Are UFOs Finally Real?
By Mark O’Connell
A bevy of interesting characters with murky backgrounds working on behalf of mysterious organizations in the pursuit of nebulous ends would have us believe that 2021 is the year our government finally admits that UFOS are “real” — and possibly that we have been in contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life forms — and their claims might just contain a kernel or two of truth (even if the kernels are microscopic in size). But before we all dive headlong down the rabbit hole of UFO truth-seeking, it is important to put the recent hubbub about the much-anticipated Pentagon UFO report to Congress in historical context. You see, we have been down this landing strip before.
Since the “modern era” of UFOs began in the summer of 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a chain of nine silvery “saucers” zipping among the peaks of the Cascade mountains at 1,200 miles per hour, the U.S. military has conducted no less than four other significant long-term UFO studies, that the public knows of. Added to that, an additional three scientific/academic inquiries (that the public knows of) have been conducted by the government. The sometimes “secret” names of these government studies have been woven into our cultural tapestry so deeply that most Americans will likely feel a sense of vague familiarity with at least a few of them: Project Blue Book (aka, Project Saucer), The Condon Committee (aka, The Colorado Project), The Robertson Panel, Project Grudge, Project Twinkle, The O’Brien Committee, and Project Sign.
Each of these studies, in turn, promised to reveal in one way or another “the truth” about UFOs, and each failed miserably to do so. And yet today we find ourselves right back where we were in 1947, facing a renewed effort to study and reveal the truth about UFOs triggered in part by a dramatic aerial encounter with the unknown. Why should we expect today’s inquiries to turn out any different that the first several?
To better understand the current flurry of attention given to UFO research, it is important to consider what the government has already learned over the decades. Here, then, is a short history of the previous known government UFO studies, beginning with the most recent and going back in time:
Project Blue Book (1952–1969): Created by the Air Force during a period of abundant UFO activity, sometimes called a “flap,” Project Blue Book was the longest known continuous UFO study conducted by our military. Although Blue Book could at times conduct proper scientific investigations into UFO events (and was indeed baffled by many of the cases its staff considered), the alarming degree with which project chiefs were named and then reassigned meant that the study was never consistent in its goals and methods. This inconsistency was, of course, intentional. Final results of UFO cases studied: 80% explained, 20% unexplained.
The Condon Committee (1966–1969): Conducted by the University of Colorado, the $300,000 Condon study was to be the ultimate scientific review of everything known about UFOs at that time. Marred by infighting and a public anti-UFO bias held by Dr. Robert Condon, the head of the project, the Committee nonetheless drafted a controversial final report in which many members of the team acknowledged the possibility that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin. Sadly, most scientists and journalists skipped the body of the report and only read Dr. Condon’s final summation, in which he went against many on his staff and declared that UFOs most definitely do not exist. This, for many years, was the Air Force’s final word on UFOs, and the report led to the final disbanding of Project Blue Book.
The O’Brien Committee (1966): This scientific committee was formed at the urging of Project Blue Book’s longtime scientific advisor, Northwestern University astronomy professor Dr. J. Allen Hynek, to review the Air Force’s progress in investigating UFO sightings. Included among the Committee’s distinguished membership was a skeptical young astronomer from Cornell University named Carl Sagan. Convened in the shadow of several high-profile UFO cases, the O’Brien Committee recommended that the Air Force recruit a network of respectable universities to investigate the most challenging UFO reports. This directive ultimately led to the creation of the Condon Committee and the demise of Project Blue Book.
The Robertson Panel (1953): Only one year after the formation of Project Blue Book, this scientific panel was convened at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for four days in 1953. The Panel’s goal was to investigate the Air Force’s inability to respond to a mass UFO sighting over Washington D.C. that had tied the capitol’s air defenses in knots for several nights in 1952. Sadly, the scientists on the panel failed to do their homework; they only considered 23 dubious UFO cases before declaring that the Air Force and the CIA should spare no efforts in convincing the American public to lose interest in UFOs. According to Hynek, the Robertson Panel was best described as “a put-up job,” but it had one paradoxical consequence that softened the blow: The Panel recommended that Blue Book’s budget and staff be increased, so that Blue Book could investigate and debunk more UFO sighting reports.
Project Twinkle (1950): A little known offshoot of Project Grudge, Project Twinkle was formed with a sense of urgency to investigate a series of sightings of anomalous “green fireballs” in the vicinity of both military bases and government scientific bases in New Mexico. The fact that these installations all dealt to one degree or another with our nation’s nuclear power and atomic weapons programs made the inquisitive nature of the green fireballs especially disconcerting. A blue-ribbon panel of scientists, including Edwin Teller, Clyde Tombaugh and Lincoln LaPaz, took part in the year-long investigation, but were unable to reach any conclusions. LaPaz remained convinced that the fireballs were not of natural origin (though not necessarily of extraterrestrial origin), however, and Hynek agreed. Final result of the single UFO case studied: 100% unexplained.
