Part 1 Link Below
http://ultparanormal.blogspot.com/2012/06/project-blue-book-part-1.html
Now here is part 2
USAF current official statement on UFOs
Now here is part 2
USAF current official statement on UFOs
Below is the United States
Air Force's official statement regarding UFOs, as noted in USAF Fact
Sheet 95-03:
From 1947 to 1969, the Air
Force investigated Unidentified Flying Objects under Project Blue
Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
Ohio, was terminated December 17, 1969. Of a total of 12,618
sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remained "unidentified."
The decision to
discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report
prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific
Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;" a review of the
University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences;
previous UFO studies and Air Force experience investigating UFO
reports during 1940 to 1969.
As a result of these
investigations, studies and experience gained from investigating UFO
reports since 1948, the conclusions of Project Blue Book were:
No UFO reported,
investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any
indication of threat to our national security.
There has been no evidence
submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings
categorized as "unidentified" represent technological
developments or principles beyond the range of present day scientific
knowledge.
There has been no evidence
indicating the sightings categorized as "unidentified" are
extraterrestrial vehicles.
With the termination of
Project Blue Book, the Air Force regulation establishing and
controlling the program for investigating and analyzing UFOs was
rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Blue Book investigation
was permanently transferred to the Modern Military Branch, National
Archives and Records Service, and is available for public review and
analysis.
Since the termination of
Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a
resumption of UFO investigations by the Air Force.
There are a number of
universities and professional scientific organizations that have
considered UFO phenomena during periodic meetings and seminars. A
list of private organizations interested in aerial phenomena may be
found in "Encyclopaedia of Associations", published by Gale
Research. Interest in and timely review of UFO reports by private
groups ensures that sound evidence is not overlooked by the
scientific community. Persons wishing to report UFO sightings should
be advised to contact local law enforcement agencies.
Post-Blue Book U.S.A.F.
UFO activities
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 punched 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 (38% were considered conclusively
identified while 31% were still "doubtfully" explained);
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, as opposed to only 18% of the
poorest cases. This was the exact opposite of the 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.
(More detailed statistics
can be found at Identified flying objects.)
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, q.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.
Hynek's criticism
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 US
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.”
Project Blue Book in
Fiction
Project U.F.O.
Project Blue Book was the
inspiration for the 1978–1979 TV show Project U.F.O. (which was
known as Project Blue Book in some countries), which was supposedly
based on Project Blue Book cases. However, the show frequently went
against the actual project conclusions, suggesting on many occasions
that some sightings were real extraterrestrials.
Twin Peaks
Project Blue Book played a
major role in the second season of the 1990–1991 TV series Twin
Peaks. Major Garland Briggs, an Air Force officer who worked on the
program, approaches protagonist Dale Cooper and reveals that Cooper's
name turned up in an otherwise nonsensical radio transmission
intercepted by the Air Force, which inexplicably originated from the
woods surrounding the town of Twin Peaks. As the season progresses,
it is revealed that the source of the transmission is the
transdimensional realm of The Black Lodge, inhabited by beings which
feed on the human emotions of pain and suffering; it eventually comes
out that Briggs worked with Cooper's rival, corrupt FBI agent Windom
Earle, on Project Blue Book, and that the two men apparently
uncovered evidence of the Lodge during the course of their work.
Galactica 1980
Every episode of the
original Battlestar Galactica spin-off series Galactica 1980 ended
with a short statement about the U.S. Air Force's 1969 Project Blue
Book findings that UFOs are not proven to exist and "are not a
threat to national security".