12.04.2024

Project Blue Book case review: October 1968 - December 1969

This is the latest edition of the Project Blue Book case review covering October 1968 through December 1969. Like the previous evaluations, I tried to examine each case to see if the conclusion had merit. I added comments to help clarify the explanation or if I felt it was not correct or adequate. Items marked with red highlighting had photographs in the case file.

Summary

Like last review, there were a lot of confusing, conflicting, and insufficient data solutions in the last few months of 1968 and in 1969. It seems that the release of the Condon report in the early 1969, significantly reduced the number of letters to Blue Book and phone calls to air bases. People were probably more interested in following the moon program at this point as well. UFOs had lost their appeal to the general public.

The one case I placed into the UNIDENTIFIED category was the Minot AFB case in October of 1968. This has been a case that was promoted by UFOlogists in recent years. At first glance, it seems that quite a few of the visual observations appear to have been stars. However, there are parts of the case that Blue Book labeled as “Plasmas”. I never liked this kind of classification and I have never seen much in the way of evidence that such phenomena were visible in the manner described. Tim Hebert performed an evaluation of the case sometime ago and offered potential solutions for the case but he appears to have had second thoughts about it. He promised a new evaluation when he was ready. His blog has not produced anything new so I am assuming he is working on it or it fell off his “to do” list (sort of like some of the cases I promised to get to in the future). The case will remain in the “UNIDENTIFIED”

category for now.

Youths continued to be a major contributor to UFO reports. 51 of the cases had witnesses that were 17-years old or younger. That is about 25% of the total. These are just the cases where the ages were identified. There were other cases that involved letters that appeared to come from young people but no age was given. One 13-year old sent letters to the USAF on at least two different occasions. One has to admire his enthusiasm but one would also expect that the witness might begin to become more interested in evaluating his own sightings more critically before sending letters to the USAF.

With the completion of the cases from 1953-1969, I can now go back to the 1947-1952 time frame. I intend to review the 1947-48 period next issue. This will be followed by evaluating 1949-1951 in three issues. Finally, I will tackle the myriad of sightings in 1952 over five or six issues. This means I should be finished with my Blue Book review by mid-2025. Once that is done, I hope to put out an issue that puts all of the evaluations in one document (including the 701 club additions).

Quelle: SUNlite 6/2023