As Americans we have mistakenly prided ourselves on having a free press as guaranteed under our Constitutional rights. This is what we were taught in our schools (at least those that were not progressively oriented). We as a nation have always considered that under the aegis of a free society that the history taught to us and that we generally accept has not been manipulated or censored.
In the following article you will find one of many such historic forays into social engineering that have been responsible for keeping the masses ignorant of factual details that could have been very significant, or injecting false or misleading impressions that could be used to politically influence the minds of millions.
We are at a crucial time today when the political implications of competing parties in government can be utilized for the introduction of radical change disguised under the seeming innocence of rhetoric. The historical significance of many turning points over the years have been conveniently hidden from the masses by the media in cooperation with conspirators foreign and domestic.
1953 was a very pivotal year in American history. It marked a peace treaty with North Korea ending hostilities, but unknown to the general public, a very pivotal event was to take place that would have enormous impact as time went on.
A Determination Is Made On Public Policy Concerning UFO’s
The Robertson Panel was to convene on the case of UFO’s and not only whether they existed, but whether they presented a threat to national security, and what procedures to implement. The Air Force had compiled an exhaustively researched body of evidence based upon the findings of several projects that had been commissioned by high command.
In the previous year of 1952 there had been an unprecedented wave of sightings that had practically thrown the nation into hysteria as UFO sightings took place in every state, over sensitive military installations, and had been pursued by Air Force interceptor jets even over White House air space. The public demanded truth and military leaders within the armed forces were feeling the pressure to formulate policy. President Truman had also expressed concerns to the Pentagon.
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was headed by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who had polished the organization into a professional and well oiled machine that had inherited the responsibility of investigating civilian and military reports of Unidentified Flying Objects from past agencies. Though under funded and lacking necessary resources, Captain Ruppelt had done his best along with Major Dewey Fournet, Flight Engineer, Al Chop, Public Relations Officer, and Allen J. Hynek, Astrophysicist and Air Force consultant to unravel the mystery.
As hundreds of reports streamed in from all regions of the country, Project Blue Book personnel traveled all over the US often overwhelmed by the number of reports, interviewing airline captains, police officers, Air Force pilots, and just plain folks, who had seen something disturbingly unexplained and had come forth to make a report.
Even though the Air Force’s initial reaction had been to belittle, ridicule, and minimize the incoming volume of reports, they soon found the phenomena impossible to ignore. The number of reported sightings made by well trained observers with impressive credentials was causing a hostile perception among the public.
Meeting at CIA headquarters, the core staff of Project Blue Book made a presentation to Physicist, Howard Percy Robertson, Luis Alvarez, radar expert and Nobel Prize recipient, Frederick Durant, missile expert, Abraham Goudsmit, nuclear physicist, Thornton Page, director of Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office, and physicist, Lloyd Berkner. This impressive assembly of scientific minds had been summoned as a result of a request generated by the National Security Council, findings processed by the OSI, a research branch of the CIA, and the Air Defense Command.
The Robertson Panel’s Strategy ( Suppression Of Evidence)
Despite well given presentations by Captain Ruppelt of investigative procedures, Major Fournet on his belief that the best case reports could only be explained as extraterrestrial in origin, along with photographic evidence from the Tremonton, Utah film along with the Beaver Falls, Montana frames which clearly showed bright unexplained aerial objects in the sky, the panel was divided.
Two Navy photographic experts had spent 1000 man hours in evaluating a Kodak 35 mm motion picture film of a formation of self luminous airborne lights that could have possibly been high speed crafts that were more than just unconventional in their flight characteristics. Delbert Newhouse, the Naval officer, who had taken the pictures was an experienced photographer and had given excellent testimony to the circumstances of his sighting.
There were more than 2,300 cases presented before the collected scientific minds that had met for the conference. The meeting spanned four days. In all, the assembled panel spent 12 hours analyzing the data. An insufficient amount of time to discern whether or not the possible existence of intelligently controlled spacecrafts from another world were visiting earth.
A hasty determination was recommended by the experts who had attended the previous days of testimony by the Air Force Blue Book staff, photographic experts, and the members of Project Twinkle another aerial surveillance project that had been conducted in New Mexico near Holloman Air Base.
