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The UFO Phenomenon

Project Blue Book ended 50 years ago today

By T.K. Randall
December 17, 2019 · Comment icon 4 comments

Project Blue Book staff members in 1963. Image Credit: US Air Force
It has been five decades since the US government closed the lid on its infamous UFO research project.
Carried out by the US Air Force between 1952 and 1969, Project Blue Book was an in-depth study of unidentified flying objects - the largest of its kind ever undertaken.

It had two main goals - to determine if UFOs were a threat and to scientifically analyze the data.

By the time the project had ended, it had collected an archive of some 12,618 UFO reports. While most of these were deemed to have conventional explanations, a small percentage of the sightings remained 'unexplained' even after being subjected to stringent analysis.

Officially, it was concluded that none of the UFO sightings investigated by the Air Force posed a risk to the United States and nor did they represent evidence of alien visitors or advanced technology.

Not everyone however is convinced that things were quite that straight forward.

According to Mark O'Connell, author of 'The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs', it had quickly become apparent that investigators were way over their heads.

"Strictly speaking, Project Blue Book was formed to determine whether UFOs represented a threat to our nation," he told Popular Mechanics. "Over time, when it was evident that Blue Book was utterly incapable of answering that question, its mission became one of 'making the UFOs go away.'"

"It was a rigged game because Blue Book investigators were under constant pressure to debunk and explain away any and all UFO reports that reached their offices."

"The worst sin one could commit on the Blue Book staff was to mark a case 'unexplained.'"

Project Blue Book officially closed its doors on December 17th, 1969, however operations didn't completely cease until January of the following year.

"The committee recommended that the Air Force get out of the UFO business," said O'Connell.

"And the Air Force was more than happy to follow the study's recommendation to pull the plug on its 20-year headache."

Source: Popular Mechanics | Comments (4)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by AllPossible 4 years ago
It's interesting to think about UFO alien technology but Im skeptical of it. As humans we're very smart but we have alot to learn. Michio Kaku has some great books & podcasts about Alien technology & how their knowledge would compare to ours. If alien civilizations had a 10,000 year head start in the tech age on us then it would be like putting a camera in the jungle like Nat Geo does & watching what goes on from a distance. 
Comment icon #2 Posted by ocpaul20 4 years ago
Unless we humans are a scientific experiment, and abductions are just like pulling a few specimens and doing a few experiments on them. What is wrong with that idea? OK, so there might be a few different kinds of alien scientist who want to do experiments using the existing data. I can see how, after a few thousand/million years evolution, we might want to start our own "ant colony" and watch them grow and see what they do. I can also see how it would be interesting and educational to try out different things, different genetic experiments too. We humans are so arrogant, we think we are the on... [More]
Comment icon #3 Posted by mxcx 4 years ago
  If anything is real, our one true reality, I think it would be closer to this one more than any. Why else do legends tell of the gods giving us science, shelter, writing, food, civilization. As far as abductions go, and cattle mutilation, that would all be considered for science, being that's the way it's all happened, or has been portrayed. One has to ask if all of this is true? Who is running this operation, and what exactly are they building/discovering/manipulating? It's said that we are referred to as "containers" outside of earth, and if so, what do we contain? While I live in a gre... [More]
Comment icon #4 Posted by ocpaul20 4 years ago
In Russell Targ's Limitless Mind book, he documents many experiments done at SRI Stanford Research Institute by himself and Hal Puthoff over 25 years+ and other places more recently,  which prove that the concept of time and space we have in standard physics is outdated. Their experiments show repeatably that consciousness can affect matter and can transcend time and space. Our reality is not what we think it is. He worked with Ingo Swann and others on Remote Viewing projects for the military and 3-letter agencies and together they discovered there was some kind of universal repository of kno... [More]


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