister device posing an obvious threat to our security. As frightening as this might seem, it was nonetheless a concept that the military mind could immediately grasp and with which it felt it could come to grips. Foreign technology intelligence investigations were right up the air force’s alley. And thus “Project Sign”, sometimes incorrectly referred to as “Project Saucer”, was born. Its staff went to work to examine critically the first series of reports, and very shortly thereafter I was asked to check on how many of the reports probably had an astronomical basis.

But the reported actions of the “flying saucers” did not fit the expected pattern of advanced technological military devices, and only a fraction could with certainty be ascribed to astronomical objects or events. Opinion in Project Sign soon became markedly divided: was it foreign technology or really foreign technology? Craft from outer space? A public psychosis? A fad spawned by postwar nerves?”

“The division grew greater as it became increasingly clear that the “ordinary” foreign technology explanation was untenable. An “explanation gap” had arisen. Either the whole phenomenon had to be “psychological” (an expression that was often used for want of a cogent explanation), or there was something behind the phenomenon that no one wanted to admit. When the mind is suddenly confronted with “facts” that are decidedly uncomfortable, that refuse to fit into the standard recognized world picture, a frantic effort is made to bridge that gap emotionally rather than intellectually (which would require an honest admission of the inadequacy of our knowledge). Frenetic efforts are made either to contrive an ad hoc explanation to “save the phenomenon” or to discredit the data. When we are faced with a situation that is well above our “threshold of acceptability”, there seems to be a built in mental censor that tends to block or to sidestep a phenomenon that is “too strange” and to take refuge in the familiar.

The history of science is replete with “explainings away” in order to preserve the status quo. Discovery of fossils of extinct species, pointing strongly to the concept of biological evolution, was met with many contrived attempts to demolish the fossil-fingers pointing unmistakably to Darwinian evolution. Many, too, were the pat explanations before facts finally demanded the acceptance of the theory of circulation of the blood, the heliocentric hypothesis, hypnotism, meteorites, disease-causing bacteria, and many other phenomena that are accepted today.

In 1948 Project Sign faced a major explanation gap and sought the aid of its scientific advisers, both in the air force and in the scientific fraternity. Their reaction was the expected one, the one that has been experienced through the centuries: “It can’t be; therefore, it isn’t.” The explanation gap was far above the threshold of acceptance, so the expected refusal to “weigh and consider”, the popularly accepted hallmark of the scientist, came to the fore.

In fairness to the scientific fraternity it must be emphasized that available data were poorly presented and were mixed with substantial quantities of nonsense ━ stupid reports, misperceptions of Venus and meteors by the untutored ━ all emotionally charged.

In my restricted assignment with Project Sign (merely to weed out reports ascribable to astronomical stimuli) I soon became aware of cases that, taken at face value, were outstanding challenges to science. But could they be so regarded? It was clear to me that because of the paucity of hardcore scientific data in the reports, their mystery might easily evaporate if such reports were properly followed up and investigated. The problem of the lack of proper investigation was present from the start.

As a junior in the ranks of science at that time, and not inclined to be a martyr or to make a fool of myself on the basis of incomplete data, I decided to remain neutral and let the phenomenon prove or disprove itself. Senior advisers to the Pentagon had shown themselves universally scornful of the flying saucer problem, and I had to admit to myself that although the data were provocative, they fell far short of being scientifically conclusive. It was not until several years had passed and data of similar nature continued to flow not only from this country but from many others that I had occasion to feel that the phenomenon was indeed being proved: there were too many occurrences that couldn’t be explained in “ordinary” terms.

The Pentagon’s official attitude was largely dictated by the scientific fraternity. After all, not even a major general wishes to be laughed at by highly placed members in the scientific hierarchy. One example was, of course, Harvard astronomy professor Dr. Menzel, who took a seemingly compulsive interest in the flying saucer question, even though this subject was far removed from his scientific field. He loudly proclaimed that UFOs were nonsense and particularly championed the “mirage theory” of flying saucers. He ascribed properties to mirages, and mirage properties to UFOs, which have since been shown to be completely untenable, even by the air force itself.

But we must not single out Dr. Menzel for succumbing to the “explanation gap” syndrome, although he undoubtedly helped influence the official Pentagon “scientific” position. Nearly all scientists gave short shrift to the problem, some taking great delight in pontificating before the lay public. Much of the opprobrium of science was well founded. Reports based on misperceptions abounded, and the crackpot contingent was always lurking in the wings or making its presence known through flying saucer cult movements and pseudo-religious tracts and pronouncements.

I confess much pleasure in providing discomfiture to such groups or to misguided and excitable UFO report generators. It was satisfying, for instance, to establish that one report of a “mother ship and four companions” unquestionably arose from observation through a small telescope of the planet Jupiter and its four major satellites and to prove that what one woman had called a “spaceship with tail lights” was nothing more than a bright meteor.

