textfiles/ufo/SIGHTINGS/bbun1.txt

                          THE BLUE BOOK UNKNOWNS



          The unexplained UFO reports from the files of the U.S. Air

          Force's Project Blue Book UFO investigations.




          Compiled by Don Berliner, for the Fund for UFO Research




                 the conclusions or views expressed in this
                 publication are the views of the author(s)
                 and do not necessarily reflect the opinions
                 of the Fund for UFO Research, Inc.





           THE UNEXPLAINED UFO CASES FROM THE PROJECT BLUE BOOK FILES

            In January, 1974, I visited the U.S. Air Force Archives at

       Maxwell AFB,.Montgomery, Ala., to review the files of Project

       Blue Book as the first step toward writing a book on the subject.

       In a full week, I read all the "unexplained" cases in the

       original files and made extensive notes, including the names and

       other identifying information on all witnesses where given.  The

       cooperation of the staff of the Archives was excellent, and no

       restrictions were placed on my work.

            A few months later, the files were withdrawn from public

       view so they could be prepared for transfer to the National

       Archives in Washington, D.C. This process involved making a

       xerox copy of almost 30 file drawers of material, blacking out

       the names and other identifiers of all witnesses, and then

       microfilming the censored xerox copy.  The microfilm has been

       available to the public at the National Archives since 1976. The

       original Project Blue Book files remain under lock and key at the

       Archives.

            On almost every page of the 12,000+ case files, there are

       big black marks where information that could be used to cross-

       check Project Blue Book's controversial work has been censored.

       This includes the names of witnesses to widely-publicized cases,

       and even names in newspaper clippings!

            As it was perfectly legal for me to copy witness' names when

       I visited the Air Force Archives, those names can be found in

       this report of 585 (less 13 missing) unexplained cases.  And

       since the Privacy Act, which motivated the Air Force to censor

       the files in the first place, does not apply to reporters or

       anyone else outside the Government, they can be used as the

       reader pleases.

            Inasmuch as the book I planned to write has never progressed

       beyond the manuscript stage, I see no reason to keep this

       information under wraps any longer.  Perhaps it will encourage

       others to re-investigate cases and make the results known.

           "Unidentified" says a great deal...and it says almost

       nothing.

            Probably the most controversial aspect of the entire Air

       Force investigation of UFOs was its handling of individual cases.

       The means by.which one case was determined to be "identified" and

       another "unidentified" has no doubt fueled more arguments about

       Project Blue Book than anything else it did.

            For many years, Blue Book's most vocal opponents have

       insisted that the standards by which cases were allegedly

       explained were grossly unscientific.  Blue Book's goal, according

       to those who held it low esteem, was to attach some explanation

       to every case, regardless of logic or common sense.  Examples of

       Blue Book saying a violently maneuvering disc was an aircraft, or

       of blaming a puzzling radar tracking on a supposedly

       malfunctioning radar set which it never bothered to check out,

       are numerous in the popular UFO literature.

           And they are even more numerous in the files of Project Blue

       Book. The urgency with which Blue Book officials tagged answers

       onto cases without having done the proper investigation is

       obvious, though not proven.  But if the Air Force was so eager to

       label cases "identified", despite the lack of supporting

       evidence, then those few cases which it labeled "unidentified"

       presumably withstood every attempt to apply every other kind of

       label.  And so it may be that those cases are truly

       unidentifiable in familiar terms.



                                    iii

            Indeed, the Air Force defines "unidentifiable" cases as

       those which "apparently contain all pertinent data necessary to

       suggest a valid hypothesis concerning the lack of explanation of

       the report, but the description of the object or its motion

       cannot be correlated with any known object or phenomenon."

           To meet such criteria, a report must obviously come from a

       reputable source, and it must not bear any resemblance to

       airplanes, balloons, helicopters, spacecraft, birds, clouds,

       stars, planets, meteors, comets, electrical phenomena, or

       anything else known to frequent the air, the sky, or nearby

       space.

            Unfortunately, the Air Force failed to stick to its own

       rules.  Some of the "unidentifiable" cases most certainly can be

       correlated with known objects or phenomena.  But most of them

       cannot.  Moreover, many of the so-called "identified" cases

       cannot honestly be so correlated.  But we are primarily concerned

       here with those cases which Project Blue Book openly admits it

       tried to explain and failed.

           The amount of detail in these cases varies enormously.  Some

       cases - frequently those which were well publicized at the time

       of the event - contain considerable information, while others are

       vague and seriously incomplete.  Project Blue Book generally

       placed the blame for such incompleteness on the witnesses, but it

       should take its own share of the responsibility.  'In thousands of

       cases, there is no completed questionnaire in the Project files,

       nor even any indication that one was sent to the witness.  And in

                                 iv
       most of the instances where a questionnaire was filled out, it

       was never followed up to get more complete answers to questions

       which the witnesses failed to deal with properly.  For much of

       the life of Project Blue Book and its predecessors, there was no

       satisfactory.questionnaire at all.  And one of those used for a

       lengthy period was so badly organized that a witness should not

       be held to blame for giving incomplete answers.

             Yet, despite all the roadblocks, many reports are

       sufficiently complete to tell a pretty clear story of a puzzling

       experience.  With this data now available, anyone can look at

       Project Blue Book's "unidentified" UFO reports and make up his

       own mind.