Official UFO Unexplained Report Percentages.

Article from Stanton Friedman discussing the findings of Bluebook Special Report 14 and mentioning how it found that 'the better the quality of the sighting report, the more likely it was unexplainable'; that 'UNKNOWNS were observed for longer than KNOWNS' and that less than 2% of reports fell in the hoax category.

Pseudo-Science of Anti-Ufology

Nice article by Stanton Friedman, karl12.
Thanx.

God DAMN I can't wait untill all of this is over with.

100 years from now, the times we are and have been living in will be known as the dark ages.

This can't go on for much longer.
This is so unbelieveably rediculous to be living in the year 2012 with all of our advancements in technology and we still pontificate about the existance and the reality of UFOs/ alien life!!!

This is ABSURD!!!
This has GOT to STOP!!!

Enough already!
The knowledge that has been hidden from us has GOT to come forward at some point.
After THAT bubble bursts, and it will, we will finally be free and we can put our minds to better use than sitting around wondering if they exist or who "they" are or where "they" come from.

We deserve to know the truth already.
This is silly.

I can imagine how Gallileo felt as well as the people of his time.
Knowing, but not TRUELY knowing or, KNOWING but not REALLY being able to convince people that the GODDAMNED EARTH IS ROUND!!!!!!

Come on man!!
Enough already!!!

This thing needs to get cracked WIDE open so we as a whole can move the F on and begin building a better furure!!!

Sorry for the rant, too much coffee this morning.

Originally posted by xpoq47

Nice article by Stanton Friedman, karl12

It's certainly an interesting read mate and makes some very good points about BBSR14 and the rate of 'actual unknown' UFO incidents studied by the Battelle Memorial Institute (21.5% of 3201 cases) - ATS member TeaAndStrumpets has posted a relevant statement below about the classification status of an unknown - he/she also makes some excellent points here about military radar cases and the findings of reputable UFO researchers like Hynek, McDonald and Sparks..

The identification of known objects was routine, and caused no excitement. The excitement and serious interest occurred when we received UFO reports in which the observer was reliable and the stimuli could not be identified.... Of the several thousand UFO reports that the Air Force has received since 1947 [through ~1957], some 15 to 20 percent fall into this category called unknown. This means that the observer was not affected by any determinable psychological quirks and that after exhaustive investigation the object that was reported could not be identified. To be classed as an unknown, a UFO report also had to be "good," meaning that it had to come from a competent observer and had to contain a reasonable amount of data.... [Any report lacking sufficient data, like the stereotypical distant-light-in-the-sky report], if it was received by Project Blue Book, was stamped "Insufficient Data for Evaluation" and dropped into the dead file, where it became a mere statistic."

USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt's "Report on Unidentified Flying Objects", pp.9-10

Post

Apparently about 30 or 40 per cent of Bluebook cases may have been 'miscategorized' by the USAF as 'identified' and the true number of credible cases grossly underestimated - hardly surprising when you look at the almost criminal way many truly puzzling UFO incidents were 'explained away' by the U.S. Government and the fact that the Bluebook team from the 1960's went back and substituted official summary cards for unexplained cases 'to reduce the number of unknowns at any cost' (link).

"Much more disturbing are the indications from my limited review of BB cases that there may be as many as possibly 4,000 Unexplained UFO cases miscategorized as IFO's in the BB files. McDonald similarly stated in 1968 at his CASI lecture that from his review of BB cases he estimated that 30-40% of 12,000 cases were Unexplained, or about 3,600 to 4,800. These are mostly military cases and many involve radar".

Comprehensive Catalog of 1,600 Project BLUE BOOK UFO Unknowns

Cheers.

True number of unexplained UFO cases in the Condon report is 50% not 30%.

