Major Turning Point in UFO History

Almost as incredible as the UFO phenomenon itself was the fact that Gen. Samfords temperature inversion/radar mirageexplanation  was  not strongly challenged  by  anyone and the explanation stuck. The scientific communitys shameful neglect of serious UFO data was largely responsible for this outcome. Apparently Air Force leaders decided at this point that they had tried to send a message, but since the message was ignored and even ridiculed by scientists, that they would change their entire approach to dealing with the subject.

<>Some scientists within the Air Force, not to mention numerous high-ranking operational officers, were not convinced by the temperature inversion theory, but they were outranked. Since some senior general officers in the Pentagon at this time thought that UFOs were probably extraterrestrial, one has to assume that Maj. Gen. Samford was speaking on behalf of higher authority and stating policy decided at the top.

In Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8  dated December 31, 1952, it was stated that  several widely publicized theories about UFO phenomena in recent months had been discussed with atmospheric physicists. [T]hey have agreed that none of the theories so far proposed would account for more than a very small percentage of the reports, if any.By this time a separate review of UFOs by the Central Intelligence Agency was underway, leading to the so-called Robertson Panel study that was published in January 1953, essentially debunking UFOs as any serious matter for science to address.

Dr. James E. McDonald, University of Arizona atmospheric physicist, later analyzed the weather data for the July 1952 Washington sightings.  He said:

The suggestion that an inversion of the sort exhibited by radiosonde data...caused the reported effects is absolutely absurd [his emphasis]....The optics of mirages and the opticsof radar ground returns are significantly different in several respects, so that false targets would not seen to lie in the same place in the sky to a visual observer and a radar observer....Mirage effects are confined to lines of sight that do not depart from the horizontal by much more than a few tens of minutes of arc.

In other words, simultaneous radar-visual sightings and those involving airborne radar lock-on militate strongly against the validity of the theory announced by Samford on July 29. An internal Air Force analysis endorsed McDonalds conclusions, adding:

Our results clearly show that the temperatures and temperature gradients needed to produce mirages which occur at an angle of one degree or more from the horizontal are extraordinarily large. It is also clear that these temperatures and temperature gradients are not found in our atmosphere.

The activities, conclusions, and aftereffects of the CIA Robertson Panel are a highly significant story in themselves. Just as was the case with the later University of Colorado study in 1996-1967, it appears that political considerations overrode objective truth-seeking efforts and nothing remotely resembling real science was done. Instead, scientists were used to advance a political objective in ways that were very unflattering to science and the scientific method.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Borden, R.C., and T.K. Vickers. Preliminary Study of Unidentified Targets Observed on Air Traffic Control Radars. (Civilian Aviation Administration, 1952.)

Durant, F.C. Report of Meetings of Scientific Advisory Panel on UFOs [Robertson Panel Report]. (Central Intelligence Agency, 1953.)

Hall, Michael David, and Wendy Ann Connors. Captain Edward J. Ruppelt: Summer of the Saucers 1952 (Albuquerque, NM: Rose Press International, 2000.)

Hall, Richard. Radar-Visual UFO Cases in 1952: The UFO Sightings That Shook the Government. (Fund for UFO Research, 1994.)

Keyhoe, Donald E. Flying Saucers From Outer Space. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1953.)

McDonald, James E. UFOs: Greatest Scientific Problem of Our Times? Address to annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1967.

McDonald, James E. Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, House Science & Astronautics Committee, U.S. Congress, July 29, 1968. Comments on radar-UFOs,  pp. 18-86.

Menkello, Frederick V. Quantitative Aspects of Mirages. (Air Force Foreign Technology Division, April 1969.)

National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, U.S. Air Force Projects  Grudge and Blue Book Reports 1-12 (1951-1953); (Washington, D.C.: NICAP, 1968).

Project Blue Book Unknowns. (Original BB Unknowns  are listed as (BBU + the number), cases added by Brad Sparks in his "Comprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns" are simply marked (BBU). 

Randle, Kevin. Invasion Washington: UFOs Over the Capitol. (New York: HarperTorch, 2001.)

Ruppelt, Edward J. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. (New York: Doubleday, 1956.) Also available online at www.nicap.org