Debunking the Condon Report.

[karl 12]

Debunking the Condon Report

"Our study would be conducted exclusively by "Non Believers". The trick would be ,I think,to describe the project so that to the public it would appear totally objective study.

Conclusion...There is no secrecy and no evidence that such objects even exist."

Memorandum from Robert Low - Project Administrator CONDON Report (Oct 1966 -Jan 1969) to Colorado University V.P. Thurston Marshall

Section II-Summary of the Study

Edward U. Condon:

http://www.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm

The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a study of unidentified flying objects, undertaken at the University of Colorado from 1966 to 1968 under the direction of physicist Edward Condon.

The Condon Committee was instigated at the behest of the United States Air Force, which had studied UFOs since the 1940s. After examining many hundreds of UFO files from the Air Force’s Project Blue Book and from civilian UFO groups NICAP and APRO, the Committee selected 56 to analyze in detail for the purpose of deciding whether "analysis of new sightings may provide some additions to scientific knowledge of value to the Air Force" and "to learn from UFO reports anything that could be considered as adding to scientific knowledge".

The Report was reviewed by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, which endorsed its scope, conclusions and recommendations were generally welcomed by the scientific community, and have been cited as a decisive factor in the generally low levels of interest regarding UFOs among academics in subsequent years. Peter Sturrock writes that the report is "the most influential public document concerning the scientific status of this [uFO] problem. Hence, all current scientific work on the UFO problem must make reference to the Condon Report."

However, the report has faced much criticism as to its methodology and bias, from both investigators who worked on the project and others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Committee

Some serious questions were raised about the objectivity (and active agenda) of the Condon Report -heres what Dr Mcdonald said about the Condon report in a talk presented to the Dupont Chapter of The Scientific Research Society of America in Delaware,1969.

Note: Dr James McDonald was the Senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Arizona:

Summary of a Talk Presented to the Dupont Chapter of The

Scientific Research Society of America (RESA), Wilmington,

Delaware, Feb. 12, 1969.

James E. McDonald

The University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

The Condon Report's negative conclusions and recommendations with respect to scientific study of UFOs are now a matter of public record. I dispute those conclusions, challenging and criticizing them on the following principal grounds:

*The report analyses only about ninety cases, a tiny fraction of the significant and scientifically puzzling UFO reports now on record.

*It omits consideration of some of the most puzzling cases on record, famous cases that persons such as myself specifically urged the Condon Project to study. It even omits discussion of certain significant cases that Project staff actually investigated (e.g. Levelland and Redlands).

*Many of those cases which the Report does consider are of such trivially insignificant nature that they should have been ignored on the grounds that they are unrelated to the Project's prime mission, namely, seeking explanations of the kinds of truly baffling cases that have created the Air Force problem that led to establishment of the Colorado UFO Project [i.e. Condon report].

*Specious argumentation, and argumentation of scientifically very weak nature, abound in the Report's case-analyses. And, while broadly charging bias on the part of those who have taken the UFO problem seriously in the past, the Report exhibits degrees of bias in the opposite direction that deserve the sharpest of criticism.

*To anyone intimately familiar with relevant report-details, some of the cases considered in the Report exhibit disturbingly incomplete presentation of relevant evidence; in a few instances, such defects seem little short of misrepresentation of case-information. However, I believe that the latter instances bespeak bias, not intent to deceive.

*Despite all of the above, those who prepared the Report ended up with about a dozen (i.e., about 15 per cent) of their cases in their "Unexplained" category. Some are extremely significant UFO cases (e.g., Texas B-47 or Lakenheath); yet these Unexplained UFOs appear to have been casually ignored by Condon in recommending that UFOs be considered of no further scientific significance.

*Irrelevant padding has thickened the report to a bulk that will discourage many scientists from studying it carefully. Detailed UFO report-analyses should have been the primary content of this Report, yet trivia and irrelevancies, or secondary material, are present in objectionably voluminous proportions.

*The Report, it must be noted, does exhibit a few bright facets; but these are obscured by its high average defect-density.

*In all, I believe that the contents of the Condon Report fail dismally to support the strong negative recommendations which Condon has presented in his own summary analysis. The strong endorsement by the National Academy of Sciences will, I believe, prove to be a painful embarrassment to the Academy, for it appears to be the epitome of superficial panel-evaluation by representatives of a scientific body that ought always to warrant the prestige its good name enjoys.

