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presents
The 1969 UFO Chronology
 Magazine cover depicting 1969, courtesy of ufopop.org (Jim Klotz) Map of sightings for 1969, courtesy of Larry Hatch's "U" Database Map of Sightings for 1965-1969, courtesy of Larry Hatch's "U" database (Link no longer active)
On. December 17, 1969, Secretary of the Air Force Robert C.
Seamans,
Jr., announced the termination of the two decades of operations of the
highly visible AF investigation of UFO's, Project Blue Book. This was
only the announcement date, not the actual termination date, but the AF
release was worded in such a way as to suggest immediate termination of
BB. In fact BB did not terminate until Jan. 30, 1970, at 3:30
p.m. EST, as NICAP found out and published in the May 1970 UFO
Investigator (p. 3a).
In the last year of its official existence, Blue Book
received 146 UFO reports of which only one received the unidentified
classification. For the 22 years that the Air Force investigated
UFO's it received nearly 15,000 reports of which some 587 were
classified as unidentified. (Air Force press releases listed the total
number of 701 unidentified in the statistical summaries of yearly
totals. But today only about 587 are listed by UFO sighting date
and location in the declassified monthly indexes.) Due to
diligent research, the number of "unknowns" has doubled from that 701
figure to more than 1,600 in Brad Sparks' revised catalog, and may
reach as high as possibly 3,000 to 5,000, based on estimates of the
late Dr. James McDonald and Sparks.
Towards the end the BB files received fewer and fewer
military cases. The Air Force's position was that UFO's were no
longer seen by the military simply because they were trained observers
who cannot be fooled by such things. Historically, however, that
was not true and did not explain why so many military observers in the
past saw and even instrument-tracked UFO's. In reality, the trend
in the BB files reflected the changes in UFO reporting channels. The Air Force had started shifting military reporting of UFO's into
operational reporting channels such as those set up under AF Manual
55-11 of 1965 (now AF Instruction 10-206), and many classified
regulations, which bypassed BB.
All seemed dead on the UFO front, but major events were just a few years away. The UFO debate was rapidly dying out in 1969 in the wake of the Condon Report and the closure of BB. NICAP and APRO catastrophically lost members, down from roughly 14,000 for NICAP and 8,000 for APRO to just a few thousand. Francis Ridge NICAP Site Coordinator The 1969 UFO Chronology ___________________________________________________________________________________
Jan. 3, 1969; McDonald Less Alone: UFO's Get Official Recognition Tucson, Arizona
Daily Citizen. "There is no conclusive evidence about 'flying
saucers.' Most
men of science, therefore, have expressed either disdain or disinterest
in the subject. The handful of bona fide scientists who did want
to speculate on UFOs found themselves in the uncomfortable company of
pseudo scientists, commercial cultists, pulp booksellers and crackpots.
Last December's issue of the respected Journal of Aeronautics and
Astronautics changed all that."
Source: The
U.F.O. Investigator, Vol. IV, No. 9. Special - Published by the
National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) A
larger evaluation by numerous scientists and technical advisers was
released later. The conclusions of the Colorado University UFO project
were fully negative, as NICAP predicted.
January 8, 1969; NAS Letter to
Secretary of the Air Force
National Academy of Sciences
President Dr. Frederick Seitz letter to
Secretary of the Air Force, stating that
the NAS review panel "unanimously approved" the Colorado University
(Condon Committee) report.
January 11,
1969; Press
Conference
At National Press Club,
Washington, DC, with Donald Keyhoe, NICAP director; Richard Hall, N1CAP
Assistant Director; Dr. James E. McDonald; and Dr. David R. Saunders
disputing conclusions of the Condon Report.
