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

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

[5] Were the author(s) justified on page 93 (orig.) in saying the following?

"It may be that some reports represent observations of not one but several classes of objects that might have been "flying saucers"; however, the lack of evidence to confirm even one class would seem to make this possibility remote."

This appears to be another example of faulty logic. The author(s) had just thrown out cases because they did not resemble (supposedly) any other cases. This should be considered evidence that there may be more than one class of "flying saucers". In fact, at the top of page 91 (orig.) the author(s) list four categories of shapes, which might be considered to define four "classes" of saucers.

The logical error here may be seen in the paraphrase of the above quotation: " We found many different types of saucers. We could not find just one class. We could not find even one class. Therefore, we could not find more than one class." This type of reasoning, in which the author(s) of the Blue Book report indulged, is utterly absurd.

[6] What are the important points in the "Conclusions" on p. 94 (orig.)?

The author(s) admit in the first sentence that they cannot prove that "flying saucers" do not exist. In the last sentence, they do not deny that saucers could be novel governmental devices, now existing. Nowhere is there any discussion as to whether or not there is evidence to prove or disprove that saucers might be extraterrestrial objects or devices.

[7] What vitally important technical aspect was omitted from the analysis by the Blue Book Project?

At the bottom of page 6 (orig.), it is explained that, after the study was well under way, it was found that there was a "...need for the definition of a new factor relating to the maneuvers of the object or objects..." [Maneuvers would include the well-known characteristics of hovering, very sharp turns, rapid speed changes, wobbly flight, swinging like a pendulum, etc.] The last paragraph of page 6 (orig.) states "...at the time that the maneuver factor was determined to be critical, it was physically impracticable to...reevaluate the original data. Therefore, no code for maneuverability has been included..."

[8] What significant change was made in the categories provided for final identifications, before the final report was written and issued by the Air Force?

On page 12 (orig) the categories "Insufficient Information" and "Unknown" are explained. The whole report is written on the basis of these two categories and the others listed on page 10 (orig.). However, a most interesting change may be observed on page 295 (orig.) which is page 82 of this edition.