But the 237 original Project Sign reports were not convincing and did not support “visitors from space”. In reviewing these cases again in 1970, I recognized their markedly poor quality. Reports in the 1950s and in 1966 and 1967 were of a much higher caliber in both Strangeness Rating and in what had been determined about the character of the witnesses. In 1947-1948 there really wasn’t too much to get excited about. There were certainly some reports that if taken at near-face value, suggested no possible normal physical explanation, but even these were poor in that they had been inadequately investigated; many crucial data were missing. Among the first 237 UFO cases there were no Close Encounters that approached the quality of the details of more recent reports in that category, and there were only a few (poor) radar reports. Daylight Discs were the preponderant category in the puzzling Project Sign cases, and there were only a few provocative Nocturnal Light cases.

Even today, if I were given only the data of these first air force cases without knowing the UFO report patterns that later became evident all over the world, I would still come to the conclusion I reached in 1949: there were a number of truly puzzling reports for which the data were not sufficient to base positive conclusions. Even so, I would repeat my conclusion of 1953: the subject is worthy of further scientific investigation.

In all fairness to the air force, we must remember that as much as it has been justifiably maligned for its treatment of UFOs, its mission, particularly in 1949, was not one of science but of defense. The air force’s responsibility was discharged when they demonstrated that the UFO phenomenon showed no immediate evidence of being hostile and was not a threat to our national security.

If at that point the air force had turned the problem over to a recognized and long-established nonprofit scientific organization, the history of the UFO problem might well have been quite different. A small scientific task force of persons with an understanding of the basic problems, set up on a continuing basis to publish their findings in recognized journals from time to time, would have sufficed.

Instead, the air force adopted another path. Once the Pentagon had set firm UFO policy and had rejected the historic “Estimate of the Situation” (which one faction in Project Sign had sent through channels clear to the top), in which it was concluded that flying saucer reports did give evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, the air force entered upon a long period of unfortunate, amateurish public relations. The issuance of propaganda and public relations handouts, which were often ill-considered and contradictory, ushered in an era of confusion from 1950-1970. The insistence on official secrecy and frequent “classification” of documents was hardly needed since the Pentagon had declared that the problem really didn’t exist.

The role of the air force during this era was both pivotal and enigmatic. It was pivotal because the world (specifically other governments the offices of which were also the recipients of UFO reports) took its cue from the U.S. Air Force. When I asked what was being done in those countries about the UFO problem, on many occasions I was told that since the United States, with all its funds and facilities, was handling the problem, what more could other countries do with their limited facilities? They would await the outcome of the U.S. investigation.

It was enigmatic because of the obvious question: if there was nothing whatever to the UFO phenomenon other than misperceptions, hoaxes, etc., why continue a UFO program? Why adopt a confusing and misleading public relations posture that on many occasions led to insulting the intelligence of competent people? Some of the Blue Book evaluations of sincere reports were often so transparent and irrelevant that they had later to be retracted. Was this all a smokescreen, a cover-up job for which Project Blue Book was a front, the real work and information being handled by another agency?

Had there been initiated at an early stage a continuing scientific commission or institute, both scientific respectability for the subject and a dignified image for the air force in this area would have been gained. The public could have been made aware, through nonsensational channels, of what was puzzling and not yet known, which reports had been verifiably demonstrated to have been the results of misperceptions, hoaxes, etc. Since the public no longer would have had to fear ridicule, its assistance and interest would have been assured. It might hae been determined whether there was any “signal” in the “noise”; whether there was, in the global UFO reports, genuinely new empirical material. A nonmilitary scientific commission operating in a dignified key would probably have had the cooperation of international scientific groups. It was a mistake from the start to shroud the subject in an air of military science-fiction, an error compounded further by seeming duplicity in publiuc pronouncements. If the quitely working scientific group had disclosed, after dedicated study, that there were no indications of “scientific paydirt” in the reports, this would have been generally accepted, the cultists and crackpots, of course, excepted. Conversely, detailed studies and research in depth could have been instituted had there been such indications.

The course that was followed was quite different. Project Sign started with a 2A priority, 1A being the highest. Shortly after becoming consultant to the project, I learned that there had been internal dissension from the start. There had been those who insisted that flying saucers were Russian devices; others thought that they were from outer space, and still others, of course, thought that the subject was entire nonsense.

On my assignment I was asked to work entirely independently of the other consultants and Project Sign members. This separation apparently was to insure that I would remain unbiased. My final report, compiled with the able assistance of Mrs. Charles Summerson, was issued after Project Sign had somewhat mysteriously been transformed into Project Grudge, on February 11, 1949. I was not aware of the change as I continued to do my best to find logical astronomical explanations for as many of the 237 reports as possible.

The change to Project Grudge signaled the adoption of the strict brush-off attitude to the UFO problem. Now the public relations statements on specific UFO cases bore little resemblance to the facts of the case. If a case contained some of the elements possibly attributable to aircraft, a balloon, etc., it automatically became that object in the press release.

Captain Ruppelt, speaking of these “brush-offs” as part of an intentional smokescreen to cover up facts by adding confusion, wrote, “This is not true; there was merely a lack of coordination. But had the Air Force tried to throw up a screen of confusion, they couldn’t have done a better job.” As an example Ruppelt quotes from a Pentagon news release that indicated that flying saucers were (a) meteoric breakup such that their crystals cast the light of the sun, (b) sunlight on low-hanging clouds, and (c) hailstones that became flattened out and glided. Ruppelt was right when he said, “The problem was tackled with organized confusion”. Confidence in the air force’s ability or willingness to cope with this problem was ebbing as early as 1949. Ruppelt has characterized this period most excellently in his Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Indeed, his book should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of this subject. In my contacts with him I found him to be honest and seriously puzzled about the whole phenomenon.