Sometime in 1969; Paris, TN Witness was driving back to college with roommate. It was a clear, dark, starry night. They suddenly saw a long streak of light coming down from the top of the windshield. The sparks of light looked similar to holding a piece of metal to a grinding wheel. Jan 17, 1969; Crittendon, VA (BBU 12607) Amber lights, one blinking in elliptical patter. Jan. 25, 1969; Platteville, IL Cone-shaped object approached, outside farm lights went out. (CUFOS report, see Rodeghier, 1981, p.44 (E,L) car. Feb. 1, 1969; CSM
Response to Colorado Report
Dr: Roscoe Drummond, syndicated
columnist, in Christian Science Monitor (response to University of
Colorado report): "I find it hard to escape the conclusion that there
are too many unexplained and presently unexplainable unidentified
flying objects from too many credible and responsible witnesses to
banish the subject from public concern."
Feb. 1969: "UFO's: Yes" - David
Saunders
Dr. David Saunders, David &
R. Roger Harkins. "UFOs? Yes!:
Where The Condon Committee Went Wrong: The Inside Story released.
Saunders was an ex-member of the Official Study Group." (Cleveland,
Ohio: The World Publishing Company, February, 1969)
Feb. 20, 1969; Undisclosed city, Australia
Luminous cigar followed car. Object rose quickly raising dust and leaves. (Perth west Australian, Norseman, Feb. 21, 1969. [E] car.) March 4, 1969; Atlanta, MO Object emitting blinding light beam paced ahead of vehicle, heat felt. Light beam associated with E-M effects. Object rose and fell, veered off, flew out of sight (Ref. 1, Section 1). March 6, 1969; Lancaster,
MO
Light beam shone on road ahead of car, dog reacted. Witness drove beneath domed disc, car motion slowed. Eye irritation (Ref. 1, Section 1). March 10, 1969; Westhope, ND
Disc with dome passed overhead, stopped, emitted light beam onto road, illuminating police chief's car. Finally ascended, flew away to south (Ref. 1, Section V). March 11, 1969; Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil Erratically-moving color-changing object hovered in front of car. Witness felt paralysis. (Ref. 3, Supplement 6; see Rodeghier, 1981, p.45 [E] car.) March 14, 1969; Thailand (BBU)
April or May 1969; Gulf of MexicoFlight surgeon, crew of KC-135, observed huge black cylinder hovering, inclined in vertical position. Fighter aircraft sent to investigate, object disappeared (Ref. 1, Section II). March 17, 1969; Lake Havasu, AZ Cessna 150 encountered 15-20 oval objects. The event occurred while the "British Grenadier" was sailing through the Gulf of Mexico. The UFO (like an arrowhead) appeared directly above the ship at exactly noon on the first day. It just seemed to appear as nobody saw it arrive and it remained above the ship for the next 3 days. E-M effects
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, called the report: "a strange
sort of scientific paper [that] does not fulfill the promise of its
title. . . . [It] leaves the same strange, inexplicable residue of
unknowns which has plagued the U.S. Air Force investigation for 20
years."
April 3, 1969; Southern UK
7:38 P.M. Bright fireball meteor traveling south-southeast to north-northwest, leaving long trail, sparks.
