Saucer Blue Book

The Air Force has been so bedeviled by reports of flying saucers (the little-men-from-Venus kind) that it is almost afraid to talk about saucer-shaped aircraft. Last week Secretary of the Air Force Donald A. Quarles released a few well-guarded words about a vertically rising jet-craft that will soon be tested by Ryan Aeronautical Co. of San Diego. He admitted that it might be mistaken for some sort of flying saucer.

"We are now entering," said Quarles, "a period of aviation technology in which aircraft of unusual configuration and flight characteristics will begin to appear." As an example of aircraft-to-come, he told about "another project under contract with A. V. Roe Canada, Ltd., which could result in disk-shaped aircraft somewhat similar to the popular concept of a flying saucer. An available picture, while only an artist's conception, could illustrate such an object" (see cut).

But Quarles pointed out firmly that such airborne oddities "are direct-line de scendants of conventional aircraft . . .

They will still obey natural laws and if manned, they will still be manned by normal, terrestrial airmen."

Monstrous Analysis. Quarles is well aware that flying-saucer cultists are not easily discouraged. They might still claim that saucer-shaped aircraft built on earth are proof that extraterrestrial flying saucers, manned by little men from Venus (or Mars), have been infesting the atmosphere. So Quarles released simultaneously a massive "analysis of reports of unidentified aerial objects." Called Project Blue Book and bristling with charts, diagrams, data sheets and tables of figures, it is a meticulous study of 4,965 flying-saucer "sightings."

The Air Force has never believed that flying saucers are spaceships from other planets. But it was forced to take account of the public excitement created by reports of sightings in the daily press and in pop-eyed magazine articles and quickie books. It had, besides, the duty of accounting for everything seen or imagined in the U.S. air space. There was always a chance that some foreign nation had developed secret aircraft of startling performance. Even spaceships from foreign planets are not utterly impossible.

So Air Force statisticians went solemn ly to work gathering every detail about all "sightings," including those that were reported from mental institutions. They recorded the date and hour at which the spaceship was allegedly seen, and figured the position of the sun. They noted meteorological conditions, the reliability of the informant and his training. They recorded the color, brightness, speed, elevation, etc. of each "aerial object." They took account of related events, such as balloon-launchings. They noted whether the object had been seen by eye or radar. They put these details on punch cards and ran them through sorting machines to see how many sightings there were in each category.

Diminishing Unknowns. Last week Project Blue Book was ready to release its conclusions. As might be expected, nearly all the sightings could be explained in nonsensational ways. For 1953 and

1954, they divided:

Balloons 16%

Aircraft 20%

Astronomical* 25%

Other** 13%

Insufficient Information. 17%

Unknown . . 9%

As the Air Force grew more skilled and collected more definite data, the number of "unknowns" diminished. For the 131 sightings reported from Jan. i to May 5,

1955, they were down to 3%. Concentrating on the "unknowns"

(which might conceivably be novel aircraft from a foreign country or spaceships from Mars), the Air Force scientists tried to derive from them some "flying-saucer model." They failed. All the unknowns that had been described in fair detail proved to be different.

The Air Force's official conclusion:

"On the basis of this evaluation of the information, it is considered to be highly improbable that any of the reports of unidentified aerial objects examined in this study represent observations of technological developments outside the range of present-day scientific knowledge."

*Meteors, planets, etc.

** Birds, festations," light etc. phenomena, "psychological mani

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