From: c307209@mars.lib.iup.edu (Skaven Q. Blight) Subject: Project Bluebook Date: 21 Sep 1994 18:34:59 GMT Organization: East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania Hello out there in UFO land! I saw that someone posted a question asking about the origin of Project BLUE BOOK and what happened to it. Welp, hopefully this bit will answer your questions about this infamous project. Before I start, I must say a couple of things. First - In some cases I don't support what I say, but thats because I have class soon and don't have time, so if you have any questions or what me to elaborate more on one topic, just ask. I am going to go thru this quick. Second, most of this comes straight from the MAN himself, Dr. Jacobs, the foremost UFO researcher on the earth today. I am fortunate enough to be taking his class at Temple University, the only UFO class offered at a major university in the entire world. Remember - this is extremely brief, this lecture was taught over 6 to 7 lectures. Dr. Jacobs backs up everything he says with hard evidence. Project Bluebook began in 1948. Actually, it began as Project Sign. As most of you probably know, UFO sitings come in waves. The very first wave began in 1897 (that we know of), and generally they come and go as such. In 1948, there had been a huge wave of UFO sitings. Pressure from the media was being put on the airforce to do something about these sitings. Were we in danger of being invaded? Thus, in 1948, Project Sign was born, an airforce project dedicated to discovering what these things people were seeing were. Project Sign didn't take the alien theories very seriously. They were sure that it couldn't be extra terresterial. Therefore, their natural conclusion had to be that it was a secret project. By the way - at this point, project sign was top secret. Investigations ensued, and project sign used spies and such to investigate the USSR, Britain, and even Canada to see if they were working on any kind of project that would resemble what people were spotting in the skies. This came back negative. To make a long story short (too late), Project Sign, after very little investigation, concluded that the UFO phenomenom was actually not happening. Their conclusion was that 75% of the sitings were missitings (birds, planes, venus, etc), and that the other 25% were psychological problems. The called these psychological problems, "The atomic jitters" and "war nerves" (remember, we were just emerging from WW2). However, the sitings didn't stop. In 1949, Project Sign changed its name to Project Grudge. Their investigation lasted from 1949 until 1950, at which time they made their report - the same conclusion as before, that the UFO sitings were missitings that were hyped up by the media. The phone lines to the pentagon were being tied up with these UFO reports, so the Airforce announced in 1950 that they woul no longer research UFO claims anymore. However, they lied about this - they continued to investigate in secret. In 1951, at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and air show was held to test out the US Government's new radar equipment. Airforce generals and other bigwigs were invited to test it out - it was installed in some planes and at the actual air show. Anyways, the radar picked up strange objects during the air show, and the people there were baffled. Inquiries were made to an airforce guy by the name of "Branch Cabel". Under pressure from the airforce generals, he ordered Project Grudge to continue its investigation, and they announced that they would be taking UFO reports again. In 1952, Project Grudge once again changed its name, this time to Project Bluebook. They appointed a new head, and this time they were going to take the UFO thing seriously. Edward Ruppelt was named head of Project Bluebook. He was a WW2 veteran, and was well liked. He was very intelligent, and came up with lots of new ideas.. In 1952, Rupels, the new head of Project Bluebook, realloy got things into gear. He began issuing montly reports, and developing standardized questions that were asked to anyone who reported UFOs. He hired "Joseph Caplin", the founder of the space program and someone who worked on the Manhattan Project. They had lots of new ideas, including hooking up gigercounters (spelling?) to planes, to see if the phenomenom was being caused by the atomic tests that were being done in the atmosphere. He came up with lots of other ideas (I didn't take notes well that day, so I can't remember the other ones, but they were good - trust me). Anyways, in 1952, reports picked up BIG TIME. Another UFO wave was coming, and Project Bluebook hired lots of personnel, and was flourishing. In July, LIFE magizine puts the UFO controversy to the forfront when it declares in its magazine that we indeed DO have visitors from space. To say it mildly, things were getting out of control. That was when the CIA got interested... On July 19th, 1952 at 9:00 pm, people on the ground in Washington DC began to see lights in the sky. Radar operators and Pilots at Washington International Airport