TOP 9 facts about the BLUE BOOK UFO program

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Between 1952 and 1969, the US Air Force conducted a series of UFO research and sightings called Project Blue Book. This year, not only a new series was released on the historical channel, but also this year marks the 50th anniversary of the completion of this project. Let's take a closer look at this secret program.

Project Blue Book was not the only government UFO study

In 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold noticed nine glowing UFOs approaching Mount Rainier in Washington. The audience went crazy with the so-called "flying saucers". Shortly thereafter, the US government launched Project SIGN to determine if such facilities pose a threat to national security. In 1948, Project SING allegedly published a document called Situation Assessment, which suggested that aliens were a possible explanation for UFO sightings. As the story goes, US Air Force officials destroyed this document and began a more skeptical investigation in the late 1940s, called Project GRUDGE. The Blue Book project appeared several years later.

The Situation Assessment was inspired by a stunning event

In the 1960s, US Air Force officials denied that a "situation assessment" document ever existed. Those who vouch for its authenticity say the report was inspired by a 1948 UFO sighting in Alabama. After two experienced pilots saw the torpedo-shaped "glowing object" zip past their plane like a rocket into the clouds. The report shocked and puzzled many SIGN researchers, although later scientists claimed the sighting was consistent with a fireball or a bright meteorite.

Project Blue Book came about after college trials

Whether UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin is controversial. It is undeniable that in the 1950s, people regularly spotted unidentified (or thought they saw) objects flying over the United States. And it was the burden of the American military to find out what it was and whether they posed any danger. The Blue Book earned its name because at the time, US Air Force officials equated studying this phenomenon with preparing for the final exam of the collegiate Blue Book.

Officials have developed a special protocol for processing UFO sightings

A central part of the Blue Book project was the creation of a standardized questionnaire for UFO sightings. Some examples suggest: “Draw a picture that shows the shape of the object or objects … what was the state of the sky? Could the object suddenly accelerate and rush away at any moment? Could the object change shape? Flicker or pulsate?"

In the end, each US Air Force base eventually appointed a dedicated officer to collect these UFO reports.

Thousands of reports have been collected and some of them have not been explained

By the time Project Blue Book closed, officials had collected 12,618 UFO reports. Of these, 701 have never been explained. Nearly half of these unidentified UFOs appeared in 1952, when a whopping 1,501 UFOs were sighted. Interestingly, in the following year, it became a crime for the military to discuss secret UFO reports with the public. The risk of breaking the law could result in up to two years in prison.

There were five leadership changes in Project Blue Book

Each person in the team saw the purpose of the Blue Book project differently. For example, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, treated the work as a serious scientific endeavor and was often praised as the most impartial project leader. In particular, it is he who is responsible for coining the term UFO. Major Hector Quintanilla, who took over the project in 1963, was more interested in turning the Blue Book into a PR front. And he focused on suppressing public interest in UFOs. It is a desire that will ultimately lead to the government being accused of hiding information about UFOs.

The Blue Book made such serious scientific errors that the US Congress had to intervene

In 1965, Oklahoma police, Tinker AFB and a local meteorologist independently tracked four unexplained flying objects using weather radar. At Quintanilla's advice, Project Blue Book will claim that these witnesses were simply observing the planet Jupiter. Is there a problem with this explanation? Jupiter was not even visible in the night sky.

"The US Air Force must have turned their telescope over in August," said Robert Reiser, director of the Oklahoma Planetarium, at the time

This series of ludicrous scientific explanations ultimately led to a Congressional hearing.

The project's desire to get rid of unidentified phenomena worried its only scientist

Project Blue Book had one consistent scientific advisor, astronomer Dr. J. Allen Heineck.

In 1968, Hynek wrote: “The staff of the Blue Book, both in number and in scientific training, is extremely inadequate … There is practically no scientific dialogue between the Blue Book and the outside scientific world. The statistical methods used by the Blue Book are nothing more than a parody."

Hynek held Quintanilla with particularly low respect, saying that Quintanilla's method was simple - to ignore any evidence that contradicted his hypothesis.

In 2012, a new government investigation into UFO research was launched

Between 2007 and 2012, the US government spent $ 22 million on a new UFO study called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. Currently, UFOs are called UAP, or "unidentified aerial phenomena". In January 2019, more than three dozen studies of the program went public, revealing the government's interest in everything from warp drives to invisibility cloaks.