The transition from Project Sign to Project Grudge came before my report was issued, and by the time I submitted my report, the climate toward any serious investigation of flying saucers had become very chilly. “This drastic change in official attitude”, wrote Ruppelt, “is as difficult to explain as it was difficult for many people who knew what was going on inside Project Sign to believe”. He also wrote, “This period of ‘mind-changing’ bothered me. Here were people deciding that there was nothing to this UFO business right at the time when the reports seemed to be getting better. From what I could see, if there were any mind-changing to be done, it should have been the other way…”

I can fully support this opinion. The earliest reports, particularly those I first studied in Project Sign, were of very much poorer quality than those that began to come in later. Some were limited to a few dozen words, with details necessary for adequate evaluation missing.

Ruppelt ascribed the change in attitude to the fact that the military wants answers, not mysteries. “Before, if an interesting report came in”, he writes, “and they wanted an answer, all they’d get was an, ‘it could be real, but we can’t prove it.’ Now such a request got a quick snappy, ‘It was a balloon’, and feathers were stuck in the caps from ATIC all the way up to the Pentagon. Everybody felt fine.

Ruppelt described the period following the start of Project Grudge as the “Dark Ages”. New personnel, rather than the most experienced people in Project Sign, established and used the air force theorem: “It can’t be; therefore, it isn’t”. Ruppelt says, “Everything was being evaluated on the premise that UFOs couldn’t exist”, and, “Good UFO reports continued to come in at the rate of about ten per month, but they weren’t being verified or investigated. Most of them were being discarded.”

In the years that followed, when I was consultant to Project Blue Book, no report that came in through official military channels was discarded, but only the most perfunctory attempts were made to mount any type of serious investigation. This was especially true of the particularly puzzling, unusual cases. These were frequently evaluated as “Unidentified” and put aside. The objective had been attained: the UFO had been identified as “Unidentified”.

After I submitted my report, in April, 1949, shortly after Project Grudge was underway, I was completely severed from the UFO office in Dayton. Thus I did not know until later what went on during the “Dark Ages”.

My report itself ran to better than 300 pages, many of them nearly blank, for all the page contained was the statement, “There is no astronomical explanation for this report”. My obligation was discharged. Sometimes I ventured further: “We can conjecture that a cluster of balloons (cosmic ray apparatus) was observed, the motion of which was merely the reflection of the motion of the plane”.

In the introduction to the report I wrote, “Among the general public, two attitudes toward flying saucers seem to be prevalent: one, that all sightings are misidentifications or hoaxes, and two, ‘that there must be something to it’. From the outset, I have attempted to regard each report… as an honest statement by the observer and to adhere to neither of the two attitudes”.

I noted what was then plaguing and what was to continue to plague the UFO office: the incompleteness of the data and of any effort to upgrade it. “Almost all of the data dealt with in this 300-page report are incomplete and inexact, and some are distinctly contradictory. Therefore, it has obviously been impossible to reach definite scientific conclusions. Most conclusions are offered in terms of probability, the degree of which is discussed in the individual reports”.

Some two months earlier Project Sign in a secret report, which I did not see until years later, stated:

No definite evidence is yet available to confirm or disprove the actual existence of unidentified flying objects as new and unknown types of aircraft. A limited number of the incidents has been identified as known objects.
Based on the possibility that the objects are really unidentified and unconventional types of aircraft, a technical analysis is made of some of the reports to determine the aerodynamic, propulsion, and control features that would be required for the object to perform as described in the reports. The objects sighted have been grouped into four classifications according to configurations:
1. Flying discs, i.e., very low aspect ratio aircraft,
2. Torpedo or cigar-shaped bodies with no wings or fins visible in flight,
3. Spherical or balloon-shaped objects,
4. Balls of light.
The first three groups are capable of flight by aerodynamic or aerostatic means and can be propelled and controlled by methods known to aeronautical designers.

Even in 1949 the UFOs came in the same patterns, which persisted for the ensuing years.

The “frustration barrier” continued. No real attempt was ever made to gather all the data that were available. The air force investigators had not bothered to gather what was there. In many instances, starting from a mere item on the back pages of a small town newspaper, I have been able to reconstruct, with the patient aid of the observers, a coherent account of reported events, and generally I have found the persons concerned fully cooperative once they were assured that no ridicule or unfavorable publicity would result from the interview. Blue Book files are replete with cases labeled “Insufficient Information”, whereas in many cases the proper label should have been “Insufficient Follow-up”.

It became patently clear to me as the years passed that no Blue Book case had been given the “FBI treatment”; that is, no case was followed through until every possible clue or bit of evidence was obtained, as is standard procedure in kidnapping, narcotics rings, and bank robbery cases.

