United States Government Investigates

Apparently at the recommendation of a high-ranking military officer, UFO’s eventually received official attention by the U.S. government. The result was the setting up of Project Sign, which began work on January 22, 1948. This investigative group was assigned to carry out work under the direction of the Air Technical Intelligence Command, located near Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. The project had hardly begun when tragedy struck. Captain Thomas Mantell, a military pilot, lost his life in a plane crash while in pursuit of a then unidentified object. He could have become unconscious while going too high without the benefit of supplementary oxygen. Later, it was learned that he may have been pursuing a Skyhook research balloon.

However, a new sighting by two Eastern Airlines pilots, coupled with the death of that Air Force pilot, further fueled the growing concern with UFO’s. According to the report, an Eastern Airlines plane had left Houston, Texas, and was headed for Atlanta, Georgia, when suddenly the pilot was compelled to take quick evasive action in order to miss a “wingless B-29 fuselage” that passed him on his right. A passenger and several ground-based observers seemed to add credibility to the story.

The Project Sign group finally issued a report that disappointed some. Later, some staff members who were sympathetic to the viewpoint that UFO’s were real were replaced, and a new title, “Project Grudge,” was given to the project. However, during this period, belief in the existence of UFO’s reached a new high when retired major Donald E. Keyhoe wrote an article entitled “The Flying Saucers Are Real.” The account was published in the January 1950 issue of True magazine, and the issue enjoyed wide circulation. Then, to add to the already wide interest, True published a further article by Navy commander R. B. McLaughlin. This article was entitled “How Scientists Tracked the Flying Saucers.” The enthusiasm was short-lived​—other magazines, Cosmopolitan and Time, published articles debunking UFO’s. With these new articles and a lull in sightings, interest subsided. Then came 1952, a remarkable year in UFO history.

1952​—The Year of UFO’s

The greatest number of UFO sightings received by the U.S. Air Technical Intelligence Command was recorded in 1952: 1,501. Early in March 1952, with increased numbers of sightings, the U.S. Air Force decided to create a separate organization called Project Blue Book. During that year of intense UFO activity, the sightings were diverse and many.

One of a series of especially notable sightings began over Washington, D.C., during the midnight hours of July 19 and 20. It was reported that “a group of unidentified flying objects appeared on two radarscopes at the Air Route Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport. The objects moved slowly at first . . . then shot away at ‘fantastic speeds.’” The visual sightings corresponded with the radar returns. It was further reported that an interception was attempted, but “the objects disappeared as the jets neared.”

In 1966 Gerald R. Ford, then congressman from Michigan, was credited with calling for another federal investigation of UFO’s. This was in response to a number of UFO sightings in his state. The result was that another study was set up at the University of Colorado. Dr. Edward U. Condon, a prominent physicist, assumed oversight of the work. In 1969, at the conclusion of the study, the Condon Report was issued. Among other things, it said that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge . . . that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”

This ended the official involvement of the U.S. government in the study of UFO’s and, in addition, tended to cool public curiosity. It did not, however, end the UFO controversy, nor was it the end of UFO sightings. According to one report, “20 percent of the ninety-five cases discussed in the document remained ‘unexplained.’”

It was while the Condon Report and the subject of UFO’s was still a matter of public concern that Awake! provided a review of the subject along with a discussion of some of the more spectacular cases.b Awake! reached the conclusion that “the great majority of all [UFO] reports have their origin in the same kinds of things that Project Blue Book [an earlier government study] named: Planets, airplanes, balloons, meteorites, mirages.”

The article continued: “The more thorough investigation [summarized in the Condon Report] has clarified the part played by physical and psychological distortions. It has explained how ordinary objects, seen in the sky by persons who do not recognize them under the perhaps unusual circumstances, can be misconstrued in perception, magnified in the telling, further exaggerated in the newspapers, and end up as spaceships landing little green men from Mars.”

The official Condon Report and conclusions as above, coupled with diminished UFO reports, seemed to end the matter for many. Nevertheless, two decades later we find UFO’s still getting public attention. As mentioned in our first article, a writer for one prominent journal observed that a new element has been added. We live with a backdrop of “deep-seated and apocalyptic fears” as we approach the year 2000.

Even more uncertainties developed from recent claims that in the past the United States and even other governments may have ignored or covered up some evidence of UFO’s. The author of a 1988 publication took advantage of the Freedom of Information Act, established in 1966 in the United States, together with sources in other countries, to gather information that according to him “proves beyond doubt that there has been a monumental cover-up of the UFO subject.”​—Above Top Secret, by Timothy Good.

Gary Kinder, in his book Light Years, raises questions as to what proof is needed to convince the authorities of the existence of UFO’s. He notes that one observer asks: “What constitutes proof [of UFO’s]? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff Offices? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak away at phenomenal speed?”

On the other hand, Professor Hines argues that the 997 pages of documents released, covering the period from 1949 to 1979, do not reveal an attempt at a government cover-up. He states: “An examination of the secret CIA papers and documents on UFOs reveals an agency mildly interested in the phenomenon but skeptical of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. These documents . . . also contradict the oft-repeated claims of a government cover-up of the ‘truth’ about UFOs.”

One of the foremost reasons for the lack of proof is that no UFO has ever been publicly exhibited, nor have any extraterrestrial beings officially presented themselves for public recognition. Furthermore, alleges Professor Hines, “there is no UFO photo that can be considered genuine showing anything other than vague shapes or blobs of light.” Time and again, experts have identified UFO’s as misinterpreted sightings of Venus or of other celestial bodies. It is evident that no solution to the UFO problem has been satisfactory to all.

At the time that the Condon Report was in the news, an Awake! contributor discussed privately some of the results with one of the associated scientists working at Boulder, Colorado. The scientist seemed to think that in the unexplained cases, the UFO experiences involved “mental perceptions” of some kind. Thus, although many UFO sightings can be explained scientifically as physical things or wrong identifications, some may involve mental or psychological experiences or perceptions.