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<title>Certified UFOs (Ufology, by James M. McCampbell)</title>
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<p class="exergue">......one is not entitled to a negative opinion or any opinion at all for that matter about the
  reality of UFOs..........until after he has..... examined....................the data........ <span class="source">- Stanton T. Friedman</span>
</p>
<p> Strange, disc-shaped objects started flying through the atmosphere shortly after World War II. At least that's what
  a lot of people said. Speculation ran rampant. Some kind of secret aircraft was being tested by the Air Force. Ours,
  of course. Or perhaps the Russians had made a breakthrough. Other explanations produced a long list of possibilities.
  People were lying for notoriety or profit. They only thought that they saw something unusual. Common things that
  belong in the sky were being viewed under abnormal lighting conditions. Some natural phenomenon, as yet unknown to
  science, was the answer. Pranksters were on the loose. Vehicles from some unknown civilization were surveying the
  earth.</p>
<p>Flying saucers, as they were called in those days, became a sensation. Newspapers, radio, and television told of new
  sightings. Magazine articles and books played up the idea of space craft from the cosmos. To many observers, the scene
  resembled a low-grade infection - the objects were present but unimportant. The Air Force, however, took the matter
  seriously and started a nationwide investigation. It was hoped that the phenomenon would prove to be a manifestation
  of human silliness and fade away. It did not. A quarter of a century passed and the situation did not change much.
  True, the Air Force finally tired of its mission and abandoned the chase. But the UFOs are still with us.</p>
<p>The possibility that the witnesses may have been telling the truth is strongly suspected when a general uniformity of
  the reports is noticed. For example, one may be impressed that the same type of object was reported by, say, a French
  physician in 1954 and a Brazilian peasant in 1968. It is especially significant in such cases when a particularly
  bizarre detail is mentioned by both witnesses. One might suspect collusion, but this is usually extremely unlikely or
  completely impossible. As in this example, the Brazilian peasant may have been deprived of all communication beyond
  his own village and never heard of UFOs. It would have to be considered remarkable if his report echoed the content of
  another one from a distant land. Is there any way in which the trustworthiness of such reports can be established?</p>
<h2>Reliability of Reports</h2>
<p>The theoretical question of reliability became quite important during the years when intercontinental ballistic
  missiles were being developed. These weapons, implanted in underground silos in the western states, must remain on
  stand-by for long periods but they must always be operable. They are extremely complex mechanisms; consequently, many
  things can go wrong with them. The strategic posture of the United States is defined by the existence of these
  missiles plus the assurance that they would work if called upon. Every aspect of these weapons, from their control
  systems to their maintenance schedules, had to be planned to meet the stringent demands of reliability. This
  obligation fostered a new and powerful tool that is known as Reliability Theory. (1) This theory establishes the
  relationship between the performance of a complex system and its subsystems and components. If the reliability of the
  individual components is known, the theory may be employed to compute the reliability of the complete system.
  Conversely, if the required reliability of the overall system is specified, the theory can be used to establish the
  requisite reliability of all the constituents. In the latter case, each element that goes into the system must be
  tested extensively to prove that it meets the prescribed standards. The mathematical statement of reliability is a
  single number from 0 to 1.0, similar to the scale of probability. Absolute reliability, represented by 1.0, is
  theoretically unattainable.</p>
<p>This theory has been successfully applied to UFO reports. As with any complex system, the problem was first broken
  down into its finest elements. Such factors as the number of witnesses, their training in aerial observation, and the
  circumstances of the sighting were isolated. Details of the original documentation were accounted for with emphasis
  upon interviews of the witnesses and the professional qualifications of the interviewers. Finally, the quality of
  secondary reports that had been prepared from the original documents was assessed. Reliability Theory was then used to
  derive an equation expressing the reliability of a report. One hundred sixty (160) sightings from Japan, France,
  Venezuela, and the U.S.A. were selected and analysed. (2)</p>
<p>In 1961, a large, spherical object was observed by a famous television commentator and hundreds of other people. It
  hovered over the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, at two different altitudes before moving away rapidly to the south. It
  was apparently metallic with a steady green light on top and flashing red lights on the bottom. Just above its equator
  was a row of windows. The Reliability Index for this sighting turned out to be in excess of 0.999! In other words, one
  can be well assured that this incident took place according to the reports, although absolute certainty is ruled out.
