The Air Force Investigation into UFOs

On December 17, 1969, the United States Air Force concluded Project Blue Book, its investigation into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Headquartered at Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, OH, Project Blue Book ran for 12 years beginning in March of 1952.

The project had investigated some 12,618 UFO sightings, and of those 701 remain “unidentified.” Created by the United States government because of security concerns and fueled by American obsession with the extra-terrestrial, Project Blue Book was a pure product of Cold War paranoia.

The origins of Project Blue book began with the “flying saucer craze” of the 1940s, sparked by Kenneth Arnold, an amateur pilot from Idaho.

Kenneth Arnold's report to Army Air Forces (AAF) intelligence, dated July 12, 1947, which includes annotated sketches of the typical craft in the chain of nine objects.

On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying over Washington State on the way to an air show in Oregon. He had taken a brief detour to search for the wreckage of a crashed Marine Corps C-46 transport plane.

Suddenly he observed a series of lights flashing in rapid succession before observing several airborne objects in echelon formation, darting about at incredible speed. Unsure of what he was seeing Arnold preformed a rough estimation of the objects speed and found that they were moving at approximately 1,700 miles per hour. This was much faster than any human-made craft.

Upon landing in Oregon, Arnold told his story, and the news spread rapidly. Arnold described the “unidentified objects” to reporters as “like a saucer if you skip it across the water.” This phrasing, misquoted by newspaper editors, is likely what lead to the term “flying saucer” and its association with the extraterrestrial.

Only two weeks later, on July 8, 1947, the U.S. Army announced it had recovered a “flying disk” that had crashed near an installation in New Mexico. A day later this report was corrected to state that the crashed object was an experimental weather balloon.

However, these two incidents sparked a craze that lasted decades. People began to scan the skies in search of further evidence of flying sauces. And they found them, reporting sightings in the hundreds over the next few years.

A 1947 headline about the Flying Disc Craze.

The United States government was less concerned with UFOs in 1947 as evidence of extraterrestrial life than with the threat they might pose during the Cold War.

That year marked the beginning of the idea that U.S. air space was traversed by foreign, potentially Soviet, flying craft. The newly established U.S. Air Force was charged with investigating reports of UFOs. To this end it instituted a comprehensive study of UFOs.

This study, known as Project Sign, was active through 1948. Though Project Sign did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrials, it found that UFO sightings stemmed from “one or more of three causes”: mass hysteria, hoax, or “misinterpretation of known objects.”

Nevertheless, it recommended continued investigation of all sightings.

Close Image of Flying Saucer by Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Project Grudge followed. It continued the investigation, but also featured a concerted public relations campaign to alleviate public anxiety over UFOs, reassuring the public that they were balloons, regular aircraft, optical illusions, or weather phenomena.

Project Grudge also found no evidence of advanced foreign weapons. It concluded that UFOs did not threaten national security. The Air Force terminated Project Grudge in December 1949, fearing that evidence of the military’s interest in UFOs helped to fuel public interest in the phenomena and contributed to “war fever.”

Despite this, public interest in UFOs did not subside. Nor did fears of the Soviets. In 1951, UFO investigations began to pick up again, this time under a new initiative, Project Blue Book. The establishment of Project Blue Book came on the precipice of the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and was the most comprehensive and involved effort to study UFOs.

One of the McMinnville UFO photographs. Skeptics have concluded that the UFO was a small model suspended by wires or string from the power lines visible at the top of the photo.

Project Blue Book had two principle aims. The first was to determine whether UFOs posed a national security threat. The second was to determine if any data gathered on UFOs could provide useful scientific information or advanced technology.

To accomplishing these objectives, Project Blue Book aimed to identify and explain all UFO sightings reported to the Air Force. The procedures of Project Blue Book involved the collection of much more technical data than on UFO sightings than previous projects. It also attempted to investigate more vigorously the veracity of the reports and observations.

These investigations proceeded in three phases. The first was an initial investigation of the UFO reports conducted by the staff of the Air Force base nearest the location of a reported sighting. If the initial investigation did not reveal an explanation of the observed phenomena, it entered a second, more intensive phrase with analyses conducted by the staff of Project Blue Book.

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt (left), head of Project Blue Book, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base project office in March 1953.

Each case was scientifically analyzed and, if deemed necessary, staff could draw on all the scientific facilities available to the Air Force to assist in arriving at an explanation. Staff conducting these analyses were told to “view each report with a scientific approach and an open mind.” The third phase of the program involved the reporting information concerning UFO sightings, evaluations, and statistics.

Investigations continued well into the 1960s. By then the controversy around the program had grown to a fever pitch. There were numerous critics of the project’s reporting, particularly as it related to the quality of research conducted by Project Blue Book personnel.

Additionally, like Project Grudge before it, Project Blue Book seemed to be engaged in an effort to downplay or dismiss reports of UFOs. Some, who believed in UFOs and extraterritorial life, even went as far as to suggest a cover-up.

After a series of Congressional hearings in the mid-1960s, the Air Force funded a study into UFOs led by physicist Edward Condon. The Condon Committee, as it came to be known, published its results by 1968, finding that further study of UFOs was unlikely to result in any major scientific discoveries. At that point Congressional and Air Force leadership moved to wind down Project Blue Book.

Edward U. Condon National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Collections, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 — Edward U. Condon (National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Collections, Gaithersburg, MD 20899.)

In its final analysis, Project Blue Book concluded that UFOs did not pose a threat to U.S. national security, that there was no evidence of unexplained advanced technology, and that while the Air Force did not deny the possibility that life may exist on other planets, there was no indication that any of the UFO sightings reported had been extraterrestrial vehicles.

This, seemingly, marked the end of efforts on the part of the U.S. government to research UFOs. However, since the entering into the 21st century, there has been some renewed investment in investigating UFOs and other unknown anomalies.

In 2022 the U.S. Department of Defense founded the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which aims to “standardize collection and reporting” of UFO sightings. While Project Blue Book ended on a conclusive note, the search for “the truth” of UFOs continues.