Project Grudge (1949): Faced with an onslaught of troubling UFO reports, including the first fatal air crash associated with a UFO sighting, the Air Force slapped together the minimally-staffed and aptly-named Project Grudge with the aim of mocking and ridiculing UFO witnesses into obscurity. When a spectacular UFO sighting over a New Jersey military base revealed to top brass at the Pentagon that Grudge had been rendered essentially toothless, the study group was disbanded, and the serious-minded and technically unbiased Project Blue Book was created in its wake. Final results of UFO cases studied: 80% explained, 20% unexplained.
Project Sign (1948): In what would prove to be a moment of uncharacteristic open-mindedness, the Air Force formed its first ever UFO study project at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Ohio, with the goal of identifying the unexplained aerial phenomenon that were being seen all across the country, even if they proved to be otherworldly. It was here that Dr. Hynek entered the realm of UFO research; he was hired to debunk as many UFO reports as he could as misidentifications of natural astronomical and meteorological objects or phenomenon. Several Sign staffers, however, became convinced that flying saucers had a physical reality, and were, indeed, spacecraft from other worlds, most likely Venus or Mars. This “extraterrestrial hypothesis” (ETH) was presented in a written “Estimate of the Situation,” and routed to the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, who scoffed at the lack of supporting evidence and ordered all copies of the Estimate destroyed. Soon after, Project Sign was disbanded and replaced with Project Grudge. Final results of UFO cases studied: 80% explained, 20% unexplained.
As wildly inconsistent as the government’s attempts to study UFOs may appear, there was one nearly constant factor in all of these panels and study groups. One figure alone was present at the dawn of Project Sign in 1948 and remained a part of the government’s UFO research until the day the lights went off at Project Blue Book in 1969. That figure was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a scientist, scholar and researcher who was both celebrated and reviled in UFO circles for going exactly where the facts led him, and not one step astray.
Recruited by the Air Force in 1948 to join the nascent Project Sign as its official scientific debunker, Hynek eagerly explained away as many sightings as he could as simple misidentifications of comets, meteors, sundogs, or, most often, the brilliant planet Venus. At the time Hynek felt that he was performing a valuable service in promoting real science, and he felt that his 80% success rate at “solving” UFO cases was rather commendable.
It wasn’t until a now more puzzled Air Force sought Hynek out four years later to join Project Blue Book (Hynek did not have an opportunity to take part in Project Grudge, as Grudge was, blessedly, over and done with before he could even submit his final report on Project Sign) that he began to reconsider his attitude. After four years the UFO “fad” had not died out, as Hynek had expected, and the 80/20 split between explained and unexplained cases had remained remarkably — and troublingly — consistent. Hynek put great faith in patterns and repeatability, and here was a confounding phenomenon that was showing a disturbing trend towards longevity and consistency. Surely, he now felt, those 20 percent of cases that remained unexplained presented a tantalizing natural mystery that was worthy of scientific investigation.
With dogged determination, Hynek stuck it out at Project Blue Book for nearly two decades, working closely with the most unbiased project chiefs and more guardedly with those who displayed open hostility to the UFO phenomenon and the people associated with it. Inevitably, his scientific consistency frustrated and even infuriated many of his followers, who believed he was helping the Air Force to cover up what the government really knew about UFOs…
Which brings us to June 2021, a moment at which many millions of fans of the UFO phenomenon — and after the tumult of recent weeks, there can be no doubt that the number is at least in the millions — are now convinced that our government — or people loosely associated with our government — is on the brink of revealing what it knows about UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligences. Based on what we know about the government’s long history of bungling the UFO thing, a clear question arises: should we be pinning our hopes on supposed revelations that are being so carefully managed and presented by the military and the intelligence community, both of which have shown in the past a willingness to mislead the American public in pursuit of their own ends?
Were he alive today, J. Allen Hynek would, I believe, be sounding a note of caution right about now. Hynek had more than his share of close encounters with UFO charlatans and agents of disinformation, and he despised them for the disrepute they brought to his and others’ serious UFO research. He would be the first to point out that the report being presented to Congress this week may not represent the big picture, and that it may raise more questions than it answers. He would have good reason to urge caution: The questions are many, the facts are scarce, and the reality of the UFO phenomenon is seemingly designed to be infuriatingly subjective.
With that in mind, Dr. Hynek would want, and expect us to follow today’s facts wherever they lead — and go not a single step astray.