Quite the opposite attitude was taken by Blue Book. When a case did appear to have a likely misperception explanation (and hence should have been excluded from further UFO investigative effort), Blue Book often spared little effort in phone calls, interrogations, etc. in order to pin it down to a planet, a refueling mission, or some other natural occurrence. Thus they set their dogs to catching simple chicken thieves but ignored potentially far more important prey.

Had there been available, for the many hundreds of Blue Book cases now carried as “Unidentified”, a scientifically trained and conscientious investigator with immediate reaction capability (immediate access to transportation to the locale of the reported event within 24 hours) far more information would have been gathered. The true Strangeness Rating and Probability Rating for each case could have been determined with some confidence. I had made several attempts, including some before Congressional subcommittees, for such immediate reaction capability ━ but to no avail.

Often Blue Book did not bother to investigate until the UFO event had attained some prominence in the press (the Portage County case was a good example), or until an inquiry was made from a Congressman whose constituent felt he had not been treated right by Blue Book. Nothing brought more immediate and frenzied reaction from Blue Book than a query from Congress. Then, however, the effort was directed to the composing of a quick but satisfactory answer rather than to a serious study of the case. I frequently observed occasions when the sole Blue Book objective was “getting the Congressman off its back” by constructing some sort of possible explanation rather than mounting a scientific investigative effort.

Thus the program did not change through the years. Reports came in and were handled in a completely routine manner, always on the assumption that they had been spawned by untutored people unable to identify perfectly natural occurrences. When the going really got tough, the label “Unidentified” was used, but the investigative effort ended there. It was tacitly assumed that had an exhaustive effort been made to identify the source of the report, it would not have been successful. Why, then, if we can assume that, should any detailed effort be wasted on such an Unidentified phenomenon?

Through the years, the percentage of Unidentifieds remained essentially the same. Table 1 covers the first 237 UFO reports received by the air force; it shows that some 20 percent of these met the present definition of UFO, that is, they stumped the experts. Twenty years later the Condon committee, using presumably a better selection of reports and more scientists, were unable to find solutions for more than 25 percent of the cases they examined. Through the years there seems to have been a stubborn, unyielding residue of “incredible reports from credible people”.

TABLE 1

Evaluations by J. Allen Hynek in 1948-1949 of the First 237 UFO Reports Received by the Air Force

Type of Incident	No. of Incidents	Approx. %
1. Astronomical
a. High probability	42	18
b. Fair or low probability	33	14
	75	32
2. Nonastronomical but suggestive of other explanations
a. Balloons or aircraft	48	20
b. Rockets, flares, or falling bodies	23	10
c. Miscellaneous (reflections, auroral streamers, birds, etc.)	13	5
	84	35
3. Nonastronomical with no evident explanation
a. Lack of evidence precludes an explanation	30	13
b. Evidence offered suggests no explanation	48	20
	78	33

[J. Allen Hynek on his reply to the letter from Colonel Raymond S. Sleeper]

On October 7, 1968, I addressed my reply to Colonel Sleeper.

I address my report to you alone, for as will be apparent, should the present staff of Blue Book read it, any further personal contact with them would prove most embarrassing to all parties concerned... It may be of interest to you that, in all of my 20 years as consultant, you are the first commander who has ever asked me to write an evaluation of Blue Book. I would have been happy to do so earlier, but on those occasions when I attempted to advise on procedures and methodology...I had been politely but firmly reminded... of my place in the organization.

I sincerely hope that at long last... I may help transform Blue Book into what the public and the scientific world has been told it is... an investigative organization dedicated to the defense of the country but doing a good scientific job also... It is time that Blue Book no longer be called, as some wag has done, "Society for the Explanation of the Uninvestigated".

You have chosen to refer to methods of "product improvement". Although this is a metaphor scientists rarely use, I believe it is a happy one in that it is practical to think in terms of what the Blue Book product is, who the consumer... is, how the product is "packaged", what the product "image" is, and how we might "tool up" for product improvement.

You have indicated that I should not concern myself with the history of Blue Book; however... the 1960 hearings in Washington are germane to this report. My recommendations at that time for changes in Blue Book were applauded by the Smart Committee but never funded (although funds were promised), so my efforts came to naught.

Since my report is rather long, I have prefaced it with a sequential summary of points covered and of recommendations made.

SUMMARY

A. It is concluded that neither of the two missions of Blue Book (AFR 80-17), (1) to determine if the UFO is a possible threat to the United States and (2) to use the scientific or technical data gained from a study of UFO reports, are being adequately executed.

B. The staff of Blue Book, both in numbers and in scientific training, is grossly inadequate to perform tasks assigned under AFR 80-17.

C. Blue Book suffers intramurally in that it is a closed system that has fallen victim to the closed loop type of operation. There has been virtually no scientific dialogue between Blue Book and the outside scientific world. Totally inadequate use is made of the extensive scientific facilities of the air force in executing the Blue Book mission. The superb talents and facilities of AFCRL [Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories] and of AFOSR [Air Force Office of Scientific Research], for instance, have rarely been used. The lack of scientific dialogue between members of Blue Book and outside scientists has been appalling.

