For UFO Study? - The Black Vault

PS VIEWPOINT:
By ALDEN P. ARMAGNAC
entists and assistants was commissioned
by the Air Force, but was to be indepenihat
happens when revealing scien- dent and impartial. The report in fact
' tific tests are applied to a car said was first submitted to the National Acadto
have been stopped by a flying saucer? emy of Sciences, which unanimously en-
To a supposedly UFO-dropped fragment dorsed it.
of metal of "unearthly" purity? To pho- The Colorado project sent experts on
tos of cavorting disks and luminous what- field trips to investigate current UFO inis-it's
in the sky?
cidents, and some earlier ones, all over
Answers to these and many more UFO the country. It examined UFO photos,
puzzlers are in the three-volume Condon and tested materials alleged to come from
report, "Scientific Study of Unidentified UFO's. Its report gives 59 case histories
Flying Objects," just released (and pub- in detail, plus many other UFO findings,
licly available in a more-compact but un- (UFO is pronounced OOFO, it incidentabridged
$1.95 Bantam paperback). ally notes.)
UFO zealots, disputing its findings, To the outraged dismay of UFO beare
crying "whitewash" and "cover-up." lievers, the Condon report finds too little
Skeptics are saying, "I told you so." hard evidence to justify continuing to
What is the truth about the controversial take UFO's seriously. It even suggests
Condon report? Above all, it's a fasci- closing out the Air Force's Project Blue
nating science-detective story.
Book, which has been keeping track of
Its 1,465 pages tell of a half-million- UFO reports from the public,
dollar, 18-month hunt for tangible UFO How hard did the Colorado sleuths
evidence by the University of Colorado, really try to find solid UFO evidence?
Headed by a distinguished physicist, Dr. The Condon report explicitly tells:
Edward U. Condon, the study by 37 sci- To reach an UFO scene quickly, the
project set up an Early
Warning Network. News
of UFO sightings was
phoned or telegraphed to it
by some 60 volunteer reporters,
mostly members of
72 I POPULAR SCIENCE
Huge sky-watching cameras like
this giant, which tracks satellites
for NORAD's Space Defense Center
and could spot a basketball at
25,000 miles,"seem unable to find
an UFO. Yet amateurs' crude snapshots
catch myriads of UFO's—or,
do they? Some, the Condon report
finds, are of identifiable things like
odd clouds; others may be hoaxes;
the rest are too distant or fuzzy to
prove anything at all.