The Robertson Panel report gives more evidence that, even in this early period, Blue Book did not receive all UFO reports. The report’s text indicated over 1,900 UFO reports for 1952, although Blue Book only reported 1,503 for the year. Where were the other reports filed?
The Panel also noted the existence of such loose cannons as Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators (started in 1951) and APRO, and believed the organizations needed to be watched—which, of course, they were. “The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind.” Hynek said that APRO was not discussed during the week, other than as a passing reference. Thus, the Lorenzens came to believe, logically enough, that the idea was not the product of the panel, but of the CIA itself.76
THE ROBERTSON PANEL: ANALYSIS
Many of the assumptions in the panel’s report were alarmingly uninformed. Thornton Page, for example, considered the extraterrestrial hypothesis “quite preposterous,” as it was unlikely that intelligent life was elsewhere in the solar system, and that UFOs should confine themselves to “any one continent.” Could Page really not have known about the global nature of UFOs? If so, one can only conclude that actual science was absent from this scientific study.
The panel also rejected Fournet’s UFO reports as “raw” and “unevaluated,” although it provided no example as to what would not constitute a raw report (presumably one that offered a mundane explanation for a UFO). The Montana film was said to portray aircraft. Hundreds of verified UFO reports were ignored. Panel members rejected the navy’s detailed analysis of the Tremonton film and ascribed the sighting to the “high reflectivity of seagulls in bright sunlight.” The navy’s mistaken conclusion, argued the panel, was probably due to the “apparent lack of guidance” with UFO reports and explanations. Ruppelt later pointed out that nobody bothered to obtain witness testimony from Delbert Newhouse himself, the man who shot the Tremonton film. Ruppelt himself only did so later and was much impressed. According to Ruppelt, Newhouse “didn’t think the UFOs were disc-shaped; he knew that they were.”
The panel’s conclusions were preordained. Hynek said he discerned the panel’s debunking mood right from the beginning. Fournet suspected right away that the actual author of the conclusions was not Robertson but Durant, and that he wrote them late on Friday. Work by UFO researcher and historian Michael Swords pushes the date further back: “Fournet did not know that the report, in draft form, existed before Friday and possibly before the panel was even convened on Wednesday.”
Many have questioned whether the CIA could manipulate a group of scientists to reach their desired conclusion. Kevin Randle, for example, doubted that “someone in the government [would be] confident enough in his own abilities to micromanage the data [and] influence the conclusions....” But micromanaging data is not necessary when the right people are selected. The members of the Robertson Panel were power scientists, strongly connected with the military and national security state. They were certainly no detached, impartial jury, withholding a decision until an objective review of the evidence. Quite the contrary.
Of later writers about the Robertson Panel, only Ruppelt was misled. He believed the panel accepted Garland’s recommendation that Blue Book be expanded. He also misinterpreted the panel’s education and debunking recommendation, thinking it meant that “the American public should be told every detail of every phase of the UFO investigation.” Others hit closer to home. Keyhoe believed the panel was a CIA program to bury the UFO. Hynek—years later—stated he was “negatively impressed.” The Lorenzens understandably came down hard against the panel. Even one of the panel members, Dr. Thornton Page, said in 1980 that the panel “tended to ignore the five percent or ten percent [sic] of UFO reports that are highly reliable and have not as yet been explained.” Many years later, Page made the matter crystal clear:
H. P. Robertson told us in the first private (no outsiders) session that our job was to reduce public concern, and show that UFO reports could be explained by conventional reasoning.77
Authors Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett called the panel not so much a “scientific” panel as a “propaganda” panel. In their words:
Labeling a twelve-hour roundtable discussion of UFOs a “scientific study” is ludicrous, especially considering the fact that, in at least one instance, one thousand man-hours was spent on one case ... by navy analysts, and the conclusion was unknown.