My own estimate is that absolutely no further general progress towards scientific clarification of the UFO problem will come until the inadequacies of the Condon Report are fully aired in as many ways as possible. I intend to devote all possible personal effort to that objective; and NICAP is in process of preparing an extended rebuttal report. So small a fraction of the scientific community is currently aware of the potential scientific importance of the UFO problem that this rebuttal will probably be slow in taking effect; but the Report seems so unrepresentative of good scientific work, so highly vulnerable to scientific criticism, that I believe its negative influence (except with respect to USAF decisions about Project Blue Book) will be quite short-lived.

http://www.ufologie.net/htm/science.htm

Other major discrepencies:

* Condon Did Not Investigate Cases -Dr. Condon, although he is named in the Air Force contract as the project's principal investigator, did not make a single field investigation. Nor did he interview even one of the hundreds of pilots, astronomers, aerospace engineers, control tower operators, and other highly competent witnesses sent to him by NICAP at Colorado's request.

* Case material ignored -Large volumes of case material was apparently completely ignored,including the deaths of three Air Force pilots involved in UFO chases and a UFO encounter with an Air Force transport captain who said he believed they were "shot at."

* Use of ridicule -Dr. Condon stated that there should be no attack on the integrity of persons having different opinions on UFOs. Yet, he ridiculed UFO witnesses, well-informed scientists on the subject, and NICAP.

* Kook Cases Get Coverage -Dr. Condon takes up considerable space in the report discussing numerous hoaxes and "contactee" trips to Venus but did not include, in his sections, even one strong, responsible case from a good witness.

* Key Witnessess omitted -Among the omissions in the Condon report are the hundreds of detailed UFO sightings by reputable witnesses whose intelligence and credentials make examinations of their reports essential. Without an evaluation of these high-quality UFO cases any conclusions are meaningless.

* Pilots' Sighting Not Included -Reports by scientists were not the only category rejected by project investigators on the basis of their exclusion criteria. There was wholesale elimination of sightings by engineers and other technical personnel, including many airline pilots.

* Reports by Police ignored - Among the omissions are reports by police officers and sheriffs' deputies. In several cases, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials also figured in the reports, such as the one at Redmond, Ore.Other excluded cases in which police officers were involved are the well-known Socorro, N.M. report by Officer Lonnie Zamora, who observed a landed, egg-shaped object which left traces and the equally well-known police report of an 80-mile chase of a UFO from Portage County, Ohio, into Pennsylvania.

* Case Material/Significant Data Omitted - Another major defect of the Colorado Project was the meager use it made of the enormous reservoir of case material available to it. Over the 20 years preceding the project, between 10,000 and 15,000 UFO sighting reports had been recorded. Yet the report treats only 50 cases from this period, or 1/2 of 1% of the available material.

* Credible Witnesses Ignored -Hundreds of credible witnesses were therefore ignored because "they could not add anything new" to their original reports.

* Secrecy Denied -Dr. Condon denied in the report that there was any evidence of secrecy. NICAP gave him evidence of cases that were withheld, reports whose very existence was denied, and sightings whose conclusions were changed years later.

Condon on possible Air Force UFO secrecy:

"Maybe they are misleading us . . . I don't care much."

Rocky Mountain News, November 5, 1966.

http://www.cohenufo.org/nicapcondon.htm

....

[karl 12]

CIA Covert Involvement:

Interesting document which shows that Dr Condon was in cahoots with the CIA and ordered never to mention their involvement in his report:

Any work performed by the NPIC to assist Dr Condon in his investigation will not be identified as work accomplished by the CIA.

Dr condon was advised by Mr Lundhal to make no reference to CIA in regard to this work effort.

---

Condon fires investigator's for positive findings:

The Condon Report on UFOs

In 1966 the Air Force sponsored a project, directed by University of Colorado physicist Edward U. Condon, to conduct what was billed as an "independent" study. In fact it was part of an elaborate scheme to allow the Air Force, publicly anyway, to get out of the UFO business.­

Mary Evans Picture Library:

The official text of the controversial Condon Report, billed in 1969 as the last (and negative) word on UFOs.­The Condon committee was to review or reinvestigate Project Blue Book data and decide if further inve­stigation was warranted.

As an internal memorandum leaked to Look magazine in 1968 showed, Condon and his chief assistant knew before they started that they were to reach negative conclusions.

