** Begin Excerpt **The popular impression through the years was that Blue Book was afull-fledged, serious operation. The public perhaps envisioned a spacious,well-staffed office with rows of file cabinets, a computer terminal forquerying the UFO data bank, and groups of scientists quietly studyingreports, attended by a staff of assistants.The actual situation was unfortunately the opposite. The operation wasgenerally headed by an officer of lesser rank. In the military theimportance attached to a mission is usually in direct proportion to therank of the commanding officer. The relatively low-ranking officers incharge of Blue Book were usually assisted by a lieutenant and sometimesonly by a sergeant. For one long period of time a sergeant with littletechnical training was given the chore of evaluating most of the incomingreports.This was not exactly a first-line, high priority operation. Blue Book hadmuch too small a staff to do justice to a phenomenon that so often greatlyconcerned the public. Compounding the problem, the staff was able to devoteonly part of its time to the technical problem at hand. During my regularvisits to Blue Book across the years I observed that much of the work inthe office was devoted to peripheral matters all done at a leisurely pace.Further, Blue Book's low-ranking officers had no leverage to initiate thetype of investigations that were needed and for which I frequently asked.The military is entirely hierarchical; a captain cannot command a colonelor a major at another base to obtain information for him. He can onlyrequest. As long as Blue Book did not have at least a full colonel incommand, it was impossible to execute its assigned task properly. Inreviewing cases that had come in during the previous month, I often askedthat additional, often crucial information on a case be obtained. Theresults were at best minimal; officers at other bases were generally toobusy to bother to investigate further. Why should they? They all knew itwas a finger exercise anyway.Blue Book was a "cover-up" to the extent that the assigned problem wasglossed over for one reason or another. In my many years association withBlue Book, I do not recall ever one serious discussion of methodology, ofimproving the process of data gathering or of techniques of comprehensiveinterrogation of witnesses.The reader may well ask at this point why I did not either lay siege to thePentagon, demanding action, or simply resign in disgust. Temperamentally, Iam one who can easily bide his time. I also dislike a fight, especiallywith the military. But most importantly, Blue Book had the store of data(as poor as they were), and my association with it gave me access to thosedata. In a sense I played Kepler to Blue Book's Tycho Brahe.As far as demanding action from the Pentagon, I knew only too well theprevailing climate and recognized that had I been too outspoken, I wouldhave quickly been discredited, labeled a UFO nut, lost access to data, andcertainly would have lost all further effectiveness. I have always been ofthe turn of mind that "truth will out" if given time; if there was indeedscientific "paydirt" in the UFO phenomenon, as time went on and thegathering of data improved, even the most hostile skeptics would bepowerless to sweep it under the carpet. The astronomer traditionally adoptsa very long time scale.By and large, however, Blue Book data were poor in content, and even worse,they were maintained in virtually unusable form. With access to modernelectronic data processing techniques, Blue Book maintained its dataentirely unprocessed. Cases were filed by date alone, and not even arudimentary cross-indexing was attempted. Had the data been put in linereadable form, the computer could have been used to seek patterns in thereports, to compare the elements of one report with those of another, andto delineate, for instance the six basic categories of sightings used inthis book. Since all the thousands of cases were recorded onlychronologically, even so simple a matter as tabulating sightings fromdifferent geographical locations, from different types of witnesses etc.was impossible except by going through, manually, each and every report. Aproposal for elementary computerization of the data in the Blue Book files,devised by Jacques Vallee and myself and submitted by me directly to MajorQuintanilla at Blue Book, was summarily turned down.In view of the above and of the frequently contradictory and inane publicrelations statements concerning UFO reports, which even the man on thestreet found unconvincing, it is hardly a wonder that the charge wasfrequently made that the publicly visible air force "investigation" of UFOswas merely a front for a