UFOs Are Real, Should Be Studied, Says Ex-Project Blue Book Director Col. Robert Friend

UFOs Are Real, Should Be Studied, Says Ex-Project Blue Book Director Col. Robert Friend
(huffingtonpost.com)

Retired Col. Robert Friend, a former director of the Air Force's nearly 20-year UFO study, Project Blue Book, says that science should continue looking into the mystery of flying saucers.

Friend, assigned in 1958 to direct Blue Book, was charged with trying to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security and whether they could be of scientific interest.

"When I first took over the program, I wrote two staff studies, and in both instances, I recommended that [UFOs] be put into another agency which would give them full scientific investigations and analyses," Friend told The Huffington Post over the weekend at a special lecture titled "Military UFOs: Secrets Revealed."

The Colonel admits he can't conceive of any means by which aliens could visit us, but goes on to say that we should at least be studying UFO sightings.

"Do I believe that we have been visited? No, I don't believe that," he said. "And the reason I don't believe it is because I can't conceive of any of the ways in which we could overcome some of these things: How much food would you have to take with you on a trip for 22 years through space? How much fuel would you need? How much oxygen or other things to sustain life do you have to have?"

But would those same issues apply equally to an advanced civilization that may have already overcome the hazards of traveling through interstellar space?

Either way, Friend would like to see an ongoing scientific investigation of UFOs.

I'm not a big believer in extraterrestrial contact nor do I believe we have been visited, but I'd also like to at least see the phenomena of sightings investigated.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Where did he come up with 22 years at? Does he know something we don't? Like advanced ET presence is 22 light years away??

Even if this is the case, who is to say that intelligent ET's can't travel faster than the speed of light? I know we can't come up with anything faster than that now, but who know's if there are advanced civilizations out there that they can't?

I do believe we should be diving much deeper into the sightings than just laughing them off as fake, or hallucinations, or something of that sort.

Interesting article, though a trite misleading, since there were really no new "secrets revealed" as the title suggests, but rather same-old-same-old.

It is worth repeating, however, and the participants in the lecture (who have been trotting out the same "secrets" at trade shows, talk shows, radio shows, conferences, and UFO conventions for decades) are certainly impassioned about the subject.

Me too.

I just wished we really actually heard some 'new' Secrets that would shed a little brighter light on the matter.

Thanks for posting, though - it's appreciated!

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

Where did he come up with 22 years at? Does he know something we don't? Like advanced ET presence is 22 light years away??

I'm assuming that was just an arbitrary estimation of travel time to reach a neighboring life-sustaining star system, and not meant to be anything specific. As in, it would be prohibitively difficult to send enough food, water, and energy to support life for that long a journey - based on our level of technology.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer
I'm just about bored to death with the decades-old chitter-chatter about whether or not UFOs and those reporting them should be studied. Enough already! They've been studied to varying extents and all with unsatisfactory conclusions.

Also, whilst I respect his opinion, his career and the role he's played in the study of UFOs, the comments in your quotes are practically devoid of imagination.

"And the reason I don't believe it is because I can't conceive of any of the ways in which we could overcome some of these things: How much food would you have to take with you on a trip for 22 years through space? How much fuel would you need? How much oxygen or other things to sustain life do you have to have?"

Really? Some writers, futurists, scientists and even Joe Average in the bar have gone further than these ideas...decades ago.

It's 2012 and he's somehow locked into the idea that advanced technologies would still be based on the 'Road Trip' scenario. 'Pack your bags hon, we're goin' on a star-trip to that thar blue planet!'

In this century, there's a good chance we'll be mapping human consciousness and converting it into transmittable data using methods and terminology that make terms like 'holographic' seem as out-dated as 'phonographic.' We'll have drone soldiers doing the dirty work while the controllers sit back in their bases. Even that might be done by something that makes our ideas of AI look as exotic as a microwave oven. Right now, the horizons of warfare are extending beyond simple cyber-warfare and off into arenas whereby no lives are lost and conquered nations have every building standing.

