REVIEW ARTICLE Ufology: What Have We Learned? - Society for ...

546 M. D. Swords
encounters in both the European and Pacific theatres of war. There began about
ten years wherein the investigation of the phenomenon was almost entirely
a military and/or intelligence activity (1945-1955). Following that, the interested
civilians began creating (often very active) organizations, such as:
Donald Keyhoe's National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP), the Lorenzen's Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO),
and the flagship UFO magazine, Flying Saucer Review (FSR). It was these
elements (and strong-willed personages) that kept serious interest in the subject
alive during a time of severe attacks in the form of derisive commentary by
government officials, the media, and a few scientists. NICAP, APRO, FSR,
et al., persisted through all of this buttressed by what some researchers call the
heyday of classic ufology: 25 years filled with a large number and variety of
"Close Encounter" cases, involving high quality and multiple independent
witnesses, and incidents of physical effects. Although the Air Force's Project
Blue Book closed in the middle of this period, civilian organizations such as
Dr. J. Allen Hynek's Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and the Mutual UFO
Network (MUFON) arose to carry on the battle (Figure 1). During this time
(1955-1980), the phenomenon seemed to shift its emphasis from metallic disks
cruising across the skies and lighting up radar screens, to close encounters with
"landing traces," electromagnetic intcrfcrence, physiological effects, and
"entity" reports. The "old-style" cases were still around but the new-style
ones offered the hope that laboratory science would be able to be brought to
bear on the subject at last.
But, despite insightful statistical studies, such as those by Dr. David Saunders
(of the Colorado Project), Dr. Claude Poher, and our own SSE colleague,
Dr. Jacques Vallee (in his ChicagoIHynek years), the UFO phenomenon could
not seriously dent the world of mainstream science. Clusters of case types and
analyses by people such as Ted Phillips ("physical ground traces")', and
Dr. Mark Rodeghier ("vehicle interference event^")^ were powerful corroboration
of the physical reality of the phenomenon to those already committed to
the field, but still fell silently in the ears of a nonattentive scientific community
(Figure 2). Doctor Hynek knew that some kind of new approach was necessary.
Therefore, he founded the Center for UFO Studies not with the intent of chasing
down every "good" sounding case that came to his attention, but rather to be
highly selective of cases wherein some physical effect had occurred and its
results were still present after the agent (the UFO) left the scene. These remanent
"leavings" of the phenomenon could then be taken to the laboratories and
hammered with all the science that could be brought to bear. Because most
scientists were still shy on the subject and most high-tech labs were even more
so, Hynek realized that he had limited social capital (and almost no economic
capital) to spend on such testing and felt that one or two evidence-rich cases per
year would be a reasonable goal. As it transpired, CUFOS was able to employ
this strategy on exactly one case: the soil from the "landing trace" case of
Delphos, Kansas, which had occurred in late 197 1.