Then came the great UFO wave of 1965 and 1966, when the air force could no longer hide behind weather balloons and swamp gas, nor withstand public scrutiny. As a result, it funded a scientific study of UFOs by the University of Colorado, known to history as the Condon Committee, to “settle” the matter. After two years, the committee concluded that UFOs were not worthy of scientific study. Critics replied that the study’s conclusions did not match its own data. The committee certainly had bad blood among its own members, which resulted in the removal of the “pro-UFO” contingent midway through the project. It appeared to many that the project’s leadership had been set on a negative conclusion from the beginning. Rumors spread about control over the committee, either by the air force or CIA.
As messy as the Condon Committee was, it enabled the air force to close Blue Book. In December 1969, the air force announced it was no longer investigating UFOs. The major civilian investigative organizations soon declined, and people who saw UFOs had scarcely anywhere to turn.
Let us pause to assess the situation. By the mid-1940s, America’s intelligence apparatus had reason to believe that there were artifacts in the skies that did not originate from America, Russia, Germany, or any other country. These objects violated some highly sensitive military airspace, and did not appear to be natural phenomena. One may presume that the affected national security authorities made it an immediate obsession to determine the nature and purpose of these objects, and we may infer that the issue
Some will dismiss this as one of the many conspiracy theories dotting America’s landscape. The very label serves as an automatic dismissal, as though no one ever acts in secret. Let us bring some perspective and common sense to this issue. The United States comprises large organizations--corporations, bureaucracies, “interest groups,” and the like—which are conspiratorial by nature. That is, they are hierarchical, their important decisions are made in secret by a few key decision-makers, and they are not above lying about their activities. Such is the nature of organizational behavior. “Conspiracy,” in this key sense, is a way of life around the globe.
Within the world’s military and intelligence apparatuses, this tendency is magnified to the greatest extreme. During the 1940s, while the military and its scientists developed the world’s most awesome weapons in complete secrecy, the UFO problem descended, as it was, into their laps. Would they be interested in unknown objects snooping around their restricted airspace? Would they want to restrict the information they acquired? The available evidence, contained within this book, indicates an affirmative response.
If we assume, then, the existence of a UFO conspiracy, we may ask, where is it? Is there a central control group, for example, managing the problem? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It is possible, even plausible, that no one holding public office today knows what is going on. It may be that a UFO control group existed at one time within the Department of Defense or the CIA, but there is no absolute reason why such a situation must exist today. Not only is secrecy within those circles axiomatic, but information is so highly compartmentalized that it is easy to imagine how various strands of UFO information could fall into dozens of semi-isolated domains.
Clearly, within the military, secrecy remains the rule regarding UFOs. Despite claims of noninterest, the military continues to respond to reports of unidentified flying (and underwater) objects. But military personnel would be foolish in the extreme to be caught discussing this with the public. The military’s “Oath upon Inadvertent Exposure to Classified Security Data or Information” is taken by all personnel exposed to classified information of any kind, and is binding for life, under all circumstances. When you sign this oath, in the words of 133rd Airborne Wing Officer James Goodell:
... you sign away your constitutional rights. You sign a piece of paper saying that if you violate your security agreement ... without a trial, without the right of appeal, you’re going to go to the Leavenworth federal penitentiary for twenty years. That’s a real big incentive to keep your mouth shut.1
The military has taken the UFO issue deep undercover. For the last thirty years, requests to the air force or other government bodies about UFOs have elicited the same response:
From 1947 to 1969, the air force investigated Unidentified Flying Objects under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated December 17, 1969. Of a total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remained “unidentified.”
