UFO reports worldwide dwindled after August. One of the last major sightings of 1968 occurred in France just before 4 A.M. on November 2. The witness was a prominent doctor (known as “Dr. X. Clark”), and veteran in the Algerian War, who heard his fourteen-month-old son crying during a thunderstorm. The doctor entered his son’s room and saw two large, disc-shaped objects outside his house merge into one. The single object sent a beam of light in his direction, then vanished with a sort of explosion, leaving a cloud that slowly dissipated. Shortly after his sighting, the man’s leg, which had been wounded during the war, healed. Unfortunately, he also soon began experiencing nightmares, pains in his abdomen, and a red pigmentation that appeared around his navel, forming a triangle. He went to a dermatologist but gave no information about the UFO sighting; the doctor could not explain it. The case was even reported to the French Academy of Sciences, again with no UFO connections.
Incredibly, the man’s fourteen-month-old son, who was in the same room when the sighting occurred, also developed a red triangle. UFO researcher Jerome Clark called this incident one of the most fantastic UFO stories ever, with “physical evidence of an eerily compelling sort.” The case was unusually well tracked and investigated, with a great deal of effort done by Aimé Michel.91
THE CONDON REPORT
During the fall of 1968, the Colorado Project was running down the home stretch. On September 13, Condon called together his new inner circle of project members—Craig, Gillmor, Franklin Roach, and Joseph Rush—to discuss what the project’s recommendation should be. He wrote the recommendation segment of the report shortly thereafter.92
The Colorado University Project delivered its long-awaited report, titled
The first two sections were written by Condon himself; these were the project conclusions and recommendations, and a summary of the study itself. His general conclusion was that
nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past twenty-one years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.
As to what the government should do about UFO reports received from the public, Condon answered, nothing. It was a clear recommendation to shut down Project Blue Book.
Condon refuted the charge that the UFO subject had been shrouded in official secrecy and the subject of a cover-up. There was no such evidence, he stated. “What has been miscalled secrecy has been no more than an intelligent policy of delay in releasing data so that the public does not become confused by premature publication of incomplete studies of reports.” Moreover, a UFO cover-up was unthinkable because no one could keep such a secret for so long, and “no useful purpose would be served.” He refuted the claim that the CIA had installed one of its own agents within the project. Considering the probable history of Robert Low as a CIA covert operative in the 1940s, this denial takes on a surreal quality.
Condon’s conclusions, while strongly negative about UFOs, left the door open for future research. “Any scientist with adequate training and credentials who does come up with a clearly defined, specific proposal for study,” he wrote, “should be supported.” Still, Condon himself doubted such a study could be done on those terms anytime soon. He expressed his approval of the air force and Donald Menzel and his disapproval of UFO “amateurists” and especially NICAP. The last, he wrote, tried more than once “to influence the course of our study.”
Condon acknowledged limitations to the project. Only a few “old” cases could be studied, since most appeared to offer little “probative value” in that (1) there was usually nothing to analyze other than witness testimony, (2) such anecdotal records were usually misidentified sightings of ordinary objects, and (3) it made little sense to re-interview people who had already been interviewed thoroughly before. Of course, this meant ignoring most of the compelling cases of the past twenty-plus years. Instead, the project focused almost exclusively on reports that occurred during its term. This approach proved to be unsatisfactory in many key respects. First, resources were too limited to allow any but a few UFO reports to be investigated. Second, it was rare when an investigation occurred within a week of the sighting. Third, only rarely was sophisticated instrumentation used—the most typical piece of equipment being a tape recorder.
