Comprehensive Catalog of 1,500 Project BLUE BOOK UFO Unknowns: Work in Progress (Version 1

Comprehensive Catalog of 1,500 Project BLUE BOOK UFO Unknowns: Work in Progress (Version 1.7, Dec. 31, 2003)

Compiled by Brad Sparks, © 2001-2003

The main purpose of this catalog at present is to help identify and fill in where possible missing or difficult-to-obtain U.S. Air Force documentation on better quality Unexplained UFO cases, not to present here the "proof" of UFO reality nor to discuss possible IFO identifications, subjects reserved for later analysis once full files can be examined. Here the goal is preliminary and to compile more complete documentation, not the perfection of the analysis or categorizations. This catalog will be used eventually to produce another catalog of UFO Best Evidence after a screening process based on Hynek's and other criteria and for that reason columns for data on Duration, No. of Witnesses, Angular Size and "Instrumentation/Scientists etc." have been separately presented from the available case data and/or calculated where possible.

When Project Blue Book (BB) closed down on Jan. 30, 1970 (it was not on Dec. 17, 1969, which was merely the announcement date by the Secretary of the Air Force) the total number of Unidentified sightings was thought to be 701 and this is the number given on all subsequent press releases and socalled "fact sheets." However, based on the review by Hynek and the CUFOS staff of the released sanitized BB microfilm and Hynek's personal records which included many missing (and unsanitized) BB documents, the final number was determined to have been approximately 587, apparently reflecting an IFO elimination process carried out on old historical cases by the next-to- last BB Chief, Major Hector Quintanilla in the 60's (and of dubious scientific validity based on examples McDonald studied), which must have reduced the number of Unexplained cases by 114. Evidently the AF did not update its annual historical UFO statistics to reflect this gradual winnowing process, not realizing it could improve upon its anti-UFO PR position by reducing the perennially embarrassing number of Unidentifieds.

However, in reverse, Hynek re-evaluated 53 Blue Book IFO cases as Unexplained UFO cases, bringing the total partially back, up to 640, unfortunately a complete list identifying these is not available, though some of the worksheets have been copied by Jan Aldrich from CUFOS-Hynek files. A number of the reevaluated cases have been included in The Hynek UFO Report book published in 1977.

Much more disturbing are the indications from my limited review of BB cases that there may be as many as possibly 4,000 Unexplained UFO cases miscategorized as IFO's in the BB files. McDonald similarly stated in 1968 at his CASI lecture that from his review of BB cases he estimated that 30-40% of 12,000 cases were Unexplained, or about 3,600 to 4,800. These are mostly military cases and many involve radar. McDonald argued with Hynek on a number of occasions from 1966 onward that the number of Unknowns in the BB files was in reality “about an order of magnitude” greater than what the AF claimed (so instead of 500-600 Unidentifieds possibly as many as 5,000-6,000).

The BB files total some 13,134 cases altogether, UFO and IFO, according to the Hynek-CUFOS revised statistics, or about 14,613 when 1,558 "info only" cases are included, per the FUFOR Index. Many cases are actually multiple incidents filed under one date/location. For simplicity I am therefore rounding up to 15,000 as the approximate total number of UFO incidents in the BB files.

This catalog is based primarily on the outstanding catalog prepared by Don Berliner of the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) from his exhaustive review of the then unreleased Project Blue Book (BB) files at Maxwell AFB (Air Force Base), Alabama, in Jan. 1974, which included many witness names that were later sanitized out ("blacked out") of the public release of the BB files by the Air Force in 1974-5. Berliner's effort ought to be supplemented with the tremendous intelligence coup by William Weitzel and FUFOR in early March 1998 in discovering and later securing copies of the unsanitized pre-redaction

record copy 16 mm Maxwell AFB microfilm of the BB files that the National Archives inadvertently made available (at the College Park, Maryland, NARA II facility in Record Group 341 / 190 / 68 / 08 / 03, boxes 1-6, 70 films numbered 30,362 through 30,431), but no resources are available for such a largescale research project. All of UFOlogy owes an enormous debt of gratitude to FUFOR for this lasting contribution to the preservation and disclosure of this vast treasure of priceless military UFO records.