  Even the structural details of UFOs, such as the windows in this instance, must be taken seriously when they are
  included in highly reliable reports.</p>
<p>Other interesting sightings whose Reliability Indices were also found to be greater than 0.999 are summarized
  below:</p>
<ol type="a">
  <li>Bright light on shadowy object. Confirmed by radar. Scrambled jet fighter had radar lock-on. UFO broke into three
    pieces that all flew away.</li>
  <li>Rigid submarine-shaped cloud with metallic disc spiraling around it. Disc flew over a four mile area then returned
    to the "submarine."</li>
  <li>Bright, cigar-shaped object with windows. Hovered then left rapidly. Emitted strong strands or fibers that
    evaporated upon touch and stained hands.</li>
  <li>Ovoid, aluminum-colored object. Landed on a hill. Grass flattened in rough circle 60 ft in diameter. Moved as a
    white cloud with fuzzy edges.</li>
  <li>Two convex, disc-shaped objects near a large balloon. Speed changes and extremely fast departure. Size estimated
    between 200 and 300 ft.</li>
  <li>Night lights in rigid pattern. Approached, hovered, then flew away. Inferred size about 150 ft. No structure
    discernible but impression of metallic surface. Car could not catch it upon departure.</li>
  <li>Bright glowing object proceeding over hills in undulatory path.</li>
</ol>
<p>These examples are especially important because they are quite typical UFO reports. It would be difficult to dismiss
  these events or to interpret them in any way other than at face value.</p>
<p>One word of caution: A report is not proven to be fraudulent even though it may warrant a low Reliability Index. A
  single witness who is neither technically trained nor professionally involved in aerial observations would rank low on
  the reliability scale. Yet a sharp-eyed farmer from Pennsylvania would be perfectly capable of reporting a sighting
  with sincerity and accuracy. Consequently, all reports should be studied without prejudice, unless of course, a hoax
  or misinterpretation has been proven in a particular instance. Only on this basis can the maximum amount of
  information be brought to bear upon the perplexing problem of UFOs.</p>
<h2>Air Force Experience</h2>
<p>The involvement of the U.S. Air Force in the UFO phenomenon is practically synonymous with the modern history of
  UFOs. It is a long and intricate story. As previous authors have handled that subject expertly, it will be omitted
  here. (3) Let it suffice to recall that Air Force investigations were handled by an office at Wright-Patterson Air
  Force Base in Ohio under various code names, the latest and longest-lived being Project Blue Book. The period of
  active investigation began in the summer of 1947 and continued until December 1969, at which time the Air Force
  disbanded the investigative team and stored its UFO files.(4)</p>
<p>The general impression left by this activity was that all UFOs had been explained in terms of familiar things. But
  hardly anything could be further from the truth. According to Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue
  Book, a panel of distinguished scientists was convened in 1953 to consider, among other possibilities, if UFOs were
  interplanetary space craft. (5) By that time, an analysis of 1,593 sightings had been prepared for their examination.
  Considerable effort had been expended in attempts to determine what familiar entity might have stimulated each report.
