Fact Sheet Air Force UFO Report

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

having multi-jet pods under their swept-back wings have been reported as UFOs or "saucers" in "V" formation. Vapor trails will often appear to glow with fiery red or orange streaks when reflecting sunlight. After burners are frequently reported as UFOs.

The astronomical category includes bright stars, planets, comets, meteors, and other celestial bodies. When observed through haze, light fog, or moving clouds, the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter have often been reported as unconventional, moving objects. Attempts to observe astronomical bodies through hand-held binoculars under adverse sky conditions have been a source of many UFO reports.

The "other" category includes reflections, searchlights, birds, kites, blimps, clouds, sun-dogs, spurious radar indications, hoaxes, firework displays, flares, fireballs, ice crystals,bolides, etc., as examples: large Canadian geese flying low over a city at night with street lights reflecting off their bodies; searchlights playing on scattered clouds, appearing as moving disc-like shapres.

The insufficient data category includes all sightings where essential or pertinent items of information are missing, making it impossible to form a valid conclusion. These include corroboration of the sighting by an additional witness; description of the size, shape or color of the object; direction and altitude; exact time and location; wind weather conditions, etc. This category is not used as a convenient way to get rid of what might be referred to as "unidentified objects." However, if there is not an additional witness or if the data received is insufficient or unrelated, the analysts must then place that particular report in this category. The Air Force needs complete information to reach a valid conclusion. Air Force officials stressed the fact that an observer should send a complete report of a bona fide sighting to the nearest Air Force activity. There the report will be promptly forwarded to the proper office for analysis and evaluation.

A sighting is considered unidentified or unexplained when a report apparently contains all the pertinent data necessary to normally suggest at least one valid hypothesis on the cause or explanation of the sighting but when the description of the object and its maneuvers cannot be correlated with any known object or phenomenon.

In its Project Blue Book Special Report #14, released in October 1955, the Air Force showed that evaluated sightings in the unidentified category had been reduced to 3 percent at that time.

Air Force conclusions for the thirteen years of UFO sightings involving over 6,500 reports are: first, there is no evidence that unidentified sightings were inimical or hostile; second, there is no evidence that unidentified sightings were interplanetary space ships; third, there is no evidence that these unidentified sightings represented technological developments or principles outside the range of our present day scientific knowledge; fourth, there is no evidence that these unidentified sightings are a threat to the security of the

Unidentified sightings had been 9 percent in 1953 and 1954 and in previous years unidentified sightings had run as high as 20 percent. Project Blue Book Special Report #14, covered UFO investigations from June 1947 to May 1955. Since that time, Air Force statistics show the percentage of unidentified sightings has been reduced to approximately 2 percent.

Approved For Release 2004/03/26 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100040013-4