The AF security classification and privacy review panel began reviewing the BB files in mid-1974 and sanitizing witness names (also destroying or removing certain documents evidently thought embarrassing or incriminating to the AF such as famed Lockheed aircraft designer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson’s signature page with his conclusion that the UFO he saw was an actual “device”). The AF finished the review and turned over sanitized files to NARS (now called NARA) in Dec 1975, including an added set of AF Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) files of UFO investigations from 1948 to 1962 released by AFOSI (some of which were already in BB files and some not). Then NARS started microfilming files, publicly releasing the paper files in mid-May 1976 and the 94 reels of microfilm on July 12, 1976.

The Berliner catalog has been heavily augmented here with:

(a) Listing of BB Unknowns selected from the National Archives index of BB cases (published by Steiger in Nov 1976 and available on the World Wide Web at various websites) but lacking descriptive sighting details.

(b) Partial case listings of re-evaluations by Hynek and CUFOS staff (primarily in The Hynek UFO

Report, Dell, Dec. 1977), who personally retained many thousands of unsanitized BB case files in his

personal papers which are now with CUFOS (made available thanks to the tremendous efforts of

Mary Castner and Jan Aldrich).

(c) The 1969 Magonia catalog of landing/close encounter cases by Jacques Vallée who as Hynek's assistant in the 60's examined the BB files and Hynek's copies of BB cases, when many reports had not yet "disappeared."

(d) Battelle Memorial Institute list of 12 Best Unknowns which also caught a few cases before records vanished (May 5, 1955, report issued as Blue Book Special Report No. 14).

(e) Lists by James McDonald who saw and copied BB files on five research trips from June 1966 to Aug. 1970 and conducted his own exhaustive and independent investigations, especially see his prepared statement in the 1968 House Committee on Science and Astronautics hearing (McDonald 1968) and his 1969 AAAS paper as revised and published posthumously by Sagan & Page (McDonald 1972).

(f) Records obtained by Jan Aldrich of Project 1947 directly from unsanitized BB files on the Maxwell AFB microfilm, from McDonald, CUFOS and Keyhoe/Richard Hall/FUFOR files, from FOIA requests to declassify AF HQ records at National Archives, and from SHG oral history and file recovery efforts.

(g) Condon Committee investigations of BB cases published in the Condon Report (Bantam Books edition, New York, Jan. 1969; especially see the convenient "Sightings, Unexplained" listing in the index, p. 961).

(h) FUFOR's Index to the Case Files of Project Blue Book (1997) which consists of a computer printout reportedly prepared by David R. Saunders of the Condon Committee, but which inexplicably includes cases up to Dec. 1969 near the end of BLUE BOOK and over a year after the AF contract with the Condon Committee had ended.

(i) National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP). (j) Willy Smith's case evaluations (On Pilots and UFOs, UNICAT 1997). (k) NICAP website compiled by Francis Ridge.

(l) Dominique Weinstein's Aircraft/UFO Encounters (Nov. 1997; and rev. 5th ed. June 2001, Aircraft UAP Encounters).

(m) H. B. Darrach and Robert Ginna, LIFE magazine article, April 7, 1952.

(n) Various USAF records obtained by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, especially a collection of long-missing Project SIGN/GRUDGE records found at the St. Louis records center, however please note that it is uncertain whether all of these cases are in the BB/predecessor files or had ever been and got lost or were removed.

(o) U.S. Air Force Intelligence TOP SECRET analysis of flying disc incidents, April 28, 1949, Report No. 100-203-79 or “AIR 203.”

(p) Martin Shough catalog of radar UFO incidents (RADCAT), 1987, revised 2002, and augmented by Jan Aldrich and Brad Sparks.

(q) My personal investigations and research (especially all bracketed [ ] material and most parenthetical ( ) material).

There are other resources that could be consulted and will be eventually. An outstanding example is the voluminous collection of Loren Gross histories only recently made available to this researcher thanks to the untiring efforts of Mary Castner of CUFOS and still undergoing review. But this is a first pass at an ongoing, continually revised and supplemented work.

Berliner's and the National Archives' lists represent most of the cases that BB itself categorized as Unknowns when it closed down in 1970. Only after all of the unsanitized records have been examined will it be possible to complete and double check this list. I hope to eventually include all cases that have ever been categorized as Unknowns by BB or its predecessor projects. Later, this full list will then be fully re-screened for IFO's.