The Craig papers also reveal that despite publicly reporting over 30 % “unknowns” in the final report (and astonishingly reporting that there was nothing of scientific worth to the UFO subject) the reality was that more than 50% were “unknown.”

link

Originally posted by karl 12
Article dealing with Blue Book Special Report 14, the 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron and the mystery of extra 1000 unexplained UFO incident reports which went missing along the way:

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

Yet more 'missing' UFO reports from Bluebook, this time dealing with cases involving UFOs over nuclear installations:

Almost from the beginning of the Air Force UFO investigations, patterns were starting to emerge, and the cover-up was already in place. Researcher & NCP member, Jan Aldrich notes:

In a 1952 LOOK article, Ruppelt mentions a file of 63 cases of UFOs over nuclear installations, but such a file is not in currently declassified Blue Book files.

NCP-16: National Security, Missing Files, The Nuclear Key

Relevant article from NICAP about official USAF unexplained UFO report percentages (page 3) stating how many UFO cases are no longer available - there's also some interesting reading about how the USAF attempted to mislead the public through fudged statistics in Blue Book Special Report 14 and irregularities within the Condon Report.

Contrary to the Alr Force claim, thousands of UFO reports have been--and still are--withheld. Of these, 244- released in 1949 are no longer available.

NICAP UFO Investigator (pdf file)

BBSR14

This report consisted of a detailed analysis of UFO reports received by the Air Force from 1947 through 1952. The press release of the report contained a brief synopsis of reports received in early 1955. This was a good report, but the Air Force deliberately tried to mislead the public. The report actually showed that 21.5% of the sightings were unknowns. However, the first page of the report contains the press release which stated that only 3% percent of the sightings were unknowns. (This only represented reports received in early 1955 and not reports in the actual study which covered 1947-1952.) The Air Force also tried to weight the report by removing astronomical phenomena from the study. This had an effect of showing that known and unknown sightings were more similar (using characteristics such as color, speed, number of objects, aerial maneuvers etc.) However, dropping astronomical phenomena didn't much difference in the outcome of the report, but it illustrates how the Air Force was trying to deceive the public. In other words the Air Force didn't appear to want the public to know the results of there own study of UFOs.

Condon report:

University of Colorado to conduct a study of UFOs. Dr. Edward Condon was head of the group who conducted the study at the university. Many of the cases reported to Project Blue Book were examined. The conclusion of the report was that UFOs were not worthy of further scientific study. Most of the report was "filler" consisting of topics like how radar echoes are affected by weather anomalies, psychological implications, optics, plasmas, etc. Little space was allocated to specific UFO cases and all of the "unexplained cases" were put in the middle of the report. Dr. Condon also wrote his conclusions at the head of the report. Most scientific papers have the conclusions at the end of report.

link

1949 Government document sent to the Director of Intelligence entitled 'Unusual Incidents' in which it states that only 20% of UFO incidents have been explained.

REFERENCES:

Title: Unusual Incidents
To: Director of Intelligence, General Staff, U.S. Army
Authors: C. P. Cabell, Major General, USAF, Director of Intelligence, Office of Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations.
Date: February 23, 1949
Length: 1 page.
Classification: CONFIDENTIAL

Reports that detailed investigations of all UFO incidents reported from June 1946 to date have been conducted and only 20% have been explained. "There is no tangible evidence which would support a theory that any incidents are attributable to activity of a foreign nation. The Air Materiel Command of the USAF is continuing investigations of each unexplained event."

link

Relevant statement from lifelong UFO researcher George Fawcett.

"I have found there are real objects under in intelligent control being seen on the ground and in our skies worldwide. The unknowns have varied over the decades from 22 percent in my own civilian files, 30 percent in the University of Colorda Condon Committee scientific studies, to at least 40 percent (recently revised) found in the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book military investigations. This is not acceptable, no matter who is doing the investigations"

George Fawcett, UFO researcher (Ronald Story, Encyclopedia)

link

Captain Ruppelt discusses radar UFO tracking and 25% unexplained rate.