real investigation being carried on somewhere"higher up."Were I the captain of a debating team whose job it is, of course, tomarshall the facts favorable to his side and studiously to avoid theother's, I could defend either side of the argument. At no time, howeverdid I encounter any evidence that could be presented as valid proof thatBlue Book was indeed a cover-up operation. However, many indications, bitsof information, and scraps of conversation could be force-fitted into ayes for the cover-up thesis. Thus, for instance, one time when I inquiredinto the specifics of a certain case, I was told by the Pentagon's chiefscientist that he had been advised by those at a much higher level to tellme "not to pursue the matter further." One can make of that what one will.In a country as security conscious as is ours where central intelligence isa fine art, it frequently seemed to me that very provocative UFO reportswere dismissed without any seeming follow-up - certainly an illogical ifnot dangerous procedure unless one knew a priori that the report really wasof no potential information value to the security of the country (or thatit was but was being taken care of elsewhere). As an example, the report offive rapidly moving discs, made by a member in good standing of the 524thIntelligence Squadron stationed in Saigon and observed by him from the roofof the squadron's headquarters, went untouched by Major Quintanilla andBlue Book on the grounds that "the sighting was not within the continentallimits of the United States." It would seem almost inconceivable that theintelligence officer in question would not have been further interrogatedby some agency; certainly in an active battle area his sighting might havepresaged a new military device of the enemy.Another example, one of many, was this, on the first day of August, 1965,and on the following two days there occurred the "Midwest flap." Fromseveral states strange Nocturnal Lights were reported by ostensiblyreliable police officers on patrol at various places over an area ofseveral hundred square miles. Blue Book dismissed this event as "stars seenthrough inversion layers," although I know of no astronomer who has everwitnessed inversion effects that produced these reported effects. Both pastexperience and calculations show that such illusory effects, in which starsmove over at a considerable arc of the sky, simply cannot be produced bythermal inversions.However, police officers weren't the only ones to report. The following isa direct transcript of a Blue Book memo: In the early morning hours ofAugust 1, 1965, the following calls were received at the Blue Book oificesby Lieutenant Anspaugh, who was on duty that night:1:30 A.M. - Captain Snelling, of the U.S. Air Force command post nearCheyenne, Wyoming, called to say that 15 to 20 phone calls had beenreceived at the local radio station about a large circular object emittingseveral colors but no sound, sighted over the city. Two officers and oneairman controller at the base reported that after being sighted directlyover base operations, the object had begun to move rapidly to thenortheast.2:20 A.M. - Colonel Johnson, base commander of Francis E. Warren Air ForceBase, near Cheyenne, Wyoming, called Dayton to say that the commandingofficer of the Sioux Army Depot saw five objects at 1:45 A.M. and reportedan alleged configuration of two UFOs previously reported over E Site. At1:49 A.M. members of E flight reportedly saw what appeared to be the sameuniform reported at 1:48 A.M. by G flight. Two security teams weredispatched from E flight to investigate.2:50 A.M. - Nine more UFOs were sighted, and at 3:35 A.M. Colonel Williams,commanding officer of the Sioux Army Depot, at Sydney, Nebraska, reportedfive UFOs going east.4:05 A.M. - Colonel Johnson made another phone call to Dayton to say thatat 4:00 A.M., Q flight reported nine UFOs in sight; four to the northwest,three to the northeast, and two over Cheyenne.4:40 A.M. - Captain Howell, Air Force Command Post, called Dayton andDefense Intelligence Agency to report that a Strategic Air Command Team atSite H-2 at 3:00 A.M. reported a white oval UFO directly overhead. LaterStrategic Air Command Post passed the following: Francis E. Warren AirForce Base reports (Site B-4 3:17 A.M.) - A UFO 90 miles east of Cheyenneat a high rate of speed and descending - oval and white with white lines onits sides and a flashing red light in its center moving east; reported tohave landed 10 miles east of the site.3:20 A.M. - Seven UFOs reported east of the site.3:25 A.M. - E Site reported six UFOs stacked vertically.3:27 A.M. - G-1 reported one ascending and at the same time, E-2 reportedtwo additional UFOs had joined