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 through October 1952, when 886 reports were received, more than in the previous five years combined. It breaks down evaluations by category, summarizes a consultant astronomer's interviews with 44 astronomers, and notes General Samford's 29 July press conference. It also describes the statistical analysis, the new observer questionnaire, Videon diffraction cameras and weather balloon tracking.
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# UNCLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL "Over 40 astronomers were interviewed, of which five had made sightings of one sort or another. This is a higher percentage than among the populace at large. Perhaps this is to be expected, since astronomers do, after all, watch the skies. On the other hand, they will not likely be fooled by balloons, aircraft, and similar objects, as may the general populace. It is interesting to remark upon the attitude of the astronomers interviewed. The great majority were neither hostile nor overly interested; they gave one the general feeling that all flying saucer reports could be explained as misrepresentations of well-known objects and that there was nothing intrinsic in the situation to cause concern. I took the time to talk rather seriously with a few of them, and to acquaint them with the fact that some of the sightings were truly puzzling and not at all easily explainable. Their interest was almost immediately aroused, indicating that their general lethargy is due to lack of information on the subject. And certainly another contributing factor to their desire not to talk about these things is their overwhelming fear of publicity. One headline in the nation's papers to the effect that "Astronomer Sees Flying Saucer" would be enough to brand the astronomer as questionable among his colleagues. Since I was able to talk with the man in confidence, I was able to gather very much more of their inner thoughts on the subject than a reporter or an interrogator would have been able to do. Actual hostility is rare; concern with their own immediate scientific problems is too great. There seems to be no convenient method by which problems can be attacked, and most astronomers do not wish to become involved, not only because of the danger of publicity but because the data seems tenuous and unreliable." ## III. PRESS CONFERENCE On 29 Jul 52 a press conference was held in the Pentagon to answer the many questions that were being directed to the Air Force by the press. The conference was held by Major General John A. Samford, Director of Intelligence, USAF. Others participating were Major General Roger M. Ramey, Director of Operations, USAF, and officers of the Air Technical Intelligence Center. In essence General Samford stated that to date there were no indications that any of the reported objects that could not be identified constitute a menace to the United States. However, the Air Force would continue to give the subject "adequate, but not frantic attention". ## IV. PROPOSED THEORIES AS TO THE NATURE OF THE REPORTS Several widely publicized theories as to the nature of the reported objects or phenomena have been advanced in recent months. These theories have been discussed with authorities on the subject of atmospheric physics and they have agreed that none of the theories so far proposed would account for more than a very small percentage of the reports, if any.
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.