Young Astronomers Blog, Volume 29, Number 13.
Unidentified Flying Objects … UFOs … Hmmm … I might be stretching things a bit with this article. Or am I a bit out on “the fringe” of things? … Hmmm …
First, do unidentified flying objects exist? Probably yes. Any flying object that is unidentified is technically a UFO.
Second, are unidentified flying objects visitors from other worlds? Probably not. Although, scientist and astronomers are looking for alien life (see The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Exoplanets, and Water, Phosphine, and the possibility of life elsewhere in the Solar System), the odds are very slim that they are buzzing us in their flying saucers. If nothing else, the immense distance between us and other stars precludes visitors from the far reaches of the galaxy. And warp drive, wormholes, and hyperspace are still things of science fiction rather than science fact. Despite all this, we can still dream of and imagine life on other words. We can speculate about objects in the night sky that defy explanation with possible extraterrestrial origins.
Before moving on, we should note that early on these phenomena were referred to as the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). The term Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) was introduced by the U.S. Air Force in 1953. Today, some prefer to use the term Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP).
For the public and news media, before they were UFOs they were “Flying Saucers.” Kenneth Arnold somewhat inadvertently introduced the term in 1947. He spotted nine “high speed” objects in the sky while piloting a plane in Washington state. Arnold described them as “saucers skipping on water”. When Arnold’s story was reported in the newspaper, the objects were incorrectly described as saucer shaped.
Around the same time, the most famous UFO sighting occurred in Roswell, New Mexico. According to articles such as those in the National Archives and at History.com, the story goes something like this. In mid-June 1948, W. W. “Mac” Brazel found the wreckage of a mysterious object on his property 75 miles north of Roswell. After reading about several flying saucer sightings, Brazel turned the wreckage over to a local sheriff on July 7, who in turn took it to the local Army air base. The next day, the public information officer at the base announced that they were in possession of the remains of a “flying disk”.
The story was reported in the local newspaper the following day and was carried by the Associated Press. The story was also picked up by the New York Times on July 10. In it they reported that another Army officer had clarified the situation by noting that the wreckage was actually from a weather balloon. On July 11, the Washington Post followed with an article saying that the whole thing had gotten a bit out of hand due to the initial Army press release.
In any event, the rumors of a coverup soon began. The rumors were fueled a few years later when human shaped dummies were dropped from the sky and quickly collected by the military in New Mexico. Finally, in 1994 and 1997, the Air Force issued two detailed reports about the Roswell incident. The reports claimed the wreckage was from a high-altitude balloon used in a classified project and the dummies were from parachute tests conducted in the area.
After Roswell, one of the more famous UFO stories is about the Majestic 12, a conspiracy theory that emerged in the mid-1980s. The alleged story is this. Film was found in an envelope that was dropped through Jamie Shandera’s mail slot in 1984. He took the film to William Moore, who developed it and found photos of classified documents that discussed Roswell and other UFO sightings. The documents also referred to a top-secret committee, the Majestic 12, formed by President Truman to investigate UFO sightings and evidence of aliens. Today, there is considerable doubt over the validity of this story and the corresponding documents (for example, see the articles by Philip J. Klass in the Skeptical Inquirer). The FBI eventually posted the documents on their website and literally labeled them “bogus”.
As reports of flying saucers and UFOs intensified, the U.S. government decided to investigate the sightings. Project Sign was initiated in January 1948 and reviewed 253 reported incidents. Its final report, issued in February 1949, was somewhat vague. They recognized the possibility of the extraterrestrial nature of the sightings. However, they did not have the information necessary to either prove or disprove this conjecture. Although, they did say that crafts of this type were “highly improbable”.
Project Grudge was next, and it simply dismissed the whole UFO phenomena as unimportant and required no further study.
The most well-known study is Project Blue Book, which was run by the Air Force out of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Beginning in 1951, 12,618 UFO sightings were investigated over a period of some 17 years. In the end, the project concluded that most of the sightings could be explained, leaving 701 as unidentified.
Due to a sizable number of UFO sightings in 1952, the CIA commissioned a panel chaired by Caltech physicist H. P. Robertson to investigate the reports. After three days of interviews and analysis, the “Robertson Panel” reached a conclusion similar to that of project Blue Book saying that around 90% of the sightings were explainable. They also determined that there was no basis to conclude that any of these sightings were of extraterrestrial origins. However, the report’s findings were classified until 1979 fueling more government coverup conspiracies.
After the Robertson Panel, project Blue Book saw a sizable reduction in staff and the resignation of its director Captain Edward Ruppelt, who also led the previous project Grudge. Ruppelt is thought to be open minded in his views about UFOs and introduced the term “unidentified object” replacing “flying saucer”. After leaving the project, he published a book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, providing a history of the early years of UFO studies.