  Many reports were definitely established as having been confused observations of airplanes, balloons, astronomical
  bodies, etc. Yet there remained 26.94%, or 429 cases, that were "Unknowns." If the stimulus for an observation could
  have reasonably been an airplane, the case was tagged as "Probable" airplane. If it were remotely possible that the
  witness could have been viewing an airplane, the case was tagged "Possible" airplane. Other interesting pigeon holes
  for parking hoary sightings were labeled "Psychological" and "Insufficient Data." The appellation "Unknown" did not
  mean that the object of the report had merely not been identified. Rather, it represented a definite conclusion that
  the object was unknown. While the above 429 cases were admitted to be unidentified, the actual number was very likely
  much greater. For example, airplanes were alleged to be the explanation of 11.76% of the sightings. Yet most of the
  cases in that category were not confirmed as airplanes, and were assigned the subcategories of "Probable" and
  "Possible" airplanes. By adding all the cases in every category in which identity was definitely established, one
  finds that only 11.21%, or 179 cases, were actually identified. In other words, 88.79% were not identified. The
  situation was evidently worse than that, because in Ruppelt's own words, "About 4,400 had actually been received."
  Most of these were rejected before the Air Force percentages were calculated. Considering that only 179 cases out of
  the original 4,400 were conclusively identified, it is obvious that only about 4% of the reports were explained. The
  remainder were not explained. But even accepting the Air Force figure of 179 "Unknowns" gives a clear message: they
  had plenty of UFOs.</p>
<p>Published data for subsequent years indicate that Blue Book handled several hundred reports each year, running from a
  low of 378 in 1959 to a high of 982 in 1957. (6)Their performance seemed to improve as the percentages of "Unknowns"
  fell from around 8-to-l0% in the early period down to about 2% in 1965. There were obviously so many arbitrary aspects
  to this numbers game that little meaningful information can be extracted from the tabulated results. It is clear,
  however, that the Air Force had its hands full of UFOs and officially said so.</p>
<h2>Residue in Colorado</h2>
<p>In the fall of 1966, an independent study of UFOs was undertaken by a staff of scientists at the University of
  Colorado under the direction of Dr. Edward U. Condon. This distinguished physicist had previously served the U.S. as
  head of the National Bureau of Standards and had been elected by his peers to the presidency of both the American
  Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Initial funding of about $260,000 for
  the project was eventually extended to over half a million dollars. Results of the study were published in a tome with
  more than its share of heavy, technical jargon. Certainly more people have scanned newspaper summaries of its findings
  than have studied the full report. Several hundred UFO sightings were considered by the scientists, but attention was
  focused upon 59 individual examples for in-depth analysis. One of the more widely circulated quotations from Condon
  was the general conclusion that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to
  scientific knowledge." (7) He further elaborated "that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in
  the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." These appraisals were largely responsible for the sharp
  decline in interest in UFOs, the reluctance on the part of news media to publish subsequent sightings, and the folding
  of Project Blue Book. An overwhelming mass of technical detail was assembled in the report. Much of it is most helpful
  in the study of UFOs, but some curious aspects are found in the case studies. In analyzing a famous sighting that
  occurred in McMinnville, Oregon, and the photographs taken by the witnesses, all the factors that were considered
  appeared "to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped,
  tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses." (8) That sounds very
  similar to an ordinary UFO.</p>
<p>In another instance, a white, rapidly moving object was observed visually and confirmed simultaneously by air traffic
  control radars at two Air Force bases. A scrambled jet fighter, vectored to the object, reported a radar lock-on. The
  UFO circled behind the jet and stuck with it through evasive maneuvers. The Condon report devoted eight pages to
  evaluating this incident and concluded that ". . . the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears
  to be fairly high" (9) How interesting!</p>
<p>On still another occasion, one of three lights maneuvering over a school flew silently toward three women and an
  11-year-old girl and stopped overhead at an altitude between 20 and 30 ft. It was described as a solid disc about the
  size of a car. That an unusual object was flying over the school was verified by two policemen who had responded to a
  telephone call. Most of this sighting was ascribed to the planet Jupiter except that the conclusion stated "No
  explanation is attempted to account for the close UFO encounter reported by three women and a young girl." (10) How
  quaint!</p>
<p>Actually, no more than 25%of the cases studied by the Condon team were successfully identified. Here is another
  official pronouncement that indicates the existence of unknowns in stark contrast to the general impression that there
  are no such things. It should be observed that this study did not undertake a systematic examination of the many
  thousands of cases on record at Project Blue Book, nor the approximately 700 cases that had been at that time
  officially designated as "Unknowns."</p>
<h2>Civilian Groups</h2>
<p>Probably the most effective work in the UFO field has been conducted by unofficial, civilian organizations. Most
  notable among these are the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena of Washington, D.C., founded by
  Major Donald Keyhoe, and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization of Tucson, Arizona, founded by Coral and Jim
  Lorenzen. The number of cases of unexplained observations is enormous, and many of them have been well researched. It
  is estimated that the files of these organizations amount to 15,000 and 10,000 cases, respectively, with very limited
  overlap or duplication. Although publications issued by these organizations were reviewed during the Colorado study,
  these reservoirs of information on UFOs were not consulted.</p>
<h2>Scientific Analysis</h2>
<p>One of the most prominent and respected individuals of long term association with UFOs is Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Dr.