Condon sparked a fire storm of controversy when he summarily dismissed two investigators who, not having gotten the message, returned from the field with positive findings. In January 1969, when the committee's final report was released in book form, readers who did not get past Condon's introduction were led to believe that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified on the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." Those who bothered to read the book found that fully one-third of the cases examined remained unexplained, and scientist-critics would later note that even some of the "explained" reports were unconvincingly accounted for.

But that did not matter; Condon arid his committee had done their job, and the Air Force closed down Project Blue Book at the end of the year.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/ufo-government7.htm

...

[karl 12]

Quote from AIAA:

The prestigious American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Professional society of the aerospace industry, stated:

"The opposite conclusion could have been drawn from its content, namely that a phenomenon with such a high rate of unexplained cases (about 30%) should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study."

---

New Information on the Condon Committee

Thursday, September 11, 2008-

Two stunning new revelations have emerged from the collection of 1,200 pages of files copied by MUFON's Project Pandora from the files of the late Roy Craig, a physical chemist who was a key investigator for the University of Colorado's UFO study.

One, it turns out that late in the study a project scientist wrote a memo admitting that more than 50% of their cases had turned out to be unexplained. Two, proof has now been found that project director Edward Condon had not in fact read his own report before writing up the report's "Conclusions and Recommendations," the opening chapter in the front of the report.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/2008b/newinfocondon.html

---

What scientsts said about other 'government sanctioned' UFO studies:

"I was there at [Project] Bluebook and I know the job they had. They were told not to excite the public, not to rock the boat... Whenever a case happened that they coud explain--which was quite a few--they made a point of that, and let that out to the media. . .Cases that were very difficult to explain, they would jump handsprings to keep the media away from them. They had a job to do, rightfully or wrongfully, to keep the public from getting excited."

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, former Chairman of the Dept. of Astronomy at North Western University and scientific advisor to Project Bluebook from 1952-1969

"My study of past official Air Force investigations (Project Blue Book) leads me to describe them as completely superficial. Officially released 'explanations' of important UFO sightings have been almost absurdly erroneous."

Senior Atmospherical Physicist Dr James McDonald, speech to American Meteorological Society 1966

"Blue Book was now under direct orders to debunk...I remember the conversations around the conference table in which it was suggested that Walt Disney or some other educational cartoon producer be enlisted in the debunking process".

Dr J Allen Hynek, Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University and scientific consultant for Air Force investigations of UFOs from 1948 until 1969 (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book).

"Based upon unreliable and unscientific surmises as data, the Air Force develops elaborate statistical findings which seem impressive to the uninitiated public unschooled in the fallacies of the statistical method. One must conclude that the highly publicized Air Force pronouncements based upon unsound statistics serve merely to misrepresent the true character of the UFO phenomena."

Yale Scientific Magazine (Yale University) Volume XXXVII, Number 7, April 1963

"Project Blue Book was ballyhooed by the Air Force as a full-fledged top-priority operation. It was no such thing. The staff, in a sense, was a joke. In terms of scientific training and numbers, it was highly inadequate to the task. And the methods used were positively archaic. And that is the crack operation that the general public believes looked adequately into the UFO phenomenon".

Dr J Allen Hynek, Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University and scientific consultant for Air Force investigations of UFOs from 1948 until 1969 (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book).

[karl 12]

Cartoon - Denver Post.

On December 17, 1969 the USAF shut down their UFO study program known as Blue book based on the conclusion of a study headed by Dr. Edward Condon at the University of Colorado who stated

"Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge".

Drawn by Pat Oliphant then with the Denver Post.

"Stay calm, Dr Condon--just tell them you don't believe in them!"

"Don't let this get out--it could just ruin our conclusions!"

[behaviour???]

That definitely needs appreciation Karl

Thanks

B???

[karl 12]

B??? -thanks for the reply,it appears the Condon report may have been a bit of a whitewash.

If you've not seen it before then this link mentions the study and is quite a good read:

Science and the failure to investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (pdf):

http://www.freedomofinfo.org/science/science_research.pdf

Cheers.

[PersonFromPorlock]

I thought from the first that the Congdon Report was 'cooked' (I read it when it was released), but keep in mind that that may not have been because there was something there to hide but because the AF thought there was nothing there and wanted to get shed of the whole thing even if it took some cheating.

[mcrom901]

B??? -thanks for the reply,it appears the Condon report may have been a bit of a whitewash.