began to see the blips on the screen, and panic ensued. The lights moved, and positioned themselves right above the White House. "Harry Barnes", the head radar operator at Washington Airport at the time, alerted the airforce, who ordered an intercept. As you know, it is illegal to fly above the whitehouse, that is restricted airspace. Anyways, The airport that was normally used in VA was under construction, so the intercept had to be ordered from Delaware. Guess what? By the time they got there, the lights and radar blips were gone... Then, on July 26th, 1962 at 9:00pm once again, people began to see the same kinds of lights above the white house again. "Al Chop" was the PR guy for the airforce, and this time he ordered the intercept. The airport in VA was still closed, so the intercept had to come from Delaware once again (I wish I could remember the airport - I didnt write it down). Anyways, this time, guess what? They got there and the radar blips were still there. Our intercept pilots confirmed that there was something there, and sked Al Chop what he should do. Our pilots got completely surrounded, and the UFO's drew closer. Al Chop (a civilian, I might add), was asked by one pilot if they had permission to fire upon these UFOs. Al Chop told them "permission denied" (although since he was a civilian, he actually didn't have the authority to say that). People went into panic. The pentagon was flooded with calls, asked if people should take to the hills, and prepare for an invasion. Later, the government issued a report stating that people actually didn't see anything, or what they thought they saw was actually something else (I can't remember what its called, Geothermal something or other, but its basically when hot air and cold air get together, and somehow reflect or something, it messes up radar? Maybe someone else can help me out on that one). Anyways, how does this pertain to Project Blue Book? Well, the CIA decided it was time to take action, and they put together their own top secret panel called "The Robertson Panel". The Robertson Panel was to find out once and for all what was going on, and what to do about it. The Robertson Panel had 5 people on it: H.P. Robertson (the head of the panel)... He was a top physicist. Lloyd Berkner (I didn't take good notes on him) Samuel Goudsmit (discovered "the electron spin", brilliant physicist) Louie Alvarez (later, won the nobel prize of physics, and was the first to theorize that comets were responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs) Thorton Page (astronomer, involved later in mars landing program) The panel's mission was to determine: 1) Are UFO's a threat to national security? 2) Are they from outer space? They were briefed by Project Bluebook and were given Project Bluebook's 50 best UFO reports. Now, I will explain to you how bad they fumbled. The panel lasted from Jan 14th to Jan 17th 1953. Jan 17th was the day they wrote the report, so that doesn't count. They worked from 10:00am to 12:00 noon (then broke for lunch), and 2:00pm to 4:00 pm... thats 4 hours a day, over 3 days is a total of 12 hours. First of all, Lloyd Berkner never even showed until Jan 17th (he helped write the report) and Thorton Page admitted to Dr. Jacobs that he laughed and made jokes about the UFO thing throughout the whole thing (he actually had to be repreimanded by Robertson on several occasions). Robertson Panel never considered any of their data seriously, and came up with the following recommendations (I'm skipping a lot of stuff, hope you dont mind I get right to the point): 1) UFOs are not extraterrestrial, and not even real, but they ARE a threat to national security for the following reason: Reports of UFO's are tying up normal channels of communication in the US Government. What would happen if say, the COMMUNISTS sent over agents and fostered UFO propiganda, as a cover for an atomic attack?? Thus, in 1953 the Robertson Panel rendered its decision, and the Airforce made ITS decision. Project Bluebook was told that everything was great, and that they were doing great work (which they were - they had just begun to build the stuff they needed to get real research done). However, Ed Rubels began to notice something about his project. When the tours of the military officers working for him came up, they were never replaced. Eventually, no one was replaced. Funds began to dry up, projects were getting killed off, and eventually, he was down to 3 people. Following the recommendations of the Robertson Panel, the US Airforce was crippling Project Bluebook. Oh, sure, Project Bluebook continued on. Eventually Ed Rubel's tour came up too, and he was released. A skeleton staff remained, and they were basically used as a PR organization, and as an outlet for people who had UFO reports (which were subsequently trashed and disregarded). Project Blue book was by all means dead, although it hobbled along until 1969, when it was officially disbanded. There's your sad ending. Any comments are welcome! -- Skaven Q. Blight skaven@mars.lib.iup.edu http://mars.lib.iup.edu/~skaven