These ideas are probabilities.

If some truly advanced technology did or will visit us, it would likely be way past fuelling 'er up, loading all the beef jerky and following the star-map to earth.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer

Either way, Friend would like to see an ongoing scientific investigation of UFOs.

Blackmarketeer, good thread - Colonel Friend once said that during his tenure there were 'classified intelligence channels for reporting UFO's that completely bypassed Bluebook' and government docs also exist which state that 'UFO reports that were a threat to national security weren't even part of the Bluebook system' (link) so maybe there still is ongoing scientific investigation of UFOs by the U.S. Government.

Whatever the case it's becoming increasingly difficult to swallow the claims made in the USAF UFO factsheet that 'no government agency has ever taken an interest in UFOs since the closure of Project Bluebook' - especially in the light of so much contradictory government UFO documentation.

The USAF 'Factsheet' on UFOs

It should almost be a given...that any alien starship that has visited our planet, [and they have,] should be capable of reaching superluminal [faster than light] speeds, due to the vast distances involved between star systems. The only fuel capable of powering such a starship, in my opinion, is a form of photon power derived from starlight, that is expelled from the starship with tremendous thrust; that increases speed exponentially squared to many times the speed of light.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thanks for the reply - I seem to recall reading some author years ago who suggested any interstellar travelers wouldn't pack themselves away on some ship, but rather they would transfer their consciousness to it and become the ship. The UFO itself might be the visitor, as opposed to 'little green men' inside it.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Years ago when I first read this book I became convinced that we have been & are still being visited by "something"


What it is and from hence they come is now where I am at - I am also hopeful ATS will shine light in this direction.

Col. Friends' comments are an admission, of sorts, towards full disclosure - after all, would you want to hear it from: a Col.or a POTUS (when it comes to this subject)...........the Col. has had his finger on the pulse and can probably answer some of the hard questions we throw around on this site?

S&F

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I guess it would depend on lifespan of said ET if they live a few hundred years what's twenty something in travel

reply to post by Sublimecraft


That book has a few observations that involve US and USSR co operation.
Of glaring suspicion was US representatives just happening to see UFOs taking off
from a base in the Ukraine.
Not phrased that way of course just the report of two UFOs going up.
This would tell the uber controller that the underlings saw something they wanted them to see.
Germany developed the UFO technology and US had to get as much information from Nazi intel
in place of safe US refuge from the Russians at the end of WWII before Russia took over the
UFO labs and remaining UFO scientists. Top UFO scientist is thought to none other than Von
Braun himself as the most sought after and leading scientist in the era of the rocket putting
man on the Moon as he wanted to do. Russia and US have the UFOs.

It looks like they are dropping like flies , the old military staff of the days that UFOs were the most intriguing state of the art technology that existed, and we could snap a real photo on roll . But now we have Digital HD Camera's high end computing and tons of 3d cgi programs that bash all studies possible of real material. If someone tries to point out some mysterious craft on you tube video it immediately lands in the trashcan of hoaxes.

So this gives no satisfaction in studying Ufology .. But this, this declaration of the top secret military staff thats no cgi no these are man who are old enough and at the end of their time,whom uncle SAM can't touch anymore.

But doesn't change anything even if we took every video seriously we never really understand what and how those strange craft work and the ones who pilot them.

We are still a bunch of Neanderthals to them. thats my guess

Very interesting thread, just to add also, saying he doesn't believe we have been visited is just his opinion and I'm not quite sure (given some Bluebook reports), how he can come to this conclusion, pity he didn't say what he thought some of the crafts described were

Whether true or not, there's a lot of weird crafts flying about our skies:



Lot of interesting reports from further back also:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

In the sentiment of the OP, UFOs should be studied (most likely are being studied by certain elements of our respective governments) and the reason being is that the phenomena is very real.

No, Ufology has not progressed very far, they were still asking during the cold war who these crafts belonged to. Foo fighters, even further back, still no conclusion. So, the big question still remains, who/what has control over these exotic crafts?