SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION OF UFOs, A HISTORY FILE: UFO1416
MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK
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Contributed by: Georgia MUFON
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HISTORY OF THE GOVERNMENT'S DOCUMENTATION OF UFO'S
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The history of the official documentation of UFO's began in 1948 when the U.S.
Air Force created "Project Sign". The following year this was reorganized in
to "Project Grudge", and then into "Project Blue Book".
The purpose of "Project Blue Book" was to investigate and evaluate UFO reports
within the United States and at it's stations and properties in other countries
with regard to any potential threat to national security, whether from foreign
powers or from outer space. Critics claimed that the project lacked a
scientifically qualified staff and that it was simply a "cover-up" operation
meant to reassure an alarmed public.
"Project Blue Book" proved to be quite effective, however. During it's 18
years of activity it allumulated more than 12,600 reported cases in its files,
almost all of which were eventually explained as mistaken natural phenomena or
as known aircraft. But 701 sightings remained classified as "unidentified".
In 1966 the U.S. Air Force sponsored an independent, stepped-up investigation
of UFO's by a team of scientists from the University of Colorado headed by Dr.
Edward U. Condon, a prominent physicist and former head of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Of the 59 cases they selected for
serious study during the next two years, 23 eluded explanation. In his final
report, in 1969, Condon nevertheless concluded that a total of 21 years of UFO
study had added nothing to scientific knowledge and that "further extensive
study" was not warranted. He said, "it is safe to assume that no ILE
[intelligent life elsewhere] outside of our solar system has any possibility of
visiting earth in the next 10,000 years." To date, no one has determined the
basis for Condon's estimate.
Following publication of the Condon report, the U.S. Air Force agreed that
UFO's posed no threat to national security and that there was no evidence the
sighted objects were of extra- terrestrial origin. "Project Blue Book" was
then terminated, and all of it's files were declassified. But the fact that
other documents on UFO's remained classified prompted a few private UFO
investigative groups to press for their release on the ground that the public
is entitled to know all.
Even today many UFO buffs believe that the real investigation of UFO's was --
and is -- being secretly conducted by high-level government personnel. But at
this time only private organizations are involved in serious research. Among
the membership groups the best known are The Mutual UFO network (MUFON),
founded in 1969; The National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP), founded in 1956 in Washington, D.C.; and the Aerial Phenomena
research Organication (APRO), founded in 1952 by Jim and Coral Lorenzen. A
highly regarded organization is the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), founded in
1973 by astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who for years was scientific
consultant to "Project Blue Book". By 1982 CUFOS had ammased a computerized
list of 70,000 reported sightings from all over the world. About 80 percent of
these were easily explained and dismissed; the other 20 percent remain subject
to further explanation.
Other countries, notably France, Britian, and Australia, also have civilian
organizations that collect and seriously investigate UFO reports. Although
awareness of the phenomenon is kept alive solely by private enterprise, reports
of unidentified flying objects from all over the world continue to accumulate
and further compound the most elusive mystery of our time.
Some information has been released through lawsuits under the Freedom of
Information Act, but most experts agree the government is still suppressing
most of what it knows. Classified documents buried in musty government files
show the government was aware of UFOs patrolling our skies as early as 1942.
The documents, heavily edited, deal with reports compiled by the U.S. Air Force
and its Office of Scientific Investigation (OSI), the FBI, the CIA, the
National Security Agency and at least a dozen government-financed hush-hush
units.
Most of the documents support independent investigations made over the years by
civilian researchers into sightings and close encounters. "We know there are
more detailed and substantive reports of sighting and encounters buried in
secret government files that have not been released on the grounds that they
constitute a risk to the national security of the United States," says Gerald
Inserra, a physicist and former NASA employee.
Among other things, the documents hint of a secret agreement between the U.S.,
Britian, France, Germany, Russia and other nations to keep confirmation of UFO
sightings and other incidents relating to UFOs secret from the public.
Despite the official government position, first formalized with the U.S. Air
Force's "Project Blue Book", that UFOs are hallucinations and UFO researchers
are little more than kooks, several of the secret documents clearly show the
government not only believes UFOs are real, but that they might pose a threat
to our security.
The late J. Edgar Hoover ordered FBI agents to investigate all UFO reports
because he feared they might be hoaxes instigated by the Russians to undermine
American morale. Later memos from Hoover suggested he was shifting toward the
view of the National Security Agency, which warned that the United States
should "prepare itself for an invasion from outer space."
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