Technology is a marvelous thing. I don’t think it’s possible to buy a cell phone that doesn’t have both photo and video capability. With all this new technology you would think that everyone and his brother would have both video or photo evidence of some heart-thumping sightings of extraterrestrial life.

Roswell, New Mexico

In July or August of 1947 an airborne object crashed on a farm near Roswell, New Mexico. Official and unofficial reports attributed the crash to a secret Air Force surveillance balloon. Conspiracy theorists believe that the object was a spacecraft containing beings from another world. The speculation of this event will continue as long as man looks at the stars and wonders if were are alone. This single event was part of the genesis of Project Blue Book.

Project Blue Book

In 1952 the United States Air Force began a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects or as they are commonly known — UFO’s. There were two other similar studies conducted before Project Blue Book that were named Project Sign and Project Grudge. Project Blue Book was shut down on this date in 1969 and all activity ceased in January 1970.

Project Blue Book had two goals:

  1. to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and
  2. to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.

In 1968 the Condon Report concluded that UFO’s posed no security threat after analyzing thousands of reports. Project Blue Book issued a report and a summary of its investigations:

  1. No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security;
  2. There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and
  3. There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles.

Some Final Thoughts

What was the final outcome of Project Blue Book and what can we glean from it today? The project collected 12,618 reports of UFO's and concluded that most all of them had a non-alien explanation.

Most were misidentification of natural occurrences such as clouds, stars, or commercial aircraft. Some were tests of secret military hardware in various levels of development. A small percentage did fall into the classified or unexplained category in spite of exhaustive analysis.

I think most of us have seen lights in the sky that were unfamiliar and we wondered, “Are they here?” Some speculate that UFO’s are us coming back from the future to stop an extinction level event of some kind or to modify history in some way to improve the future.

If you have a great interest in Project Blue Book or any of its findings, those reports are all available through the Freedom of Information Act.

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