60 reports in 2 weeks:

link

Atmospherical physicist Dr James E. Mcdonald discusses ridiculous and 'unbelievable' USAF explanations and how the percentage of 'unidentified' reports were reduced to a minimum - he also makes some interesting comments about the Portage County incident, the Red Bluff incident and the Exeter incident.

"UFOs: A Case Study in Public Mis-information"


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/24159640514b.gif[/atsimg]


After covering the history of UFOs from 1947 onward, McDonald speaks about one of the cases that he felt literally dragged him into the whole controversy; Portage County, Ravenna Ohio, April 17th, 1966

McDonald: This case of April 17th, 1966 is a beautiful illustration of how the percentage of unidentified shall be reduced to a minimum..

link

Interesting and relevant news article sourced by Realtvufos:

“UFOs: ‘Unexplained’ Just Isn’t A Good Enough Answer”

14 June 1977
(Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, Florida)

In this article, Don Berliner, a U.S. aviation/science writer and UFO researcher, informs about how the U.S. Air Force has dealt with the UFO issue through the years

Google Newspaper Archive

All that matters is 20 real case of objects that do not seem to be natural or drones/man-made is a lot.

Percentages are meaningless, though with the increase of UFO reports, the percentage of credible cases drops.. E.g if in the 50s 5% was out of 10,000 now that percent would be like 1% out of 100,000.

What I notice is the most credible cases are from the 50s-80s now there isn't a single recent case as credible as any of those. More UFO activity in the past?

I can agree that cases with aliens may be extremely rare - I remember when one military was speaking of someone he knew that had information: there has been 3 arrivals of aliens, one was in the 50s one was in the 70s one was err in 90s(!?)

This sounds more plausible than every UFO video being an alien ship.... like some here think.

ImpactoR

All that matters is 20 real case of objects that do not seem to be natural or drones/man-made is a lot.

ImpactoR, it sure is quite a lot mate and as it mentions earlier on in this thread about the Colorado Committee and the Craig papers, the reality of the Condon Report was more like 50% unknown (even though they omitted some of the most puzzling UFO cases on record) yet they still arrived at the (pre?)meditated conclusion that "there was nothing of scientific worth to the UFO subject".

Also thought Bluebook´s Captain Ruppelt made a very astute point when he stated that for a report to actually be classified as an actual unknown it had to be "good - meaning that it had to come from a competent observer and had to contain a reasonable amount of data" (and not a IDE) -even if a person does willfully ignore the 88.79% unexplained rate as calculated here then 20/30% is still a very high figure.

ImpactoR

What I notice is the most credible cases are from the 50s-80s now there isn't a single recent case as credible as any of those. More UFO activity in the past?

Maybe more UFO activity in the past, maybe the demise of many UFO organisations like NICAP, CUFOS, APRO etc.. contributing to less active investigation or incoming reports, maybe the ridicule factor going through the roof making people less likely to report their experiences (especially police officers and pilots), maybe lack of access to FAA/ Military radar data, maybe the internet, maybe lots of reasons?

I would say there´s been quite a number of very intriguing unexplained UFO incidents since the 1980´s though -there´s a few listed on Jkrog´s thread below and I think cases like the Holland Michigan, Bariloche, Stephenville, Gosford, Trumbull County etc.. definitely deserve a mention (as do the official reports from South American Governmental organisations like CRIDOVNI, CEEFA and CEFAE)

Link

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12


Good thread as ever Karl.... Just thought I'd add something here that might or might not be of interest within the context of a discussion on statistics on UFOs. I've had a couple of people mention something rather interesting to me over the last couple of years. The release of the British MOD files has been an exercise in public relations and yet, I have had two people tell me that, their own sighting, of which they made an official report of, is not contained in the relevant released MOD files for the year in which they occurred. In both of the cases reported to me they were not, "Lights in the sky", rather more detailed than that and in one case, it was a good daylight observation. Now, maybe the reports they made were never passed along the chain and therefore never reached the MOD desk. That's a distinct possibility however, it does suggest that, a good number of sightings were "killed" at source by various police forces who received them and that , the MOD figures are not quite as they seem.