The panel’s findings and directives would not only discourage the Air Force officers who had worked diligently to present an unbiased case on the UFO phenomena, but would also initiate a damaging and deceptive future policy for authorities to pursue in the years to come. Even in light of Air Force’s General Garland’s recommendation that efforts to step up intelligence gathering and resources to further determine the nature of UFO’s the panel had made up its mind.
Disagreement between the top scientists about taking the UFO’s seriously, and whether to conduct further examination of the problem did not stop several disparaging advisories from being handed down. Fearing that the Soviet Union might use the public’s fascination to their advantage in a planned attack by overloading communication channels with frivolous reporting to mask hostile intent, UFO reports were to be debunked.
The Robertson Panel was in general agreement that UFO’s did not seem to constitute a threat to national security so the public’s interest was to be deflected using a number of tactics to marginalize the significance of sightings and reports.The mystery of the UFO phenomena was to be replaced with mundane explanations such as meteors, weather balloons, misidentified aircraft, atmospheric ice crystals, and miscalculations by nervous radar operators among other claims.
Even though the percentage of unexplainable sightings was determined to be 10% the panel thought that these would unravel under concerted scrutiny. They had simply refused to accept the film footage though the experts had been thorough and convincing that there could be little room for doubt.
Further recommendations took on darker intentions as the panel members adopted using the media and celebrities to further diffuse the seriousness of UFO reports even enlisting Walt Disney’s animations as a way of discrediting the phenomena in the minds of the public. Worse, still were their instructions to order the CIA to infiltrate civilian UFO organizations because they had influence on mass opinion.
The Robertson Panel’s decision was to classify and criminalize the printing of UFO sightings to the public, an offense under the Espionage Act via JANAP -146 making violators subject to a $10,000 dollar fine and 1 to 10 years imprisonment. A further Air Force directive AFR 200-2 made the release of any UFO sighting prohibitive unless resolved and a violation of classified information. By 1958 AFR 200-2 allowed the Air Force to release names and addresses of civilians involved in the release of UFO reports to the FBI for investigation.
As the years wore on the general public was led to believe that UFO’s were of hoaxes of no consequence despite intense secret military investigations that would not be uncovered for decades to come. The implications according to sociologists employed to study the dilemma of disclosure worried government officials about public reaction. So a policy of denial and secrecy were adopted.
Many policeman, military officers, pilots, and everyday people would be intimidated or convinced that they were not to speak out. Government sanctioned harassment or silencing of witnesses and evidence release would reflect policy for years to come
The Aftermath (A Policy Of Ridicule And Denial)
Project Blue Book was basically relegated from a serious investigations agency to a public relations branch, designed to legitimize debunking policies. The discouraged ranks of Air Force officers who had worked so hard to shed light on the UFO phenomena put in for reassignments to other operations. Al Chops, former Blue Book officer would later serve at NASA. He would later state publicly years later that a number of major UFO sightings had been real and could not be explained away by any other than the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Captain Edward Ruppelt’s 1956 book, “The Report On UFO’s” considered by today’s UFO enthusiasts as being one of the most informative insights into the conditions that existed at the time, is widely acclaimed even though the Air Force pressured Ruppelt as a defense contracting employee years later to publish a retraction of his prior revelations.
The CIA would later force at least three civilian UFO investigative agencies to close down, CSI, APRO, and NICAP. Many prominent retired military personnel were involved in those agencies.
Despite The Weight Of Evidence
The Batelle Memorial Institute had been directed to conduct research into the UFO phenomena just prior to the Robertson Panel, but had informed the members that their evaluation would take much longer.
Their results contrasted greatly with the Robertson Panel having used 4 full time researchers to spend 2 months on determining the likelihood of UFO’s being an example of a technological cause. Evaluating 3,201 cases, they showed 22% unsolved, but 35% unknown when studying the best cases, while only 18% were shown unresolved in the worst cases analyzed. However, they were reluctant to interpret the unexplained sightings as proof of UFO reality.
This is only one example of how the government has conducted programs of concealment and denial in anticipation of the negative repercussions of public reaction to controversial issues. These actions are part of the unspoken history not taught in schools or openly admitted in public. Even in the present the US media reports major sightings with a tongue and cheek approach while continuing to belittle the story in general. Secrecy can perpetuate itself for a long time.