D. The statistical methods employed by Blue Book are nothing less than a travesty.

E. There has been a lack of attention to significant UFO cases, as judged by this consultant and others, and too much time spent on routine cases that contain few information bits and on peripheral public relations tasks. Concentration should be on two or three potentially scientifically significant cases per month, rather than having Blue Book effort spread thin over 40 to 70 cases per month. Too much attention has been paid to one-witness cases and to cases in which only point-source lights in the sky are seen at night and far too little to the cases of high Strangess Rating reported by witnesses of conceded reputation.

F. The information input to Blue Book is grossly inadequate. An impossible load is placed on Blue Book by the almost consistent failure of UFO officers at local air bases to transmit adequate information to Blue Book. Many information bits that could have been obtained by conscientious interrogation by the UFO officer are omitted, throwing the burden upon Blue Book to reopen interrogation for additional information, sometimes of the most elementary but necessary sort ━ e.g., wind directions, angular sizes and speed, details of trajectory, qualifications and nature of witnesses, additional witnesses, etc. The upgrading of original data is the most pressing need within Blue Book.

G. The basic attitude and approach within Blue Book is illogical and unscientific in that a working hypothesis has been adopted which colors and determines the method of investigation. One might put it in the form of a Theorem:

For any given reported UFO case, if taken by itself and without respect and regard to correlations with other UFO cases in this and other countries, it is always possible to adduce a possible even though far-fetched natural explanation, if one operates solely on the hypothesis that all UFO reports, by the very nature of things, must result from purely well known and accepted causes.

The theorem has a Corollary:

It is impossible for Blue Book to evaluate a UFO report as anything other than a misidentification of a natural object or phenomenon, a hoax, or a hallucination. (In those relatively few cases where even this procedure met with difficulty, the report was evaluated as "Unidentified" but with no indication that the theorem had been outraged.)

H. Inadequate use has been made of the Project scientific consultant. Only cases that the project monitor deems worthwhile are brought to his attention. His scope of operation, including personal direct access to both unclassified and classified files, has been consistently limited and thwarted. He often learns of interesting cases only a month or two after the receipt of the report at Blue Book, and no attempt is made to bring the consultant into the operating loop except in the most peripheral manner.

[J. Allen Hynek on the public’s perception of Blue Book versus the reality of its priority within the government]

The popular impression through the years was that Blue Book was a full-fledged, serious operation. The public perhaps envisioned a spacious, well-staffed office with rows of file cabinets, a computer terminal for querying the UFO data bank, and groups of scientists quietly studying reports, attended by a staff of assistants.

The actual situation was unfortunately the opposite. The operation was generally headed by an officer of lesser rank. In the military the importance attached to a mission is usually in direct proportion to the rank of the commanding officer. The relatively low-ranking officers in charge of Blue Book were usually assisted by a lieutenant and sometimes only by a sergeant. For one long period of time a sergeant with little technical training was given the chore of evaluating most of the incoming reports.

This was not exactly a first-line, high priority operation. Blue Book had much too small a staff to do justice to a phenomenon that so often greatly concerned the public. Compounding the problem, the staff was able to devote only part of its time to the technical problem at hand. During my regular visits to Blue Book across the years I observed that much of the work in the office was devoted to peripheral matters, all done at a leisurely pace.

Further, Blue Book’s low-ranking officers had no leverage to initiate the type of investigations that were needed and for which I frequently asked. The military is entirely hierarchical; a captain cannot command a colonel or a major at another base to obtain information for him. He can only request. As long as Blue Book did not have at least a full colonel in command, it was impossible to execute its assigned task properly. In reviewing cases that had come in during the previous month, I often asked that additional, often crucial information on a case be obtained. The results were at best minimal; officers at other bases were generally too busy to bother to investigate further. Why should they? They all knew it was a finger exercise anyway.

[J. Allen Hynek on Project Blue Book being an accidental cover-up based on the lack of seriousness devoted to it]

Blue Book was a “cover-up” to the extent that the assigned problem was glossed over for one reason or another. In my many years association with Blue Book, I do not recall even one serious discussion of methodology, of improving the process of data gathering or of techniques of comprehensive interrogation of witnesses.

The reader may well ask at this point why I did not either lay siege to the Pentagon, demanding action, or simply resign in disgust. Temperamentally, I am one who can easily bide his time. I also dislike a fight, especially with the military. But most importantly, Blue Book had the store of data (as poor as they were), and my association with it gave me access to those data. In a sense I played Kepler to Blue Book’s Tycho Brahe.

As far as demanding action from the Pentagon, I knew only too well the prevailing climate and recognized that had I been too outspoken, I would have quickly been discredited, labeled a UFO nut, lost access to data, and certainly would have lost all further effectiveness. I have always been of the turn of mind that “truth will out” if given time; if there was indeed scientific “paydirt” in the UFO phenomenon, as time went on and the gathering of data improved, even the most hostile skeptics would be powerless to sweep it under the carpet. The astronomer traditionally adopts a very long time scale.