Given the nature of the sightings that seem to be missing, if one were of a conspiratorial mindset, one might well speculate that. Sightings by non military and non security personnel that might present a "sticky problem" were "junked" and yet, those of a more "out there/flippant nature" reported by the public in general, were sent to the MOD.

Interestingly enough, quite some time ago, a friend told me of a conversation he had with an old desk sergeant from a large town's police station. When the ex sergeant had had a few beers in his local he would open up about his time in the police and my friend remembers him mentioning that, on more than one occasion the sergeant had suggested to members of what one might term "the local professional classes", ie lawyers, doctors and the like that. "They really didn't want to make an official report of what they had seen, did they?".

FireMoon

I've had a couple of people mention something rather interesting to me over the last couple of years. The release of the British MOD files has been an exercise in public relations and yet, I have had two people tell me that, their own sighting, of which they made an official report of, is not contained in the relevant released MOD files for the year in which they occurred..

Hola Firemoon, thanks for the post mate and I think you´ve raised an excellent point there -our mutual friend Zorgon also once asked why, if the MOD UFO files are numbered sequentially, there exists a great many ´missing´ numbers in their released files but I don´t think he ever got a reply to that.

Also heard it said that the majority of released reports are never classified higher than 'confidential' anyway so I think you´re absolutely spot on about it being a public relations exercise. Maybe the establishment does like to downplay and dismiss their interest in the UFO subject but remember this case which they deemed so sensitive ´an extra three years was added to its 25 year release date´- there´s also this case where the MOD ´broke with all official protocol when reporting and investigating the incident´and this case which occurred within the flight corridors of one of the world's busiest airports so I´d imagine they take the subject matter extremely seriously.

Found this relevant article over at Project1947 and I´m sure you may have heard of Julian J.A. Hennessey´s work before but he also brings up British MOD UFO policy and the subject of massaging the statistics of actual unknown reports (not to mention 'force fit' debunking) -thought the whole article was an excellent one but towards the end he also mentions how his research led him to conclude that the MOD were engaging in separate, non public UFO investigations.

´Public be Damned´

From the above, it is clear that, in the first instance, a major public relations problem exists. My opinion is certainly not an isolated one, a prominent scientist, who visited the then Air Ministry for a discussion of UFOs, stated to me in a tape-recorded conversation, "I am probably speaking treason here, but there seems no point to follow things up and no basic rapport between the British Air Ministry and the public...they say the public be damned!" The same attitude has not changed six years later! If one accepts the above as the only "true" picture, which is how the public now sees it, then the Ministry's investigation is one of gross incompetence that endangers National security. However, my observations lead me to believe that it is not the only investigation."

link

Maybe good old Jacques had it right all along.

"Governments took notice, organizing task forces, encouraging secret briefings and study groups, funding classified research and all the time denying before the public that any of the phenomena might be real. The major revelation of these Diaries may be the demonstration of how the scientific community was misled by the government, how the best data were kept hidden, and how the public record was shamelessly manipulated."

Dr. Jacques Vallee, astrophysicist, computer scientist 1992

link

Cheers!

PhoenixOD
I would estimate the REALLY interesting cases that might even stand a chance of be visiting aliens are so rare they are in the hundreds of a single percentage range.

Agreed. My own personal preference is to consider only the cases where there is a very high strangeness level, since odd lights in the sky or even strange flying craft could very easily be something usual but "normal" with the proper explanation. So I'm talking about cases that are so odd and strange that the people involved feel compelled to report them even though they don't make any logical sense, just so they can have their reality checked. Because in my estimation, that's what we're talking about with real UFO cases. Something that challenges our notions of reality.