If you've not seen it before then this link mentions the study and is quite a good read:

Science and the failure to investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (pdf):

http://www.freedomofinfo.org/science/science_research.pdf

Cheers.

thanks karl..... great stuff

[aquatus1]

So...has the study of UFO's added anything to the field of scientific knowledge in the past...during it's existence?

[mcrom901]

So...has the study of UFO's added anything to the field of scientific knowledge in the past...during it's existence?

i guess so...... after all a lot has been developed under 'reverse engineering'

[karl 12]

Extract from "UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong - The inside story by an ex-member of the official study group", book by Dr. David Saunders:

Before it was over I had worked out a comprehensive scheme of coding, and some 7,500 reports were processed - I was shooting for the 10,000 mark to provide a good basis for statistical analysis. However, even when we had only a few hundred reports coded and collated in the "Sighting Catalog" it was possible to see some interesting differences in the quality of reports arriving from different sources, and it was even more interesting to consider these in the light of the question network that might have been used to screen out fake UFOs.

For example, a very basic question is the duration of a sighting. Very brief sightings are apt to be meteors or jet aircraft, and even if they are UFOS, they are unlikely to contribute much information. Very extended sightings are most apt to be balloons (in the daytime) or astronomical objects (at night). Therefore, there is an optimal duration for a UFO sighting, about five to fifteen minutes - long enough to observe something worth reporting, but not too long. When I made distributions of the durations associated with Blue Book and NICAP reports, since these were then our only sources of routine "unselected" reports, I was struck by the difference in the distributions. Blue Book had a much higher proportion of extremely short durations and also a noticeably higher proportion of extremely long durations, suggesting that they were dealing with a potentially more explainable collection of reports. NICAP'S reports included a much higher proportion in the middle range of durations that would interest us. Had I then been in a position to make comparisons based on other relevant features of the reports - for example, reported colors, time of day, apparent size, number of details - I am sure similar patterns would have emerged.

What I did do next was to go through the computer listings to see what proportion of the current reports were coming to us by way of more than one channel The result of this exercise did much to explain the results of the previous one. The only sightings that we heard about from both Blue Book and NICAP were sightings that had achieved enough publicity for us to have heard about them also from still other sources - either press notices or telephone calls. Except for the overlap created by this relatively small number of notorious cases, the Blue Book and NICAP samples were completely different.

http://www.ufologie.net/bio/saunders.htm

[sinewave]

That should be no surprise to anyone. After all, the CIA does lots of secret stuff. During the Cold War, UFO reports were investigated by the CIA because there might have been new secret Soviet reconnaissance air craft flying about. The KGB was similarly involved in the USSR. It was a touchy time for spooks on both sides. It does not make them ET or even more real.

Edited September 22, 2009 by sinewave

[karl 12]

That should be no surprise to anyone. After all, the CIA does lots of secret stuff. During the Cold War, UFO reports were investigated by the CIA because there might have been new secret Soviet reconnaissance air craft flying about. The KGB was similarly involved in the USSR. It was a touchy time for spooks on both sides. It does not make them ET or even more real.

Sinewave - with respect,I think you have absolutley no idea what you're talking about.

Do you even know what the Condon report was?

Have you even bothered to click any of the links or educate yourself about some of the case histories?

http://www.cohenufo.org/nicapcondon.htm

Just making flippantly dismissive statements like the one above doesn't realy help (or address) anything.

I'm not saying you're 'wilfully ignorant' - just maybe actualy look into a subject before commenting upon it.

[skyeagle409]

Quote from AIAA:

"Based upon unreliable and unscientific surmises as data, the Air Force develops elaborate statistical findings which seem impressive to the uninitiated public unschooled in the fallacies of the statistical method. One must conclude that the highly publicized Air Force pronouncements based upon unsound statistics serve merely to misrepresent the true character of the UFO phenomena."

Yale Scientific Magazine (Yale University) Volume XXXVII, Number 7, April 1963

-

I have saying for rmany years that the Air Force has been deliberately misleading the public on UFOs and the above message simply confirms what I have been asserting for all of these years.

Edited October 2, 2009 by skyeagle409

[Captain Zim]

So...has the study of UFO's added anything to the field of scientific knowledge in the past...during it's existence?

Absolutely. It has certainly stimulated interest in extraterrestrial life, if nothing else. Look at the current intense scientific research going on on finding exoplanets, exploring the solar system and searching for life. It has also prompted people to examine possible new technologies such as anti-gravity. Even if the research is to naught, it is research, and even a null result is a result.