In 1966, the Air Force decided to take a closer look at several of the more interesting sightings investigated by project Blue Book. They established the “University of Colorado UFO Project” headed by Edward Condon. This group focused on 59 Project Blue Book cases and issued their report, Scientific Study of Unidentified Fly Objects (aka the Condon Report), in 1968. They concluded that nothing much had been gained from studying UFOs over the past two decades and that “extraterrestrial visitations” were very unlikely. As a result of this report, project Blue Book was discontinued near the end of 1969.
The official conclusions from Project Blue Book are summarized in a US Air Force fact sheet. It states there is no evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial or that they exhibit technology beyond current knowledge. All the official information about Project Blue Book is now available in the National Archives.
At the center of the government studies was Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek. Hynek is associated with a 1966 UFO sighting in Michigan. He investigated the sighting during his tenure with project Blue Book and produced a report speculating that the sightings could be due to “swamp gas”.
Over the years, Hynek became disenchanted with the conclusions of the various committees and panels. In 1972, he published the book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry challenging the conclusions in the Codon report. As the government withdrew from the formal study of UFOs, Hynek launched the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in 1974. This is a group that still researches sightings today and believes they could be extraterrestrial in nature. In 1977, he published a second book, The Hynek UFO Report, in which he discusses many of the cases identified by project Blue Book.
Hynek, in these books, introduced a hierarchical classification of encounters. Close encounters of the first kind are visual sightings of an object less than 500 feet away. Those of the second kind have physical evidence. Those of the third kind involve encounters with creatures of some kind. He also included three other types of encounters: lights seen at night, discs seen in daylight, and radar/visual signings.
After project Blue Book, there were no official government programs to investigate UFOs (now UAPs) for many years. There, however, continued to be individuals and groups that focused on the UFO phenomenon. We’ll pick up this discussion, including a flurry of recent activity, in a future article.
Selected Sources and Further Reading
Greg Eghigian. “The Year of UFOs.” Air & Space Magazine. February 2020. https://www.airspacemag.com/space/year-ufos-180973965/
M. J. Stephey. “UFOs.” Time. December 17, 2009. http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948214,00.html
Gideon Lewis-Kraus. “How The Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously.” The New Yorker. April 30, 2021. May 10, 2021 Issue. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously
“A Brief History of UFOs.” UFOs Northwest. (Accessed May 24, 2021). https://www.ufosnw.com/newsite/resources/history-of-ufos/
Eric Grundhauser. “The FBI Debunked These UFO Documents in the Most Childish Way Possible.” Slate. December 6, 2016. https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/12/the-fbi-debunked-the-majestic-12-ufo-documents-in-the-most-childish-way-possible.html
Edward J. Ruppelt. The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects. Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York. 1956, First Edition; Ballantine Books. New York. 1960. Second, Expanded Edition. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12246494-the-report-on-unidentified-flying-objects
J. Allen Hynek. The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. Ballantine Books. 1972. https://archive.org/details/ufoexperience00jall
Dr. J. Allen Hynek. The Hynek UFO Report. Barnes and Nobel Books. 1977. https://archive.org/details/TheHynekUFOReport
Selected Sources and Further Reading (History.com)
“UFO Stories.” History. (Accessed May 24, 2021). https://www.history.com/ufo-stories
History.com Editors. “History of UFOs” History. October 27, 2009. Updated September 11, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/history-of-ufos
Adam Janos. “What Really Happened at Roswell?” History. December 17, 2019. Updated January 8, 2021. https://www.history.com/news/roswell-ufo-aliens-what-happened
History.com Editors. “Project Blue Book.” History. February 22, 2010. Updated December 16, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/project-blue-book
Greg Daugherty. “Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO ‘Close Encounters’.” History. November 19, 2018. Updated January 15, 2020. https://www.history.com/news/j-allen-hynek-ufos-project-blue-book
Selected Sources and Further Reading (Government Reports)
Report of Air Force Research Regarding the ‘Roswell Incident’. US Air Force. July 1994. https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/report_af_roswell.pdf
James McAndrew. The Roswell Report, Case Closed. Headquarters, United States Air Force. 1997. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a326147.pdf
L. H. Truettner and A. B Deyarmond. Air Force. Project SIGN. Project No. XS-304. Technical Intelligence Division. Intelligence Department, Air Material Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. S-11750. Technical Report No. F-TR-2274-IA. February 1949. https://archive.org/details/ProjectSIGN
“Project BLUE BOOK – Unidentified Flying Objects.” National Archives, Military Records. (Accessed May 24, 2021). https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos
“Unidentified flying Objects and Air Force Project Blue Book.” USAF Fact Sheet 95-03. Current as of June 1995. https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/usaf_fact_sheet_95_03.pdf
Dr. Edward U. Condon. Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. University of Colorado under contract with the United States Air Force. 1968. National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS). 1999. https://files.ncas.org/condon/
“Majestic 12.” FBI Records: The Vault.” (Accessed May 28, 2021). https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012