[J. Allen Hynek on the poor data processing and storage techniques by Project Blue Book]

By and large, however, Blue Book data were poor in content, and even worse, they were maintained in virtually unusable form. With access to modern electronic data processing techniques, Blue Book maintained its data entirely unprocessed. Cases were filed by date alone, and not even a rudimentary cross-indexing was attempted. Had the data been put in machine readable form, the computer could have been used to seek patterns in the reports, to compare the elements of one report with those of another, and to delineate, for instance, the six basic categories of sightings used in this book. Since all the thousands of cases were recorded only chronologically, even so simple a matter as tabulating sightings from different geographical locations, from different types of witnesses, etc. was impossible except by going through, manually, each and every report. A proposal for elementary computerization of the data in the Blue Book files, devised by Jacques Vallee and myself and submitted by me directly to Major Quintanilla at Blue Book, was summarily turned down.

In view of the above and of the frequently contradictory and inane public relations statements concerning UFO reports, which even the man on the street found unconvincing, it is hardly a wonder that the charge was frequently made that the publicly visible air force “investigation” of UFOs was merely a front for a real investigation being carried on somewhere “higher up”.

Were I the captain of a debating team whose job it is, of course, to marshal all the facts favorable to his side and studiously to avoid the other’s, I could defend either side of the argument. At no time, however, did I encounter any evidence that could be presented as valid proof that Blue Book was indeed a cover-up operation. However, many indications, bits of information, and scraps of conversation could be force-fitted into a yes for the cover-up thesis. Thus, for instance, one time when I inquired into the specifics of a certain case, I was told by the Pentagon’s chief scientist that he had been advised by those at a much higher level to tell me “not to pursue the matter further”. One can make of that what one will.

In a country as security conscious as is ours, where central intelligence is a fine art, it frequently seemed to me that very provocative UFO reports were dismissed without any seeming follow-up ━ certainly an illogical if not dangerous procedure unless one knew a priori that the report really was of no potential information value to the security of the country (or that it was but was being taken care of elsewhere). As an example, the report of five rapidly moving discs, made by a member in good standing of the 524th Intelligence Squadron stationed in Saigon and observed by him from the roof of the squadron’s headquarters, went untouched by Major Quintanilla and Blue Book on the grounds that “the sighting was not within the continental limits of the United States”. It would seem almost inconceivable that the intelligence officer in question would not have been further interrogated by some agency; certainly in an active battle area his sighting might have presaged a new military device of the enemy.

Another example, one of many, was this: on the first day of August, 1965, and on the following two days there occurred the “Midwest flap”. From several states strange Nocturnal Lights were reported by ostensibly reliable police officers on patrol at various places over an area of several hundred square miles. Blue Book dismissed this event as “stars seen through inversion layers”, although I know of no astronomer who has ever witnessed inversion effects that produced these reported effects. Both past experience and calculations show that such illusory effects, in which stars move over at a considerable arc of the sky, simply cannot be produced by thermal inversions.

However, police officers weren’t the only ones to report. The following is a direct transcript of a Blue Book memo: In the early morning hours of August 1, 1965, the following calls were received at the Blue Book offices by Lieutenant Anspaugh, who was on duty that night:

1:30 AM ━ Captain Snelling, of the U.S. Air Force command post near Cheyenne, Wyoming, called to say that 15 to 20 phone calls had been received at the local radio station about a large circular object emitting several colors but no sound, sighted over the city. Two officers and one airman controller at the base reported that after being sighted directly over base operations, the object had begun to move rapidly to the northeast.

2:20 AM ━ Colonel Johnson, base commander of Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, near Cheyenne, Wyoming, called Dayton to say that the commanding officer of the Sioux Army Depot saw five objects at 1:45 AM and reported an alleged configuration of two UFOs previously reported over E Site. At 1:49 AM members of E flight reportedly saw what appeared to be the same uniform reported at 1:48 AM by G flight. Two security teams were dispatched from E flight to investigate.

2:50 AM ━ Nine more UFOs were sighted, at at 3:35 AM Colonel Williams, commanding officer of the Sioux Army Depot, at Sydney, Nebraska, reported five UFOs going east.

4:05 AM ━ Colonel Johnson made another phone call to Dayton to say that at 4:00 AM, Q flight reported nine UFOs in sight: four to the northwest, three to the northeast, and two over Cheyenne.

4:40 AM ━ Captain Howell, Air Force Command Post, called Dayton and Defense Intelligence Agency to report that a Strategic Air Command Team at Site H-2 at 3:00 AM reported a white oval UFO directly overhead. Later Strategic Air Command Post passed the following: Francis E. Warren Air Force Base reports (Site B-4 3:17 AM) ━ A UFO 90 miles east of Cheyenne at a high rate of speed and descending ━ oval and white with white lines on its sides and a flashing red light in its center moving east; reported to have landed 10 miles east of the site.

3:20 AM ━ Seven UFOs reported east of the site.

3:25 AM ━ E Site reported six UFOs stacked vertically.

3:27 AM ━ G-1 reported one ascending and at the same time, E-2 reported two additional UFOs had joined the seven for a total of nine.

3:28 AM ━ G-1 reported a UFO descending further, going east.

3:32 AM ━ The same site has a UFO climbing and leveling off.