Consider... what is ball lightning but a UFO? And what scientific advances might that yield?

[karl 12]

I have saying for many years that the Air Force has been deliberately misleading the public on UFOs...

SkyEagle,I have to agree with you there - some of the USAF 'explanations and conclusions' for specific UFO incidents are completely spurious - some are even bordering on the ridiculous.

Don't know if you've seen it before but there a few good few examples in this thread:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=164516&st=0&p=3094414&fromsearch=1entry3094414

Theres also this interesting quote about the Colorado report by Ronald D Story:

"The opposite conclusion could have been drawn from The Condon Report's content, namely, that a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases (about 30 percent) should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study."

"From a scientific and engineering standpoint, it is unacceptable to simply ignore substantial numbers of unexplained observations... the only promising approach is a continuing moderate-level effort with emphasis on improved data collection by objective means... involving available remote sensing capabilities and certain software changes."

Ronald D Story - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics UFO Subcommittee -New York: Doubleday, 1980

Cheers.

[JonathanVonErich]

Cartoon - Denver Post.

I remember this cartoon...thanks for the memory mr 12

[karl 12]

No probs Mr Von Erich.

Richard Dolan makes an interesting comment here about the Condon report

The Colorado University report, known more widely as the Condon Report, was massive. At over 950 pages in its soon-to-be published paperback form, it probably fulfilled Robert Low's desire to "build the record." Despite its intimidating length, however, the Condon Report suffered from several major failings. In the places where it counted most – the case studies – the report was skimpy. Why, a reader might ask, with 18 months to investigate, did the project produce so few studies? True, many reports were conducted more thoroughly than Blue Book, NICAP, or APRO had done, but 58 cases is still not much to go on. Of the 550 then-unexplained reports in the Blue Book files, the Colorado Project had considered only three. Also, many of the sightings investigated by the project were poor bets to begin with.

Probably the most striking discrepancy in the report, however, was between its contents and conclusions. Condon had concluded that science could gain nothing from studying UFOs. Yet, the report ended up with a near 30 percent unexplained rate, and a core of cases that came within a hair's breadth of being conclusive evidence for the reality of alien technology – cases which, under the most rigorous analysis, appeared to be the result of extraordinary craft in the skies.

http://keyholepublishing.com/toc.htm

Cheers.

[karl 12]

Kathleen Marden making some extremely good points about the Condon Committee from her presentaton at the MUFON Symposium in 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNypCyT-M2c

[TheMcGuffin]

Condon himself aleady had his conclusions in advance that there was nothing to it, but that contradicts everyone else who was writing the case studies, and found a lot of "good unknowns" that were never explained--maybe as many as 40-50% by some accounts of all the intrigue surrounding the report.

It got the Air Force out of the PUBLIC investigatios of UFOs, along with all the critcism of Blue Book and the many reports that were not credible, but I don't believe for a second that was the end of the U.S. government's investigation of UFOs, which was always a lot bigger and more classified than Blue Book. We get quite a few hints about that from the records that have been declassified over the years.

[karl 12]

It got the Air Force out of the PUBLIC investigatios of UFOs, along with all the critcism of Blue Book and the many reports that were not credible, but I don't believe for a second that was the end of the U.S. government's investigation of UFOs, which was always a lot bigger and more classified than Blue Book. We get quite a few hints about that from the records that have been declassified over the years.

TheMcGuffin, thanks for the reply - I certainly agree with your comments there and even when it comes to the true number of Project Bluebook 'actual unknowns' it looks like we're not being told the whole story - there's an interesting statement below which states that UFO reports which could affect national security "were not part of the Blue Book system" - if they weren't part of the Bluebook system then what system were they a part of?

"Moreover,reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force manual 55-11,and are not part of the Blue Book system."

PDF Document

There's also this interesting article on Blue Book Special Report 14 describing how an extra 1000 unexplained 'hot incident' reports went conveniently missing:

It is also worthy of noting that Air Force Blue Book recorded 2,344 sightings in the 1947 through 1952 time period. Special Report Number 14 said that the Air Force recorded 3,201 reports. This is nearly one thousand more reports than listed by Blue Book. Where did the extra reports come from? Many suspect that these reports were collected by the 4602 AISS and that only reports which had more mundane explanations ever reached Blue Book.

link

I don't know if you've seen it but NICAP's Francis Ridge makes some very interesting comments about the '4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron' in this article.

Cheers.