And those cases, though they do exist, are extremely rare.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Interesting point mate, can you post any examples of the cases you're talking about?

Cheers.

TeslaandLyne
They have no physics to explain the UFO even if a real ship existed which
they don't identify any as real to begin with. So its a big lie game.

And there is no physics to explain gravity either so obviously it does not exist...

originally posted by: Toxicsurf

And there is no physics to explain gravity either so obviously it does not exist...

Another interesting point mate and maybe it doesn't (at least not in the way we understand it) - there's quite a few UFO reports from the official Bluebook files which describe unknown objects executing 'right angle turns' at high speed and I've heard it said a few times that this should not be possible without the G-Forces killing the occupants inside (that's assuming they do contain occupants).

'Right angle turn' reports.

May 1, 1952, George AFB, California. 10:50 a.m:

Witnesses: three men on the arms range, plus one Lt. Colonel 4 miles away. Five flat-white discs about the diameter of a C-47's wingspan (95') flew fast, made a 90degrees turn in a formation of three in front and two behind, and darted around, for 15-30 seconds.

Sept. 15, 1968, near Ocala, Florida. 9:30 p.m:

Witness: missionary pilot Jay Cole, flying a Beech C-45 twin-engined utility plane. One light performed aerobatics for 15 minutes and then vanished. A second light appeared, heading toward them on a collision course, made a 90* turn and disappeared. Later, ground radar told them a target was following them. Sightings lasted 15 minutes.

July 21, 1952, Converse, Texas. 4:30 p.m:

Witness: wife of USAF Capt. J. B. Neal. One elongated, fuselage-shaped object flew straight and level, made a right-angle turn and went out of sight at more than 300 m.p.h., all in 3-5 seconds.

Nov. 13, 1952, Glasgow, Montana. 2:43 a.m:

Witness: U.S. Weather Bureau observer Earl Oksendahl. Five oval-shaped objects, with lights all around them, flew in a V-formation for about 20 seconds. Each object seemed to be changing position vertically by climbing or diving as if to hold formation. Formation came from the northwest, made a 90* overhead, and flew away to the southwest.

Nov. 24, 1952, Annandale, Virginia. 6:30 p.m:

Witness: Lt. L. Brettner. One round, glowing object flew very fast, made right angle turns and reversed course during a 1 hour sighting.

July 12, 1952, Annapolis, Maryland. 3:30 p.m:

Witness: insurance company president William Washburn. Four large, elliptical-shaped objects were seen to fly very fast, stop, turn 90* and fly away in 7-8 seconds.

July 13, 1950, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. 5 p.m:

Witnesses: two skilled Arsenal employees including Mr. Washburn. one object, shaped like a bowtie, and like polished aluminum. Flew straight and level, then one triangle rotated 1/4 turn in the opposite direction and returned to its original position. The object then made a right-angle turn and accelerated away after at least 30 seconds.

Jan. 10, 1953, Sonoma, California. 3:45 p.m or 4 p.m:

Witnesses: retired Col. Robert McNab, and Mr. Hunter of the Federal Security Agency. One flat object, like a pinhead, made three 360* right turns in 9 seconds, made abrupt 90* turns to the right and left, stopped, accelerated to original speed and finally flew out of sight vertically after 60-75 seconds.

May 11, 1954, Washington, D.C. 10:45 p.m:

Witnesses: three USAF.air policemen at Washington National Airport. Two bright lights were seen on three occasions to fly straight and level, make 90* turns and fade. Each sighting lasted about 45 seconds.

Feb. 27, 1967, Grand Haven, Michigan. 8:19 p.m:

Witnesses: Sheriff Grysen, wife and others. Large white light, with smaller red and green lights seen to the sides. Made almost instantaneous 90degrees turn to left, shot out over road and stopped, moving too fast to follow. Sighting lasted 1 hour, 11 minutes.

Ufologie - Project Bluebook

Cheers!