karl 12
Noble
Blue Book Cooks Its Books
What was Blue Book in 1955?
It was an organization that..
(1) claimed to be the sole repository of military UFO reports, but was not;
(2) was under orders to use any means necessary to identify UFOs as conventional objects, regardless of how strained the explanation became;
(3) intentionally misled the public with meaningless and even fictitious statistics; and
(4) had a barely breathing investigative capability.
The conclusion is self-evident: Blue Book was the mask worn by the Air Force for public viewing. Its UFO reports and evaluations – intellectually dishonest in the extreme – can therefore have no scientific value whatsoever. The fact that the U.S. military and other official sources continue to use them tells us more about the organizations than it does about UFOs. . . .
Thread dealing with spurious, contrived or just plain ridiculous 'official' government UFO explanations.
Am sure there are many folks out there not really into UFO research who just unquestioningly accept these USAF explanations without a second look but if a person examines the case histories then many of the 'debunks' simply fail to stand up.
Heres a relevant statement made by Dr James E Mcdonald, an atmospherical physicist from the University of Arizona:
"As a result of several trips to project Bluebook,I´ve had an opportunity to examine quite carefully and in detail the types of reports that are made by Bluebook personnel.In most cases, I have found that theres almost no correlation between so-called "evaluations and explanations" that are made by Bluebook and the facts of the case...
There are hundreds of good cases in the Air Force files that should have led to top-level scientific scrutiny of this problem,years ago,yet these cases have been swept under the rug in a most disturbing way by Project Bluebook investigators and their consultants."
Dr James McDonald -Senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Arizona
UFO Symposium Casefiles
Bluebook's chief scientific consultant Dr J Allen Hynek also stated in a 1968 letter that the project had conducted 'virtually no dialogue' with the outside scientific world and employed statistical methods that were 'nothing less than a travesty' - he also shares his thoughts below on Bluebook's debunking agenda and describes how they 'jumped handsprings' to keep the hot reports away from the public:
"When Major Quintanilla came in, the flag of the utter nonsense school was flying at its highest on the mast. Now he had a certain Sgt. Moody assisting him...Moody epitomized the conviction-before-trial method. Anything that he didn't understand or didn't like was immediately put into the psychological category, which meant "crackpot." He would not ever say that the person who reported a case was a fairly respectable person, maybe we should look into it, or maybe we should find out. He was also the master of the possible: possible balloon, possible aircraft, possible birds, which then became, by his own hand (and I argued with him violently at times), the probable; he said, well, we have no category "possible" aircraft. It is therefore either unidentified or aircraft. Well, it is more likely aircraft; therefore it is aircraft.... An "unidentified" to Moody was not a challenge for further research. To have it remain unidentified was a blot... and he did everything to remove it. He went back to cases from Captain Gregory's days and way back in Ruppelt's days and redid the files. A lot that were unidentified in those days he "identified" years and years later".
Dr J Allen Hynek, chief scientific consultant for Air Force investigations of UFOs from 1948 until 1969 (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book).
UFO Statements
Dr Jacques Vallee also doesn't sound too impressed in this clip and calls some Bluebook explanations 'completely ridiculous'.
See 1:05
Not to be outdone Richard Dolan also brings up some really interesting government documents in this vid including one from 1955 which discusses the need for 'reducing the number of Bluebook unknowns to a bare minimum'.
See 6:00
Thread might be quite a big one but thought it would be worthwhile (and prudent) to compile a list of specific case examples involving highly dubious USAF debunkery so if anyone knows of any others then please feel free to post.
• Redmond, Oregon, Sept 24th, 1959.
Incident:
Shortly before dawn on September 24th,1959,Police Officer Robert Dickerson was driving through the streets of Redmond,Oregon when he saw a large,bright object descend over the city,stop abruptly,and hover at two hundred feet.
The object was low enough that nearby treetops glowed.
Minutes later,Dickerson drove to the Federal Aviation Administration Office at the Redmond Airport.
Meanwhile,the object rapidly moved to an area northeast of the airport and once again hovered. Its colour changed from bright white to reddish orange.
Through binoculars,Dickerson and others perceived it as flat and round;tongues of "flame" occasionaly extended from its edge.
