Subject: Project Bluebook
Date: 21 Sep 1994 18:34:59 GMT


Hello out there in UFO land!

I saw that someone posted a question asking about the origin
of Project BLUE BOOK and what happened to it.  Welp, hopefully
this bit will answer your questions about this infamous
project.

Before I start, I must say a couple of things.  First - In
some cases I don't support what I say, but thats because
I have class soon and don't have time, so if you have any
questions or what me to elaborate more on one topic, just ask.
I am going to go thru this quick.

Second, most of this comes straight from the MAN himself,
Dr. Jacobs, the foremost UFO researcher on the earth today.
I am fortunate enough to be taking his class at Temple
University, the only UFO class offered at a major university
in the entire world.

Remember - this is extremely brief, this lecture was taught
over 6 to 7 lectures.  Dr. Jacobs backs up everything he
says with hard evidence.

Project Bluebook began in 1948.  Actually, it began as
Project Sign.  As most of you probably know, UFO sitings come
in waves.  The very first wave began in 1897 (that we know
of), and generally they come and go as such.

In 1948, there had been a huge wave of UFO sitings.  Pressure
from the media was being put on the airforce to do something
about these sitings.  Were we in danger of being invaded?  

Thus, in 1948, Project Sign was born, an airforce project 
dedicated to discovering what these things people were seeing
were.  Project Sign didn't take the alien theories very
seriously.  They were sure that it couldn't be extra
terresterial.  Therefore, their natural conclusion had to be
that it was a secret project.  By the way - at this point,
project sign was top secret.

Investigations ensued, and project sign used spies and such
to investigate the USSR, Britain, and even Canada to see if
they were working on any kind of project that would resemble
what people were spotting in the skies.  This came back 
negative.  To make a long story short (too late), Project
Sign, after very little investigation, concluded that the
UFO phenomenom was actually not happening.  Their conclusion
was that 75% of the sitings were missitings (birds, planes,
venus, etc), and that the other 25% were psychological 
problems.  The called these psychological problems, "The
atomic jitters" and "war nerves" (remember, we were just
emerging from WW2).

However, the sitings didn't stop.  In 1949, Project Sign
changed its name to Project Grudge.  Their investigation
lasted from 1949 until 1950, at which time they made
their report - the same conclusion as before, that the UFO
sitings were missitings that were hyped up by the media.  The
phone lines to the pentagon were being tied up with these
UFO reports, so the Airforce announced in 1950 that they woul
no longer research UFO claims anymore.  However, they lied
about this - they continued to investigate in secret.

In 1951, at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and air show was held to test
out the US Government's new radar equipment.  Airforce generals
and other bigwigs were invited to test it out - it was
installed in some planes and at the actual air show.  Anyways,
the radar picked up strange objects during the air show,
and the people there were baffled.  Inquiries were made to
an airforce guy by the name of "Branch Cabel".  Under pressure
from the airforce generals, he ordered Project Grudge to
continue its investigation, and they announced that they would
be taking UFO reports again.

In 1952, Project Grudge once again changed its name, this time
to Project Bluebook.  They appointed a new head, and this
time they were going to take the UFO thing seriously.  Edward
Ruppelt was named head of Project Bluebook.  He was a WW2
veteran, and was well liked.  He was very intelligent, and
came up with lots of new ideas..

In 1952, Rupels, the new head of Project Bluebook, realloy got
things into gear.  He began issuing montly reports, and
developing standardized questions that were asked to anyone
who reported UFOs.  He hired "Joseph Caplin", the founder
of the space program and someone who worked on the Manhattan
Project.  They had lots of new ideas, including hooking up
gigercounters (spelling?) to planes, to see if the phenomenom
was being caused by the atomic tests that were being done
in the atmosphere.  He came up with lots of other ideas 
(I didn't take notes well that day, so I can't remember the
other ones, but they were good - trust me).

Anyways, in 1952, reports picked up BIG TIME.  Another UFO
wave was coming, and Project Bluebook hired lots of personnel,
and was flourishing.  In July, LIFE magizine puts the UFO
controversy to the forfront when it declares in its magazine
that we indeed DO have visitors from space.

To say it mildly, things were getting out of control.  That
was when the CIA got interested...

On July 19th, 1952 at 9:00 pm, people on the ground in
Washington DC began to see lights in the sky.  Radar
operators and Pilots at Washington International Airport
began to see the blips on the screen, and panic ensued.
The lights moved, and positioned themselves right above
the White House.

