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A few months later, the files were withdrawn from public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.

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