  Hynek is a noted astronomer at Northwestern University and is in charge of the Dearborn Observatory. He is best known
  to the public through his role as a civilian consultant to the Air Force during its investigations of UFOs. It is most
  instructive to trace the evolution of his views. He was initially called upon to examine reports received by the Air
  Force to determine which ones might be instances of astronomical objects causing UFO reports. Apparently quite a few
  people thought that Venus, other planets, or astronomical objects were UFOs. Of the first 237 reports received by the
  Air Force and analyzed by Hynek, approximately one-third appeared to be of astronomical origin. (11) The remaining
  two-thirds, apparently not associated with astronomical displays, were about equally divided between those for which
  some reasonable explanation was suggested by the nature of the report and those for which no explanation was evident.
  At that time, Hynek had a low opinion for the concept of UFOs and "regarded the whole subject as rank nonsense, the
  product of silly seasons, and a peculiarly American craze that would run its course as all popular crazes do." (12)
  During the middle years of his association with the Air Force, however, he became troubled by a hard core of reports
  that continued to defy explanations in common terms. In a magazine article he listed outer space as a possible source
  of the unidentified objects and called for serious, scientific study of UFOs. (13) In an open letter to his scientific
  colleagues he "strongly urged the Air Force to ask physical and social scientists of stature to make a respectable,
  scholarly study of the UFO phenomenon." (14) He went on to say that he could not shrug off the UFO problem because the
  unexplained cases contained "frequent allusions to recurrent kinematic, geometric, and luminescent characteristics," a
  point that will take on extraordinary significance in later chapters. Before the Committee of Science and Astronautics
  of the U.S. House of Representatives he pressed his suggestion ". . . that there is scientific pay dirt in the UFO
  phenomenon - possibly extremely valuable pay dirt - and that therefore a scientific effort on a much larger scale than
  any heretofore should be mounted for a frontal attack on this problem." (15) The following year, a similar appeal for
  action was issued at a session devoted to UFOs at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
  of Science. (16)</p>
<p>Eventually, Dr. Hynek published the findings of his own scientific analysis of UFOs. (17) As a point of conservatism,
  he rejected any report submitted by a single witness and studied selected multi-witness cases in which he had been
  personally involved. His conclusions should be convincing to the most skeptical reader. He finds that disc-shaped,
  metallic craft of unknown origin are flying around during the daytime. At night, their presence is indicated by
  peculiar lights moving in typically jerky patterns. From sightings at close range he discloses a) some structural
  details of the craft, b) physical evidence that they have left on tile ground, and c) human-like creatures occupying
  the craft. To say the least, this book should be on every must-read list.</p>
<h2>Springboard to Discovery</h2>
<p>Some UFO reports have been found to be extremely reliable by methods that are technically sound and employed
  extensively in other fields. The Air Force, in effect, has been telling the public for many years that UFOs have been
  flying around in great numbers. This point was confirmed by an expensive, independent study conducted by scientists at
  the University of Colorado. Civilian groups have been collecting and investigating UFO reports by the tens of