"Harry Barnes", the head radar operator at Washington Airport
at the time, alerted the airforce, who ordered an intercept.
As you know, it is illegal to fly above the whitehouse, that
is restricted airspace.

Anyways, The airport that was normally used in VA was under
construction, so the intercept had to be ordered from Delaware.
Guess what?  By the time they got there, the lights and
radar blips were gone...

Then, on July 26th, 1962 at 9:00pm once again, people began
to see the same kinds of lights above the white house again.
"Al Chop" was the PR guy for the airforce, and this time he
ordered the intercept.  The airport in VA was still closed,
so the intercept had to come from Delaware once again (I
wish I could remember the airport - I didnt write it down).
Anyways, this time, guess what?  They got there and the
radar blips were still there.  Our intercept pilots confirmed
that there was something there, and sked Al Chop what he
should do.  Our pilots got completely surrounded, and the
UFO's drew closer.  Al Chop (a civilian, I might add), was
asked by one pilot if they had permission to fire upon these
UFOs.  Al Chop told them "permission denied" (although since
he was a civilian, he actually didn't have the authority to
say that).

People went into panic.  The pentagon was flooded with calls,
asked if people should take to the hills, and prepare for
an invasion.  Later, the government issued a report stating
that people actually didn't see anything, or what they
thought they saw was actually something else (I can't remember
what its called, Geothermal something or other, but its
basically when hot air and cold air get together, and 
somehow reflect or something, it messes up radar?  Maybe
someone else can help me out on that one).

Anyways, how does this pertain to Project Blue Book?  Well,
the CIA decided it was time to take action, and they put
together their own top secret panel called "The Robertson
Panel".  The Robertson Panel was to find out once and for
all what was going on, and what to do about it.

The Robertson Panel had 5 people on it:
.H.P. Robertson (the head of the panel)...
..He was a top physicist.
.Lloyd Berkner (I didn't take good notes on him)
.Samuel Goudsmit (discovered "the electron spin",
..         brilliant physicist)
.Louie Alvarez (later, won the nobel prize of physics,
..and was the first to theorize that comets
..were responsible for the demise of the
..dinosaurs)
.Thorton Page (astronomer, involved later in mars
..      landing program)

The panel's mission was to determine:
.1).Are UFO's a threat to national security?
.2).Are they from outer space?

They were briefed by Project Bluebook and were given Project
Bluebook's 50 best UFO reports.

Now, I will explain to you how bad they fumbled.  The panel
lasted from Jan 14th to Jan 17th 1953.  Jan 17th was the
day they wrote the report, so that doesn't count.  They
worked from 10:00am to 12:00 noon (then broke for lunch), and
2:00pm to 4:00 pm... thats 4 hours a day, over 3 days is
a total of 12 hours.

First of all, Lloyd Berkner never even showed until Jan 17th
(he helped write the report) and Thorton Page admitted to
Dr. Jacobs that he laughed and made jokes about the UFO thing
throughout the whole thing (he actually had to be repreimanded
by Robertson on several occasions).

Robertson Panel never considered any of their data seriously,
and came up with the following recommendations (I'm skipping
a lot of stuff, hope you dont mind I get right to the point):

1) UFOs are not extraterrestrial, and not even real, but
they ARE a threat to national security for the following
reason:  Reports of UFO's are tying up normal channels of
communication in the US Government.  What would happen if
say, the COMMUNISTS sent over agents and fostered UFO 
propiganda, as a cover for an atomic attack??

Thus, in 1953 the Robertson Panel rendered its decision,
and the Airforce made ITS decision.  Project Bluebook was
told that everything was great, and that they were doing
great work (which they were - they had just begun to build
the stuff they needed to get real research done).  However,
Ed Rubels began to notice something about his project.
When the tours of the military officers working for him
came up, they were never replaced.  Eventually, no one
was replaced.  Funds began to dry up, projects were getting
killed off, and eventually, he was down to 3 people.  
Following the recommendations of the Robertson Panel, 
the US Airforce was crippling Project Bluebook.

Oh, sure, Project Bluebook continued on.  Eventually 
Ed Rubel's tour came up too, and he was released.  A skeleton
staff remained, and they were basically used as a PR
organization, and as an outlet for people who had UFO reports
(which were subsequently trashed and disregarded).  Project
Blue book was by all means dead, although it hobbled along
until 1969, when it was officially disbanded.

There's your sad ending.  Any comments are welcome!

--
Skaven Q. Blight
skaven@mars.lib.iup.edu
http://mars.lib.iup.edu/~skaven