3:40 AM ━ G Site reported one UFO at 70° azimuth and one at 120°. Three now came from the east, stacked vertically, passed through the other two, with all five heading west.

When I asked Major Quintanilla what was being done about investigating these reports, he said that the sightings were nothing but stars! This is certainly tantamount to saying that our Strategic Air Command, responsible for the defense of the country against major attacks from the air, was staffed by a notable set of incompetents who mistook twinkling stars for strange craft. These are the people who someday might have the responsibility for waging a nuclear war.

For some, incidents such as the above would be prima facie and conclusive evidence that the cover-up hypothesis was the correct one, on the grounds that no group charged with serious defense responsibilities for the country could have been so stupid.

On the other hand, our hypothetical debating team captain could amass an even more impressive cache of evidence to conclude quite the opposite: that the entire Blue Book operation was a foul-up based on the categorical premise that the incredible things reported could not possibly have any basis in fact. After all, science pretty well understands the physical world and knows what’s possible and what is not. Since the reported actions of UFOs clearly didn’t fit this world picture, they simply had to be figments of the imagination produced in one way or another.

All my association with Blue Book showed clearly that the project rarely exhibited any scientific interest in the UFO problem. They certainly did not address themselves to what should have been considered the central problem of the UFO phenomenon: is there an as yet unknown physical or psychological or even paranormal process that gives rise to those UFO reports that survive severe screening and still remain truly puzzling?

Such lack of interest belies any charge of “cover-up”; they just didn’t care. There is another argument for the “noncover-up” viewpoint: the underlings in the military hierarchy (and all Blue Book officers were such ━ generally captains or majors, two of which finally made lieutenant colonel but never full colonel) looked mainly toward two things: promotion and early retirement. Therefore, in controversial issues it was always considered far wiser not to “rock the boat”, to please the superior officer rather than to make waves. Thus, when the superior officers, who did not know the facts but were wedded to a rigid framework of military thinking handed down from above, let it be known in any controversial issue (whether UFOs or not) what the “right way” of thinking is, no underling officer was going to oppose or even question it unless, of course, he was 99 percent certain that he could prove himself correct in the controversy ━ and quickly.

Since the Pentagon had spoken in no uncertain terms about UFOs, no Blue Book officer in his right promotion-conscious military mind was going to buck that, even if he had private opinions on the matter.

Another factor added to the noncover-up theory. Turnover in the Blue Book office was rather high. Sooner or later the officer in charge would be out of it, just that much closer to promotion and retirement, if he just sat tight. From 1952 to 1969 the office was headed in turn by Captain Ruppelt (who did not make his own views known until he was out of the air force), Captain Hardin (who had ambitions to be a stock broker), Captain Gregory (to whom promotion was the be-all and end-all of existence), Major Friend, and finally Major Quintanilla, who had the longest term of office. Of all the officers I served with in Blue Book, Colonel Friend earned my respect. Whatever private views he might have held, he was a total and practical realist, and sitting where he could see the scoreboard, he recognized the limitations of his office but conducted himself with dignity and a total lack of the bombast that characterized several of the other Blue Book heads.

Thus one can have one’s choice of whether Blue Book was a front or merely a foul-up. But that there was certainly foul-up and complete divorce from the scientific community within fraternity were, of course, wedded to the misperception-delusion hypothesis (there was no need for interchange of ideas with Blue Book, which held the same views), and some members rose to heights of vitriolic verbiage in denouncing reporters of UFOs. This phase of the total phenomenon had many of the aspects of a modern witch-hunt.

But Blue Book is no more, and its closing raised the question: to whom does one report current UFO sightings? That such sightings continue to occur (and to be reported unofficially) is incontrovertible, as is shown by any news-clipping service that covers small-town newspapers and out-of-the-way publications. At the time of this writing there is no government or officially designated agency to whom such a report can be made.

There are many UFO organizations throughout the world that avidly accept UFO reports, often far too avidly and uncritically, in order to have material for their publications. During the past score of years literally hundreds of civilian UFO organizations began in many parts of the world, particularly in France, England, Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia, some of the Latin American countries, and, of course, the United States. Many of these were short-lived, but each in its way was the recipient of UFO reports covering a wide spectrum of reliability and credibility. Most organizations received reports and did little screening or serious investigating. Generally this stemmed not from a lack of interest or even of ability (although some groups were innocent of the rudiments of scientific procedures) but from a lack of funds and time.

Many of the organizations published bulletins on a more or less scheduled basis. Often these were just mimeographed sheets, but most of the publications were even more short-lived than their parent organizations. A few journals existed and still do, independently of private sponsoring investigative groups. Outstanding among these is FSR, Flying Saucer Review, published in London since 1954. It is a veritable treasure house of UFO reports, some of which have been investigated rather thoroughly but the majority of which rank with the average Blue Book report. The reader suffers a strong sense of frustration in reading such reports; in each case the conscientious reader longs for more details, but only rarely are they given. Unfortunately there is no journal that is financially supported sufficiently to devote pages to details for the relatively few serious investigators. The existing journals have subscribers who, for the most part, are satisfied with summaries; indeed, I am afraid some of their readers wish merely to be titillated by incredible tales.