At present it is unclear at what stage or stages the various lists of Blue Book Unknowns represent initial, intermediate or final evaluations by Blue Book staff and/or Blue Book consultants such as Hynek and Battelle Memorial Institute (which carried out the March 31, 1952 – March 17, 1954, statistical study known as BB Special Report 14, and internally as Project STORK subproject PPS-100). A comprehensive examination of the sanitized and unsanitized BB microfilm files and Hynek's enormous BB record collection at CUFOS would be needed to answer this question in most cases but at present there are no resources to undertake such a time-consuming project. Even so, because of lost and incomplete files this may not be possible in all cases even if the available records could be studied. The goal here is completeness of documentation and to try to fill in gaps where records have been lost. Whenever a case has been evaluated as an "Unknown" or "Unidentified" by BB staff and/or competent inverstigators it is included here, with preference given for those cases that have actually been investigated since it appears that quite a few that are on BB's list as Unknowns do not seem to have actually been investigated. Eventually such cases will be weeded out (at the screening stage mentioned above). Cases that were evaluated by the AF as Unknowns at some point but have turned out to be IFO's are excluded here (Fred Johnson and Chiles-Whitted are included here but with IFO notations)., and some famous cases may never have been officially considered unexplained by the military or perhaps only briefly (e.g., Kenneth Arnold).

However, please note that in general when there is some doubt as to whether a case was ever actually on file at BB I will err on the side of inclusiveness and will include it rather than omit it.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the AF did not simply start by calling all 15,000 cases "Unknowns" and then whittle them down to 700. Rather, the AF started with 15,000 cases and after a process of elimination and some investigation came up with only some 700 "Unknowns." That is the total at the end in 1970 but if cases that were classed as Unknowns at various times from 1947 to 1969 are included the total may be closer to the 1,500 or so cataloged here. Also please note that information on each BB case in this catalog is presented from all sources not just the information from the BB case file so that the sighting event is as reasonably complete as possible within space limitations.

For convenience "BB files" will be considered inclusive of predecessor projects at Wright-Patterson AFB (Wright Field), but not projects or investigations elsewhere, such as Air Force Intelligence or AFOSI.

Note that operational dates are not necessarily the dates of the orders unless the orders were implemented immediately or made effective immediately or both (e.g., Project SIGN was ordered by the AF Directror of R&D on Dec. 30, 1947, but not initiated until Jan. 23 and not formally “operational” as

Project HT-304 until Jan. 26, 1948; SIGN's name was ordered changed by the AF Director of R&D on Dec. 16, 1948, but not implemented until the day after SIGN's Final Report was issued on Feb. 11, 1949):

Operational Dates of UFO Projects at Wright-Patterson AFB (Wright Field)
Initial unnamed AMC project Jun. 30, 1947 – Jan. 26, 1948
Project SIGN Jan. 26, 1948 – Feb. 11, 1949
Project GRUDGE Feb. 12, 1949 – Aug. 10, 1949
GRUDGE dormancy period Aug. 10, 1949 - July 7, 1950
GRUDGE reactivation Jul. 7, 1950 - Oct. 22, 1951
"New Project" GRUDGE Oct. 22, 1951 – Mar. 25, 1952
Project BLUE BOOK Mar. 25, 1952 - Jan. 30, 1970

Comments such as "No further information in the files" are typically by Berliner. Annotations of "Case missing" are usually from the National Archives index. Uncertainties or discrepancies in reported data such as dates, times, etc., are indicated in brackets [ ] and/or with question marks [?], and conflicting data from differing sources may be indicated by "cf." in the sources notes. Cases that may seem out of order by time of day are listed approximately chronologically according to times as converted to GMT or UTC, though not perfectly rigorously. The local time is more important for indicating lighting conditions than robotically converting all times to a universal GMT/UTC which no one can relate to. Similarly I do not use 24-hour clock times as most people myself included do not do the mental time conversions necessary and the time data just gets ignored. Some date confusion exists on many nighttime cases due to midnight date crossovers, which will have to be resolved by study of the case files. Geographic locations and coordinates have been spot checked but not completely. State abbreviations (U.S.) are applied partially and only when confusion is avoided. Original units of measurement used by the witnesses are always preferred for accuracy and then conversions as needed presented in parentheses (except angular sizes are usually converted to degree measure or “full moon” units and the details if needed can be retrieved from the case file). Statute miles are preferred here, however in many cases military records referring to "miles" may refer to nautical miles and it is not possible at present to know for certainty which unit is used.