223 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
223 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
THE BLUE BOOK UNKNOWNS
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The unexplained UFO reports from the files of the U.S. Air
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Force's Project Blue Book UFO investigations.
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Compiled by Don Berliner, for the Fund for UFO Research
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the conclusions or views expressed in this
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publication are the views of the author(s)
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and do not necessarily reflect the opinions
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of the Fund for UFO Research, Inc.
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THE UNEXPLAINED UFO CASES FROM THE PROJECT BLUE BOOK FILES
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In January, 1974, I visited the U.S. Air Force Archives at
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Maxwell AFB,.Montgomery, Ala., to review the files of Project
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Blue Book as the first step toward writing a book on the subject.
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In a full week, I read all the "unexplained" cases in the
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original files and made extensive notes, including the names and
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other identifying information on all witnesses where given. The
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cooperation of the staff of the Archives was excellent, and no
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restrictions were placed on my work.
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A few months later, the files were withdrawn from public
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view so they could be prepared for transfer to the National
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Archives in Washington, D.C. This process involved making a
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xerox copy of almost 30 file drawers of material, blacking out
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the names and other identifiers of all witnesses, and then
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microfilming the censored xerox copy. The microfilm has been
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available to the public at the National Archives since 1976. The
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original Project Blue Book files remain under lock and key at the
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Archives.
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On almost every page of the 12,000+ case files, there are
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big black marks where information that could be used to cross-
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check Project Blue Book's controversial work has been censored.
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This includes the names of witnesses to widely-publicized cases,
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and even names in newspaper clippings!
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As it was perfectly legal for me to copy witness' names when
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I visited the Air Force Archives, those names can be found in
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this report of 585 (less 13 missing) unexplained cases. And
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since the Privacy Act, which motivated the Air Force to censor
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the files in the first place, does not apply to reporters or
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anyone else outside the Government, they can be used as the
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reader pleases.
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Inasmuch as the book I planned to write has never progressed
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beyond the manuscript stage, I see no reason to keep this
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information under wraps any longer. Perhaps it will encourage
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others to re-investigate cases and make the results known.
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"Unidentified" says a great deal...and it says almost
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nothing.
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Probably the most controversial aspect of the entire Air
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Force investigation of UFOs was its handling of individual cases.
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The means by.which one case was determined to be "identified" and
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another "unidentified" has no doubt fueled more arguments about
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Project Blue Book than anything else it did.
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For many years, Blue Book's most vocal opponents have
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insisted that the standards by which cases were allegedly
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explained were grossly unscientific. Blue Book's goal, according
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to those who held it low esteem, was to attach some explanation
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to every case, regardless of logic or common sense. Examples of
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Blue Book saying a violently maneuvering disc was an aircraft, or
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of blaming a puzzling radar tracking on a supposedly
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malfunctioning radar set which it never bothered to check out,
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are numerous in the popular UFO literature.
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And they are even more numerous in the files of Project Blue
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Book. The urgency with which Blue Book officials tagged answers
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onto cases without having done the proper investigation is
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obvious, though not proven. But if the Air Force was so eager to
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label cases "identified", despite the lack of supporting
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evidence, then those few cases which it labeled "unidentified"
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presumably withstood every attempt to apply every other kind of
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label. And so it may be that those cases are truly
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unidentifiable in familiar terms.
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iii
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Indeed, the Air Force defines "unidentifiable" cases as
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those which "apparently contain all pertinent data necessary to
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suggest a valid hypothesis concerning the lack of explanation of
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the report, but the description of the object or its motion
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cannot be correlated with any known object or phenomenon."
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To meet such criteria, a report must obviously come from a
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reputable source, and it must not bear any resemblance to
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airplanes, balloons, helicopters, spacecraft, birds, clouds,
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stars, planets, meteors, comets, electrical phenomena, or
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anything else known to frequent the air, the sky, or nearby
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space.
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Unfortunately, the Air Force failed to stick to its own
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rules. Some of the "unidentifiable" cases most certainly can be
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correlated with known objects or phenomena. But most of them
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cannot. Moreover, many of the so-called "identified" cases
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cannot honestly be so correlated. But we are primarily concerned
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here with those cases which Project Blue Book openly admits it
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tried to explain and failed.
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The amount of detail in these cases varies enormously. Some
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cases - frequently those which were well publicized at the time
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of the event - contain considerable information, while others are
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vague and seriously incomplete. Project Blue Book generally
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placed the blame for such incompleteness on the witnesses, but it
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should take its own share of the responsibility. 'In thousands of
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cases, there is no completed questionnaire in the Project files,
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nor even any indication that one was sent to the witness. And in
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iv
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most of the instances where a questionnaire was filled out, it
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was never followed up to get more complete answers to questions
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which the witnesses failed to deal with properly. For much of
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the life of Project Blue Book and its predecessors, there was no
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satisfactory.questionnaire at all. And one of those used for a
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lengthy period was so badly organized that a witness should not
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be held to blame for giving incomplete answers.
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Yet, despite all the roadblocks, many reports are
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sufficiently complete to tell a pretty clear story of a puzzling
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experience. With this data now available, anyone can look at
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Project Blue Book's "unidentified" UFO reports and make up his
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own mind. |