France has two particularly outstanding publications, Phenomenes Spatiaux and Lumières dans la Nuit. They serve as publication organs for dedicated groups of investigators ━ mainly in France ━ who quietly have gone about collecting data of good quality in perhaps a more systematic way than groups in other parts of the world. Such groups give freely of their time and limited funds in painstakingly tracking down UFO witnesses and conducting able interrogations. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Sweden, and Italy are some of the other countries in which UFO journals or bulletins are published. There is a need for an international organization that might act as a clearing house for such journals and their contents. It has been suggested on a number of occasions that the United Nations, perhaps UNESCO, might act in such a capacity, but to date all such suggestions have been tabled.

In the United States there have been only two viable civilian UFO investigative organizations. The older of these, APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), now located in Tucson, Arizona, was started in 1952 in Wisconsin. APRO has done an excellent job in collecting UFO data, resumés of which have been published in the APRO Bulletin.

Four years after APRO was organized, NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), located in Washington, D.C., was formed and grew to have the larger membership. Both organizations have suffered from lack of financial support, which meant, of course, that costly investigations were not possible. APRO has an international outlook, as is evidenced by the sizable number of foreign consultants and associates.

Although both organizations are serious-intentioned collectors of UFO data, each unavoidably numbers in its membership overenthusiastic and uncritical persons enamored of the idea of UFOs. Nonetheless, neither APRO nor NICAP are in any sense of the word “crackpot” organizations and have many serious members, many of whom have considerable technical and scientific training.

There was very little overlap in reports between Blue Book and either APRO or NICAP. Dr. Saunders has remarked that in compiling reports for the abortive Condon committee computer program, the only overlap in reports occurred for the well-publicized cases. Otherwise the three organizations had essentially independent UFO files.

Now that Blue Book is no more, I am often asked whether the air force is really out of the UFO business. The answer is probably contained in an official letter from the Pentagon, written after the close of Blue Book. It states:

The Aerospace Defense Command (ADC) is charged with the responsibility for aerospace defense of the United States... Consequently, ADC is responsible for unknown aerial phenomena reported in any manner, and the provisions of joint Army-Navy-Air Force publication (JANAP-146) provide for the processing of reports received from nonmilitary sources.

In JANAP-146 E, currently in force, provisions and instructions for the reporting of unknown objects in the air by military personnel are explicitly set forth. It must be remembered, however, that the military is primarily interested in unidentified planes, especially those that might be foreign. Such planes certainly are unidentified flying objects, although they do not satisfy the definition used in this book. There never is any question but that they are planes (which are flying objects) and that their source is unidentified.

In my long association with Blue Book I had some very interesting encounters with UFO witnesses, some equally interesting but less enjoyable encounters with military personnel, and a most intimate view of the running of a pseudoscientific project. Blue Book was essentially a closed operation, in which A talked to B, and B talked to C, and C talked to A. There was little input from outside scientific groups. It is conceivable that in its ingrown and official military way it was allowed to bumble along, while apart from it serious official attention was given to a few selected cases that might not even have gone through Blue Book channels. I simply do not know. In my position as periodic consultant, I certainly was never taken into the confidence of higher Pentagon officials concerning these matters. JANAP-146E still exists and is in effect, and it calls for the processing of reports of unknown aerial phenomena from both military and nonmilitary sources. Probably little more need be said.”

“null”

“In October 6, 1966, the University of Colorado and the U.S. Air Force entered into formal agreement to establish a scientific committee to study (and presumably to settle once and for all) the vexing problem of UFOs with which the air force had been saddled for 20 years. It was to be directed by Dr. Edward U. Condon, a physicist of established reputation, noted not only for his scientific record but for his courage in speaking out on controversial issues.

Two years later there appeared the results of the committee’s work: a voluminous, rambling, poorly organized report of 937 pages of text, considerably less than half of which was add ressed to the investigation of UFO reports. The report opened with a singularly slanted summary by Dr. Condon, which adroitly avoided mentioning that there was embodied within the bowels of the report a remaining mystery; the committee had been unable to furnish adequate explanations for more than a quarter of the cases examined.

However, were it not for the fact that the public has had ready access through the press only to the summary of the report, and its implication that the UFO problem has been “solved”, there would be little point to this critique of the Condon Report. The report covers little new territory. Others before Condon had demonstrated that the data at hand were far from sufficient to establish the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitation. Condon only partially retraced the steps of those more knowledgeable than he and his group.

Conclusions and recommendations comprise the first part of the two-chapter summary. Two statements are particularly illuminating:

Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.

This was surely the kiss of death to any further investigation in the name of the quest for knowledge. Yet in a somewhat platitudinous vein we find the statement:

Therefore we think that all of the agencies of the federal government, and the private foundations as well, ought to be willing to consider UFO research proposals along with the others submitted to them on an open-minded, unprejudiced basis. While we do not think at present that anything worthwhile is likely to come of such research, each individual case ought to be carefully considered on its own merits.

Truly a masterpiece of throwing a scrap of political meat to the critic dogs. A more insincere statement can hardly be imagined, and surely Dr. Condon, master in the politico-scientific world,
“