U.F.O. Investigator, Vol. IV, No. 2, October 1967
(National Investigations Committee on Aerial
Phenomena, Washington, D.C.)
Source: CUFOS.org
The whole article:
“The highly-touted objective UFO investigation by the University of Colorado, sponsored by the U.S. Air Force,
has brought no change in Air Force debunking practices. It was expected that
the Air Force would declare a moratorium and adopt a wait-and-see attitude
pending completion of the Colorado
study. The actions can only increase public doubt about the outcome of the Air
Force sponsored study which is, in effect, being pre-judged by the sponsor.
In the July/August issue of The Airman, ‘OfficiaI
Magazine of the U.S. Air Force,’ Major George W. Ogles, Headquarters, USAF,
dredged up all the standard debunking statements, including a hackneyed
photograph of the Avrocar which has been used periodically to imply that UFOs
might be U.S. secret craft. (In reality, the Avrocar project was unsuccessful
and was scrapped years ago). Major Ogles incorrectly reported that there are no
unexplained radar UFO sightings. When NICAP produced an Air Force letter
admitting that a December 6, 1952, radar sighting was classified as
unexplained, this case appeared in the next installment of the article as an
exception to the rule. There are, of course hundreds of unexplained radar
sightings. When these are cited to the Air Force, spokesmen either deny any
knowledge of the cases or attribute them to errors by the radar operators.
In mid-August, the North American Air Defense Command
(NORAD) issued the misleading statement that no UFOs had been detected by their
tracking system over the United States or Canada (NORAD computers automatically
screen out radar targets such as UFOs which do not conform to known aircraft
characteristics, because NORAD’s main mission is to detect possible enemy
aircraft attacking the country). NORAD said that 95% of all sightings had been
tracked down to the conventional source, an exaggeration which needs no further
comment. Why the statement emanated from NORAD instead of Headquarters USAF as
official regulations require is not known (AF Regulation 80-17; Section B,
paragraph 4).
The widely disseminated annual Project Blue Book ‘fact
sheet’,
1 March 1967, a
standard hand-out to the press and the public, makes no mention whatsoever of
the Colorado Project. Instead, Project Blue Book continues as before the Colorado contract to
investigate sightings independently and to grind out counter-to-fact
‘explanations’ in many cases.
A sudden AF reversal after years of debunking was not
expected. But if the Colorado
study is objective, top Air Force officials should realize that their previous
findings may have to be overhauled. They therefore support the neutrality and
objectivity of the Colorado Project. Instead, the stepped-up debunking
practices cause many people to suspect that the Air Force thinks it knows what
Colorado’s conclusions will be. Even if the Project were nothing but a ‘hired’
whitewash job, however, it would seem wiser on the part of the Air Force to
pretend objectivity until the conclusion is made public rather than to cast doubt
in advance. NICAP does not believe that the Colorado Program will turn out to
be a whitewash, but we do object strenuously to the use of such pressures by
the Air Force to encourage a negative finding.”
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