Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report 14 (Hynek's annotated copy)

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

This press release approach used by all branches of the Government is considered censorship by some of these organizations and, because we will not favor them with our individual attention, they contend that we are keeping vital information from the public. The Air Force was compelled to generally adopt the press release approach because in the past when we furnished factual information to certain writers of UFO books and articles upon their individual requests our action was interpreted as granting approval and clearance to the books and articles in which the information was used.

If we withhold certain information from the public on UFO's it is not done for the purpose of depriving the public of vital information necessary for proper evaluation nor is it done because there is scientific proof of the existence of space craft from other planets and we do not wish to alarm the American public. It is done in the majority of instances to protect the people involved from the idle curiosity of the sensation seekers. In a few limited instances it is done to keep from compromising our investigative processes and, in a few instances, it is done for legitimate security reasons.

The Air Force has a tremendous task in defending this country against weapon systems which we know actually exist and are in the hands of our potential enemies. To divert more men and money away from this most serious mission into a greatly enlarged program for the investigation of UFO's -- objects about which we have been unable to discover one iota of tangible scientific evidence -- would seriously jeopardize the security of this country against a known proven threat; would be allowing the sensation seekers to dictate our defense policies, and would, in our opinion, lay ourselves open to the charge of gross imprudence.

The Air Force does not deny that unknown objects have been seen by responsible people. It is in the interpretation of these sightings that we are questioned. From our investigation covering the past ten or twelve year period, the Air Force contends that when the evidence of these sightings has been derived through the scientific criteria it has led to the conclusion that the objects were not space craft and they did not constitute a threat to the security of this country. As an act of faith, the UFO's can be considered manned or unmanned craft from outer space, but as a scientific fact there has been no authenticated scientific evidence presented to or discovered by the Air Force to support this conclusion.

This is all the information available on the subject at the present time.

If you have a future need for Air Force statistics on this subject, the latest Air Force press release will always be available upon request.

Sincerely,

LAWRENCE J. TACKER

Major, USAF

Executive Officer

Public Information Division

Office of Information Services

Mr. Leon Davidson 64 Prospect Street White Plains, N. Y.

The following is the concluding page of the letter from the former Air Force officer which starts on page B-3.

and which we believed to be fair and honest, and completely misconstrued it.

If I remember correctly, in 1952 Major Dewey Fournet went to great trouble to get permission to give you a briefing and it was, shall we say, rather poorly received.

I trust that this letter answers your questions.

Yours truly