Documents / Official release
Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8, issued by the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and dated 31 December 1952, covers June to October 1952, when 886 reports were received. That is more than in the previous five years combined. It breaks down evaluations by category and summarizes a survey of 44 astronomers and the 29 July 1952 Pentagon press conference. It also covers a new observer questionnaire, cooperation with the Air Defense Command, access to weather balloon tracking data and diffraction grating cameras.
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# CONFIDENTIAL # UNCLASSIFIED is voluminous and complex, and time is relatively unimportant, the Air Technical Intelligence Center utilizes the records of the Air Weather Service in exactly the same manner as that employed in obtaining weather balloon release data. ## X. CAMERAS In an effort to obtain technical information concerning UFO's, ATIC has underway a program for the distribution of a large number of stereo cameras equipped with a diffraction grating over one lens. The camera in question is called the "Videon". It contains two F3.5 lenses with focal lengths of 45mm. As supplied by ATIC, the shutter speed and distance settings will be locked at 1/20th of a second and infinity, respectively. The "Videon" utilizes standard 35mm cartridge film, and is extremely simple to operate. The diffraction grating actually consists of a thin cellulose compound which contains 15,000 vertical "hairlines" to the linear inch. It is mounted between two sheets of optical glass and placed over one lens of the Videon by means of a filter adapter ring. The grating operates on precisely the same principle as a prism; it separates a light into its component parts which will appear as well defined spectrum bands upon the film. Since each chemical element emits a wave of characteristic length, and the grating, so to speak, "picks up" these characteristics and shows them as significant bands on the film, comparative study of the film is expected to reveal much data concerning the chemical composition of a given UFO. The Videon camera, equipped as described above, does not represent the epitome of scientific equipment, however, actual comparison with other models has revealed that it offers a good probability for success in accomplishing the stated purpose, and this factor, along with the economy and availability factors, was responsible for ATIC's decision to purchase and distribute these cameras. Simultaneously with the experimentation involving ground cameras, ATIC mounted diffraction gratings over the lenses of 16mm gun cameras of F-86 aircraft of the 97th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, W-P AFB. These fighters then undertook air-air photography of known light sources, and the spectrums obtained were comparable to those obtained with the Videon; the smaller film surprisingly enough recorded equivalent definition and band separation. Therefore, as a part of the long range program, ATIC is considering the possibility of equipping certain USAF fighter-interceptor aircraft with diffraction gratings for air-air photographic coverage of UFO's. At present, ATIC is negotiating with Hq ADC, a plan for the placement of a certain number of Videon cameras with AC&W Squadrons. Similarly, Videon cameras may be distributed to tower operators of AACS. Future plans allow for the procurement and placement of more Videon cameras and the placement of the diffraction grids in aircraft, however, these plans are entirely contingent upon the degree of success obtained in present operations.
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 17 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.