  thousands and have written highly reputable books about them. A leading astronomer who has been professionally
  associated with the subject for 25 years found that his original attitude of scoffing at UFOs was gradually replaced
  by the conclusion, established by scientific means, that UFOs are real. It would seem that these factors lend a
  reasonable basis for adopting the reality of UFOs as a tentative perspective. If they are some strange kind of craft,
  a considerable amount of detail about them might be discovered by careful attention to what the witnesses have
  said.</p>
<p>Footnotes</p>
<p>1. See article, "Reliability of Equipment and Bibliography, McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science<br> and Technology,
  Vol II, p. 471, 1971.<br> 2. Olsen, Thomas M., Editor, The Reference For Outstanding UFO Sighting Reports, UFO<br>
  information Retrieval Center, Inc., Riderwook, Maryland, November, 1966.<br> 3. For example, a comprehensive history
  may be found in the following book although the author<br> apparently concluded that the golden era of UFOs had come
  to an end about 1970.<br> Flammonde, Paris, The Age of Flying Saucers, Notes on a Projected History of
  Unidentified<br> Flying Objects, Hawthorn, 1971.<br> 4. In 1969, the American Association for the Advancement of
  Science resolved that the Blue<br> Book files should be preserved and forwarded a recommendation to that effect to the<br>
  Secretary of the Air Force.<br> 5. Ruppelt, Edward J., The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Ace, p. 275 ff,
  1956. It is<br> also enlightening to examine the formerly classified reports issued by Blue Book in United<br> States
  Air Force, Projects Grudge and Blue Book Reports 1-12,, assembled and republished<br> by National Investigations
  Committee on Aerial Phenomena, 1968.<br> 6. The annual breakdown of Blue Book evaluations from 1953 through 1965 were
  tabulated in<br> Condon, Edward U., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, p.521, Dutton, 1969.<br> 7.
  Condon, Edward U., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. p.1, Dutton, 1969.<br> 8. Condon, Edward U.,
  Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. p. 407, Dutton, 1969.<br> 9. Condon, Edward U. ,Scientific Study of
  Unidentified Flying Objects, p. 265, Dutton, 1969.<br> 10. Condon, Edward U., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying
  Objects, p. 270, Dutton, 1969.<br> 11. Hynek, J. Allen, The UFO Experience-A Scientific Inquiry, p. 179, Regnery,
  1972.<br> 12. Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hynek, J. Allen, Statement to the Committee on<br> Science and
  Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, p.4, U.S.<br> Government Printing Office. July 29,
  1968.<br> 13. Hynek, J. Allen, "Flying Saucers-Are They Real?" The Saturday Evening Post, December 17, 1966.<br> 14.
  Hynek. J. Allen, "UFO's Merit Scientific Study," Letter to Science. 21, October, 1966.<br> 15. Symposium on
  Unidentified Flying Objects, Hynek, J. Allen, Statement to the Committee on<br> Science and Astronautics, U.S. House
  of Representa tives, Ninetieth Congress, p.14, U.S.<br> Government Printing Office, July 29, 1968.<br> 16. Hynek, J.
  Allen, "The Earth, The Solar System, and the Cosmos;" Unidentified Flying<br> Objects, Session II: UFO Reports,
  Audiotape Program, 136th Meeting, American<br> Association for the Advancement of Science, December, 1969. Transcript
  published in<br> UFOs, A Scientific Debate, Sagan, C. and Page, T., Editors, Cornell University Press, 1972.<br> 17.
  Hynek, J. Allen, The UFO Experience, A Scientific Inquiry, Regency, 1972.</p>
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