A few questions about Project: Blue Book

I'm doing a school project on UFOs and I have a few questions:

1. In Project: Blue Book, the man who came forward, saying the whole thing was a cover-up, Ed Ruppelt, where can I find that statement/confession? I found a site that seemed to have his book(or report?)
"The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of the United States Air Force Project Blue Book" readable online, is there a confession in there?
ufologie.net...

2. Has any other Blue Book official, or whatever, come forward about the cover-up?

Well, from what i have read, research i think it is a cover up showing that the government is looking into the ufo thing but it's a cover up for the cover up. come on, a government lead research to look at government research won't turn out so good, since with that they can said what they want to said in project bluebook hehe

from what ive heard it was a group of people from the government who went to investigate UFO reports and the learder was a scientist and the government kind of told him that he had to come up with some sort of explination for all the cases. and as time went by he was finding harder and harder to explain them. and in total like 5% of them still cant be explained or something

Food for thought, or food for Phood ??

How about a timeline for the folks in Blue Book.
And the appropriate references.

And my favorite quote from Capt Ruppelt:

“As long as I was chief of the UFO project, this was our basic rule. If anyone became anti-flying saucer and
was no longer capable of making an unbiased evaluation of a report, out he went. Conversely anyone who
became a believer was through. We were too busy during the initial phases of the project to
speculate as to whether the unknowns were spaceships, space monsters, Soviet weapons, or ethereal visions.
I had to let three people go for being too pro or too con. “

from :
Ruppelt, Edward. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Doubleday 1956


Timeline:

Capt Edward Ruppelt - 1951 - 1954

Commentary 1: Early in his tenure, Ruppelt obtained the services of a team from Battelle Memorial Institute
to evaluate the sightings reported in his first year.
This became known as “Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14”

Commentary 2: In 1953, the CIA convened a panel (Reference Robertson Panel) of
scientists to exame the “UFO” situation. This was just after the 1952 switchboard
panic referred to in the Peter Jennings Special report. A reading of the panel's
evaluation shows they were concerned about the flooded comm channels more so than the new phenomena of UFO's.

Commentary 3. Capt Ruppelt was away from Bluebook in 1953, leaving Lt. Robert Olson in charge,
but returned to find an NCO (Max Futch) in charge. This was an absence of almost half a year.
Ruppelt left permanently in March 1954.

Capt Charles Hardin – 1954 - 1956

Commentary 1. While Ruppelt had been able to acquire assistance from the 4602nd
Air Intelligence Service Squadron, Capt Hardin brought these folks on board in a
way that changed the data collection and reporting for the better. Hardin left
Bluebook in April of 1956.

Capt George Gregory – 1956 - 1958

Commentary 1. In most UFO believer groups, Gregory is considered a UFO debunker.
What he actually did to deserve this reputation was make changes in
the way Bluebook classified its cases. Classifications of probable/possible meteor,
plane, were placed in the “solved” category. In addition, reports by teenagers and
younger who were sole witnesses would be listed as strong imaginition component
and categorized as insufficient information. Capt Gregory left Bluebook in the
fall of 1958.

Major Friend – 1958 - 1963

Commentary 1. From Dr. J. Allen Hynek's book, The UFO Experience, Dr Hynek seems
to indicate that Major Friend was the only Bluebook chief that he respected.

Major Hector Quintanilla – 1963 - 1969

Commentary 1. Dr. Hynek appears to have developed a personality conflict with
a member of Quintanilla's staff, one Sgt Dave Moody. Dr. Hyneks views of this are
pretty much presented in his books. The other side of the story is mostly lost to
history, except that Quintanilla makes a statement to the effect that he agrees “
Dave Moody was right, bull poo is bull poo no matter who slings it.”

Commentary 2. Then comes the Dexter Michigan sighting, and Quintanilla got
“set up” by Dr. Hynek's famous “swamp gas” prognosis. Quintanilla doesn't say
much about it, but he hints that personalities may have been involved.

Commentary 3. Later that same year, March 1966, and apparently due to public
pressure from the swamp gas affair, the USAF scientific advisory board filed a report
recommending a new study be done. This is referred to as the O'Brien committee.
This resulted in the Project Blue Book final actions, to contract the University of Colorado
study headed by Dr. Edward Condon.

Commentary 4. Dr. Hynek was hired as a contract consultant to Bluebook almost from the
beginning as an Astronomy consultant. He left in June 1969, when
Major Quintinilla did not renew his contract.

Now, Phood, you asked where Ruppelt talked about a cover up. I do not believe that to be the correct interpretation.
He has “short-quoted” an Air Force regulation in his book which could lead to that conclusion. I think it goes like this.

"Air Force activities must reduce the percentage of unidentifieds to the minimum"

I have not seen the discovery channel show where he is interviewed but that could be
another source where Ruppelt talks about the mission of BlueBook. And that short
quote is the mission. But before jumping to conclusions, here is the full quote taken from AFR 200-2.

“Air Force activities must reduce the percentage of unidentifieds to the minimum. Analysis thus far has
explained all but a few of the sightings reported. If more immediate, detailed, objective data on the
unknowns had been available, probably these, too could have been explained. However, because
of the human factors involved, and the fact that analyses of UFO sightings depend primarily on the personal
impressions and interpretations of the observers rather than on accurate scientific data or facts obtained under
controlled conditions, the elimination of all unidentifieds is improbable.”

References:

Ruppelt, Edward "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" New York: Doubleday 1956

Hynek, J. Allen "The UFO Experience A Scientific Inquiry" New York: Marlowe & Company 1972

Hynek, J. Allen "The Hynek UFO Report" New York: Barnes & Nobles, 1997

United States Air Technical Intelligence Center "Project Blue Book Special Report NO. 14: Analysis of Reports of Unidentified Aerial Objects" Project No. 10073 5 May 1955

"USAF Project Blue Book" Secretary of the Air Force, Office of Public Affairs Washington D.C. 1 February 1966

Quintanilla, Hector "UFO's: An Air Force Dilemma" National Institute for Discovery Science, 1974


Condon, E. U., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects New York: Bantam 1968

(special note: The last reference has been accepted by the National Academy of
Sciences. Of all the books on UFO's, it is the only formally recognized, valid
scientific study of the topic.)


[edit on 9-5-2005 by nightwing]

Project Blue Book was a joke. It was poorly funded. And they always came up with the same old excusses for UFO sightings (ie stars, swamp gas, temerature inversions, meteorites, ect) and even the head scientific guy on the Blue Book pannel was a skeptic before it started, but by the time the Air Force closed Blue Book he was a believer. So Blue Book was just BS. And since then the Air Force doesn't talk about or investigate UFOs. Or at least that's what they say in public to quel public interest. But behind closed doors I'm sure they care very much about UFOs.....

I've seen a few documentaries with Ruppelt on tape explaining that Blue Book became a PR project only, and got away from a scientific investigation. This much can even be inferred from the above sources. I'll see if I can't find some actual doc titles for you as I get the time this week (busy month, not a damn weekend without SOMETHING going on, hehe....)

Don't forget, the recent Jennings special had ANOTHER Blue Book head on it saying basically the same thing, so there's another source...blanking on the name off the top of my head though...

Dr Hynek. After he retired he started his own Ufology site Center for UFO Studies.

Dallas

There was another one...see the Jennings special...

EDIT: I'm going to have to watch the special again to get the other name....can't seem to figure it out...

here's a link to bios of project members though....

www.ufoevidence.org...

[edit on 10-5-2005 by Gazrok]