At 5:10,the F.A.A. reported the object to Seattle Air Route Control Centre,which relayed the message to Hamilton Air Force Base in California.
At 5 :18 A.M.,six F-102 jet fighters were scrambled from Portland to intercept.
Witnesses were still watching the hovering object when the jets roared over Redmond. As the aircraft approached,the object squelched its "tongues of flame",emitted a fiery exhaust,shot up into the air at an incredible speed,and disappeared into the clouds at fourteen thousand feet.
It was so close to the path of the jets that one of the pilots swerved to avoid hitting it. Another jet,caught in the turbulence of the tremendous exhaust,nearly lost control.One pilot,using gunsight radar,continued the chase,but the object abruptly changed course-an event that was tracked on radar at Klamath Falls Ground Control Intercept -and the pilot gave up.
For two hours afterward,the unknown object continued to register on radar,performing high-speed maneuvers at altitudes between six thousand and fifty-four thousand feet.
USAF "Force fit" debunk:
Venus
The pilots immediatley received an intelligence debriefing and were ordered not to discuss the matter,even among themselves.But hundreds of Redmond citizens had heard the jets,some had seen the interceptors,and a few had made reports about the unknown object.
Forced into an explanation,the air force said the flight was a routine investigation caused by false radar returns.Excitable witnesses probably imagined the glow.
Word soon leaked out,however,that the F.A.A. was checking for abnormal radioactivity where witnesses saw the object hover and "blast off".
This made it difficult for people to swallow the air force explanation.
Why would the F.A.A. check for abnormal radiation if the whole event was illusionary?
As a result the air force changed its solution: the object everyone had seen was probably a weather balloon.It did not bother to explain how weather balloon could outdistance jets flying 600 mph.
When offering this explanation,the air force did not know that the nation´s leading civilian UFO group -the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena -had obtained certified copies of F.A.A. logs.
This was an unexpected coup,as the F.A.A. logs described the UFO and its maneuvers in great detail,including its evasion from the interceptors.The logs also included air force confirmations of radar tracking,scrambling of Portland jets,and a report from Klamth Falls.
When this information became public,the air force promptly denounced the F.A.A. for issuing false information and maintained its balloon answer.
After more pressure from NICAP and several legislators, however, the airforce finally announced the "true" explanation: the witnessess had seen planet Venus.
Link
• Dayton, Ohio, March 8th,1950.
Incident:
An extraordinary encounter took place on March 8th,1950, once again right over ATIC in Dayton. In mid morning,TWA pilot Capt.W .H. Kerr reported to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) that he and two other TWA pilots saw a UFO hovering at a high altitude.
The pilots were unaware that CAA had received over twenty other reports describing a UFO in the area.
ATIC contol tower operators saw the object,and the radar had an unidentified target in the same position.Something was up there.
Wright Patterson AFB sent four F-51 fighters to intercept.Two of the pilots saw the object,which appeared round and,in the words of one of them, "huge and metallic".
It appeared to be hiding in a cloud formation,which prevented the pilots from closing on it. They eventualy turned back.The Master Sergeant who tracked the object on radar stated
"The target was a good,solid return....caused by a good,solid target", Witnesses reported that the UFO climbed verticaly out of sight at high speed.
A report was sent to the Civil Aeronautics Authority in Washington,then turned over to Air Force Intelligence.
USAF explanation.
Venus.
ATIC's official answer was that the UFO had been the planet Venus.
The pilots and radar men vehemently disagreed.
link
• Chorwon, Korea, 30th May 1952.
Incident:
Several U.S. soldiers saw a bright UFO that looked like a falling star,except that it stopped falling and began to climb again.
It then moved northeast at about 150mph, reversed course twice,then climbed at a forty five degree angle and faded from sight.
One guard reported a pulsating sound from the object.
An Air Intelligence Information Report stated that an F-94 attempted to intercept this object. The pilot described it as round,of unknown size, "brilliant white" and leaving no exhaust.
It undertook clearly evasive maneuvers and pulled away from the F-94 at thirty thousand feet.
According to this intelligence report,"the object possessed a superior speed,superior climbing ability,and was able to turn equally as well as the F-94"
Link
Blue Book's evaluation:
Balloon with flare.