Reviewed by Robert M. L. Baker Jr., this half-million-dollar, 965-page
report (Condon Report) probably
represents the ultimate case against the UFO "cult" in fact, it was to
be the last scientific word on that controversial subject. But,
paradoxically, the report contains some evidence suggesting that the
UFO phenomenon should be studied further. (Scientific Research, April
14, 1969, p. 41) (CUFON)
April 14, 1969; Hill City, KS Multicolored object came within 100', hovered. (Ulysses, Kans., News, April 24, 1969; CUFOS report, dated as April 19 [E] car) April 23, 1969; Silver Spring, MD Dogs, cats and horses reacted to object. May 11, 1969; Pembroke, Ontario, Canada Dog raised alarm to landed object. May 31, 1969; Memphis, TN C1 reported by Baird. No details available. (MUFON Skylook 8, 6) June 5, 1969; St. Louis, MO 4:00 p.m. This radar/visual was written off as a meteor and observed by three air crews. Four dart-shaped objects witnessed by American Airlines Flight 112, a 707 heading east at 39,000 feet, a United Airlines flight eight miles to the rear at 37,000 feet, and a National Guard jet four miles further at 41,000 feet. Objects were tracked on FAA radar at St. Louis. The pilot of the National Guard plane later claimed the UFO formation had approached his craft almost "directly ahead" before altering its course abruptly and ascending quickly at the last moment. (NICAP UFOI Feb 1972)
McDonald asks U.N. to begin study of UFOs. Tucson, Arizona Daily
Citizen, by John Riddick, Citizen
Staff Writer
June 19, 1969; Docking/Bircham Newton, UK
E-M effects on car, static electricity; bluish object shaped like inverted mushroom hovered overhead. Took off at high speed (Ref. 1, Section IV). July 13, 1969; Van Horne, IA Multiple witnesses, HS traces (#390) July 18, 1969; Apollo 11 Sighting Object apparently not the S4B. Buzz Aldrin recounts encounter. Brad Sparks is convinced this is debris, a piece of mylar covering for the LM, that came off when attitude control rockets blew it off when the controls kept misfiring. It's trajectory and timing and size and shape all fit. Aug. 5, Raleigh, NC Shiny object approached, hovered over road ahead of car. (Letter from B.C.M., dated Aug. 7,1969, in NICAP files [R,L] car). Aug. 31, 1969; Stover, MO Flock of turkeys react to orange-red hemisphere or domed disc. Oct, 1969; Leary, GA 7:15 p.m. Jimmie Carter sighting reported in 1973. Document is hard to read but the sighting was was investigated by the International UFO Bureau, Hayden Hewes. Exact date not known.
Included by Dr. Page in first reply letter, reprinted from
American Journal of Physics, Vol. 37, No. 10, 1071-1072, October 1969.
In defense of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis he stated, "How can we
logically reject this theory when we
accept theories of rotating neutron stars to explain pulsars? Of
course, a better theory might be devised if more data were collected
and the present data examined in broader terms."
Oct. 10, 1969; Glenwood, MO Dog in car agitated by domed disc. The
implications from this memo, issued just before
the shutdown of Project Blue Book, is clear, and is found on page
2: " reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national
security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-1
and are not part of the Blue Book system."
My thanks to Gildas Bourdais for this copy of the 3-page document. This
reproduction is poor but
readable and is a copy
made from FUFOR's "U.S. Government Documents" package. The full story
of the memo is presented by Brad Sparks.
. Oct. 24, 1969; Chilian Navy, Chile 12:43 a.m. Chilean Navy destroyer radar detected UFO. The radar officer reported a long-range flying contact. A minute later the "contact" was at 400 miles. Because of the "object's" speed, the operator suspected a malfunction in his equipment. In the next minute the contact was approximately 150 miles away closing from 331 degrees of true north. But the operator and officer in charge during the late night duty (an officer of second-class rank) speculated that the contact was a "plane flying southeast" --but at 213 miles in a minute: 12,780 mph! October 30, 1969; Waipukurau, New Zealand
Circular object with lights hovering over airport sped away making high, whining sound when security guard shone spotlight on it (Ref. 1, Section VI).
Secretary of the Air Force Robert C.
Seamans, Jr., announced termination of Project Blue Book UFO study.
This was only the announcement date, not the actual termination date,
but the AF release was worded in such a way as to suggest immediate
termination of BB. In fact BB did not terminate until Jan. 30,
1970, as NICAP found out and published in the May 1970 UFO Investigator.
Dec. 27, 1969; AAAS
Meeting
American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, in Boston, MA, included
panel discussion on UFOs. Scientists joined in statement asking for
preservation of Air Force UFO files for future study.Paper by James E. McDonald, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, U. of Arizona, Tucson, presented at the above Symposium on UFOs, 134th Meeting, AAAS, Boston (CUFON) References:
3. Flying Saucer Review Case Histories1. Source: Volume II, The UFO Evidence, A Thirty-Year Report - Richard Hall, 2000 2. CUFOS report, see Rodeghier
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