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The United States
Air Force Project Blue Book
An Air Force
memorandum (released via the Freedom of
Information Act) dated October 20, 1969 and
signed by Brigadier General C.H. Bolander
states that even after Blue Book was
dissolved, that "reports of UFOs" would
still "continue to be handled through the
standard Air Force procedure designed for
this purpose." Furthermore, wrote Bolander,
"Reports of unidentified flying objects
which could affect national security … are
not part of the Blue Book system." To date,
these other investigation channels, agencies
or groups are unknown.
Additionally, Blum reports that Freedom
of Information Act requests show that the
U.S. Air Force has continued to catalog and
track UFO sightings, particularly a series
of dozens of UFO encounters from the late
1960s to the mid-1970s that occurred at U.S.
military facilities with nuclear weapons.
Blum writes that some of these official
documents depart drastically from the
normally dry and bureaucratic wording of
government paperwork, making obvious the
sense of "terror" that these UFO incidents
inspired in many U.S.A.F. personnel.
Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14
In late
December 1951, Ruppelt met with members of
the Battelle Memorial Institute, a think
tank based in Columbus, Ohio. Ruppelt wanted
their experts to assist them in making the
Air Force UFO study more scientific. It was
the Battelle Institute that devised the
standardized reporting form. Starting in
late March 1952, the Institute started
analyzing existing sighting reports and
encoding about 30 report characteristics
onto IBM punch cards for computer analysis.
Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 was
their massive statistical analysis of Blue
Book cases to date, some 3200 by the time
the report was completed in 1954, after
Ruppelt had left Blue Book. Even today, it
represents the largest such study ever
undertaken. Battelle employed four
scientific analysts, who sought to divide
cases into "knowns", "unknowns", and a third
category of "insufficient information." They
also broke down knowns and unknowns into
four categories of quality, from excellent
to poor. E.g., cases deemed excellent might
typically involve experienced witnesses such
as airline pilots or trained military
personnel, multiple witnesses, corroborating
evidence such as radar contact or
photographs, etc. In order for a case to be
deemed a "known", only two analysts had to
independently agree on a solution. However,
for a case to be called an "unknown", all
four analysts had to agree. Thus the
criterion for an "unknown" was quite
stringent.
In addition, sightings were broken down into
six different characteristics — color,
number, duration of observation, brightness,
shape, and speed — and then these
characteristics were compared between knowns
and unknowns to see if there was a
statistically significant difference.
The main results of the statistical analysis
were:
- About 69% of the cases were judged
known or identified; about 9% fell into
insufficient information. About 22% were
deemed "unknown", down from the earlier
28% value of the Air Force studies.
- In the known category, 86% of the
knowns were aircraft, balloons, or had
astronomical explanations. Only 1.5% of
all cases were judged to be
psychological or "crackpot" cases. A
"miscellaneous" category comprised 8% of
all cases and included possible hoaxes.
- The higher the quality of the case,
the more likely it was to be classified
unknown. 35% of the excellent cases were
deemed unknowns, whereas only 18% of the
poorest cases. This was the exact
opposite result predicted by skeptics,
who usually argued unknowns were poorer
quality cases involving unreliable
witnesses that could be solved if only
better information were available.
- In all six studied sighting
characteristics, the unknowns were
different from the knowns at a highly
statistically significant level: in five
of the six measures the odds of knowns
differing from unknowns by chance was
only 1% or less. When all six
characteristics were considered
together, the probability of a match
between knowns and unknowns was less
than 1 in a billion.
Despite
this, the summary section of the
Battelle Institute's final report
declared it was "highly improbable that
any of the reports of unidentified
aerial objects... represent observations
of technological developments outside
the range of present-day knowledge." A
number of researchers, including Dr.
Bruce Maccabee, who extensively reviewed
the data, have noted that the
conclusions of the analysts were usually
at odds with their own statistical
results, displayed in 240 charts,
tables, graphs and maps. Some conjecture
that the analysts may simply have had
trouble accepting their own results or
may have written the conclusions to
satisfy the new political climate within
Blue Book following the Robertson Panel.
When the Air Force finally made Special
Report #14 public in October 1955, it
was claimed that the report
scientifically proved that UFOs did not
exist. Critics of this claim note that
the report actually proved that the
"unknowns" were distinctly different
from the "knowns" at a very high
statistical significance level. The Air
Force also incorrectly claimed that only
3% of the cases studied were unknowns,
instead of the actual 22%. They further
claimed that the residual 3% would
probably disappear if more complete data
were available. Critics counter that
this ignored the fact that the analysts
had already thrown such cases into the
category of "insufficient information",
whereas both "knowns" and "unknowns"
were deemed to have sufficient
information to make a determination.
Also the "unknowns" tended to represent
the higher quality cases, i.e. reports
that already had better information and
witnesses.
The result of the monumental BMI study
were echoed by a 1979 French GEPAN
report which stated that about a quarter
of over 1,600 closely studied UFO cases
defied explanation, stating, in part,
"These cases … pose a real question."
When GEPAN's successor SEPRA closed in
2004, 5800 cases had been analyzed, and
the percentage of inexplicable unknowns
had dropped to about 14%. The head of
SEPRA, Dr. Jean-Jacques Velasco, found
the evidence of extraterrestrial origins
so convincing in these remaining
unknowns, that he wrote a book about it
in 2005.
Dr. J.
Alan Hynek was an associate member
of the Robertson Panel, which
recommended that UFOs needed
debunking. A few years later,
however, Hynek's opinions about UFOs
changed, and he thought they
represented an unsolved mystery
deserving scientific scrutiny. As
the only scientist involved with
U.S. Government UFO studies from the
beginning to the end, he could offer
a unique perspective on Projects
Sign, Grudge and Blue Book.
After what he described as a
promising beginning with a potential
for scientific research, Hynek grew
increasingly disenchanted with Blue
Book during his tenure with the
project, leveling accusations of
indifference, incompetence, and of
shoddy research on the part of Air
Force personnel. Hynek notes that
during its existence, critics dubbed
Blue Book "The Society for the
Explanation of the Uninvestigated".
Blue Book was headed by Ruppelt,
then Captain Hardin, Captain
Gregory, Major Friend and, finally,
Major Hector Quintanilla. Hynek had
kind words only for Ruppelt and
Friend. Of Ruppelt, he wrote "In my
contacts with him I found him to be
honest and seriously puzzled about
the whole phenomenon". Of
Friend, he wrote "Of all the
officers I worked with in Blue Book,
Colonel Friend earned my respect.
Whatever private views he may 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."
He held Quintanilla in especially
low regard: "Quintanilla's method
was simple: disregard any evidence
that was counter to his hypothesis."
Hynek wrote that during Air Force
Major Hector Quintanilla's tenure as
Blue Book's director, “the flag of
the utter nonsense school was flying
at its highest on the mast.” Hynek
reported that Sergeant David Moody,
one of Quintanilla’s subordinates,
“epitomized the
conviction-before-trial method.
Anything that he didn’t understand
or didn’t like was immediately put
into the psychological category,
which meant ‘crackpot’.”
Hynek reported bitter exchanges with
Moody when the latter refused to
research UFO sightings thoroughly,
describing Moody as “the master of
the possible: possible balloon,
possible aircraft, possible birds,
which then became, by his own hand
(and I argued with him violently at
times) the probable.”
"Of No Scientific Importance"
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