Many of the primary sources from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s are hard to come by. Still, with some effort, it is possible to track down the key sources. There were three organizations of the period that collected significant UFO data. They are: (1) Project Blue Book (formerly Projects Sign and Grudge), which was conducted by the United States Air Force; (2) the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), a global organization founded by Jim and Coral Lorenzen; and (3) the National Investigative Committee for Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), led by retired Marine Corps Major Donald Keyhoe. The records of these organizations are not especially accessible. Blue Book’s records are available for a fee at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. APRO’s records were never published in a systematic form and have been unavailable for years. NICAP’s files ended up at the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, but have never been published.
There are books that have made use of the above sources. Many Blue Book cases were distilled by Air Force Captain Edward Ruppelt and astronomer Allen Hynek. Ruppelt headed Blue Book in the early 1950s; his
Much of APRO’s work was published in the many books of its founders, Jim and Coral Lorenzen. All are valuable and most are difficult to find. Many NICAP reports are available through the extremely rare UFO Evidence, which NICAP published in 1964. Besides this, the writings of NICAP director Donald Keyhoe contain a wealth of information. It surely helped that Keyhoe was friend and associate to prominent figures in the American military and intelligence community.
It is true that Keyhoe and the Lorenzens made their share of mistakes, and Hynek’s writings are often self-serving and coy (until his “conversion” to the UFO cause during the mid-1960s, Hynek was held in low regard by many UFO researchers for his servility to the air force). Still, these writers offered some of the best information we will ever have on this period. Read with care, they and other early writers about UFOs remain indispensable sources of information.
3. Contemporary scholarship.
There is quite a lot of good scholarship on this subject, in book form and on the Internet. While most of it is not historical writing, per se, it remains valuable. For years, the best genuine history of the subject was
The waters of UFO research are deep, and I have tried not to lose my footing. Throughout, I have been careful never to veer far from established facts. I am reminded of the saying, “we are never as radical as reality itself.” Thus, while some of my conclusions are more conservative than what others may think justified, they are just as often more radical.
FINAL REMARKS AND CONCERNS
I am confident that I have followed through on my intention to adhere to the facts. Where I have speculated, I have tried to make this clear. Throughout, I have tried to serve as a useful guide through the maze of UFO reports and policy. If nothing else, this topic deserves a respectable history.
Even if UFOs were to turn out to be a unique form of mass hallucination (which they will not), this study will still have value for its review of how the U.S. national security apparatus handled the problem. If there are other answers, then this book should clarify some of the key patterns involved.
Unfortunately, those patterns leave little cause for optimism regarding either the problem or its response. Americans are in a bad enough state trying to struggle through the ordinary smoke of their official culture. How can they be expected to assess the implications of the UFO problem? They can begin only by recognizing that secrecy over UFOs exists, and that this secrecy is part of a broader policy of control and deception. It is a bad omen that our civilization, beleaguered as it is by its own doing, has not faced this problem squarely.
Chapter 1
Prologue: To 1947