the seven for a total of nine.3:28 A.M. - G-1 reported a UFO descending further, going east.3:32 A.M. - The same site has a UFO climbing and leveling off.3:40 A.M. - G Site reported one UFO at 70' azimuth and one at 120'. Threenow came from the east, stacked vertically, passed through the other two,with all five heading west.When I asked Major Quintanilla what was being done about investigating thesereports, he said that the sightings were nothing but stars! This is certainlytantamount to saying that our Strategic Air Command responsible for the defenseof the country against major attacks from the air, was staffed by a notable setof incompetents who mistook twinkling stars for strange craft. These are thepeople who someday might have the responsibility for waging a nuclear war.For some, incidents such as the above would be prima facie and conclusiveevidence that the cover-up hypothesis was the correct one, on the groundsthat no group charged with serious defense responsibilities for the countrycould have been so stupid.On the other hand, our hypothetical debating team captain could amass aneven more impressive cache of evidence to conclude quite the opposite: thatthe entire Blue Book operation was a foul-up based on the categoricalpremise that the incredible things reported could not possibly have anybasis in fact. After all, science pretty well understands the physicalworld and knows what's possible and what is not. Since the reported actionsof UFOs clearly didn't fit this world picture, they simply" to "figments of the imagination produced in one way or another.All my association with Blue Book showed clearly that the project rarelyexhibited any scientific interest in the UFO problem. They certainly did notaddress themselves to what should have been considered the central problem ofthe UFO phenomenon: is there an as yet unknown physical or psychological oreven paranormal process that gives rise to those UFO reports that survivesevere screening and still remain truly puzzling?Such lack of interest belies any charge of "cover-up"; they just didn'tcare. There is another argument for the "noncover- up" viewpoint: theunderlings in the military hierarchy (and all Blue Book officers were such- generally captains or majors, two of which finally made lieutenantcolonel but never full colonel) looked mainly toward two things, promotionand early retirement. Therefore, in controversial issues it was alwaysconsidered far wiser not to "rock the boat," to please the superior officerrather than to make waves. Thus, when the superior officers, who did notknow the facts but were wedded to a rigid framework of military thinkinghanded down from above, let it be known in any controversial issue (whetherUFOs or not) what the "right way" of thinking is, no underling officer wasgoing to oppose or even question it unless, of course he was 99 percentcertain that he could prove himself correct in the controversy - andquickly.Since the Pentagon had spoken in no uncertain terms about UFOs, no Blue Bookofficer in his right promotion-conscious military mind was going to buckthat, even if he had private opinions on the matter.Another factor added to the noncover-up theory. Turnover in the Blue Bookoffice was rather high. Sooner or later the officer in charge would be out ofit, just that much closer to promotion and retirement, if he just sat tight.From 1952 to 1969 the office was headed in turn by Captain Ruppelt (who did notmake his own views known until he was out of the air force), Captain Hardin(who had ambitions to be a stock broker), Captain Gregory (to whom promotionwas the be-all and end-all of existence), Major Friend, and finally MajorQuintanilla, who had the longest term of office. Of all the officers I servedwith in Blue Book, Colonel Friend earned my respect. Whatever private views hemight have held he was a total and practical realist, and sitting where hecould see the scoreboard, he recognized the limitations of his office butconducted himself with dignity and a total lack of the bombast thatcharacterized several of the other Blue Book heads.Thus one can have one's choice of whether Blue Book was a front or merely afoul-up. But that there was certainly foul-up and complete divorce from thescientific community within Blue Book was apparent. The members of thescientific fraternity were, of course, wedded to the misperception-delusionhypothesis (there was no need for interchange of ideas with Blue Book, whichheld the same views), and some members rose to heights of vitriolic verbiage indenouncing reporters of UFOs. This phase of the total phenomenon had many ofthe aspects of a modern witchhunt.
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